Big waves!

This last week and a half has flown by. I was hoping to write this post right after the last one, but I forgot and now I have lots to catch up on. Should make for some good reading though.

As I stated before, we decided to take our time going back to Port Washington from Newport and we did. We enjoyed a four day trip back. Our first stop was Block Island. It is part of Rhode Island State and just at the entrance to Long Island Sound. It is a popular place to visit for the locals and we could see why. It is a small island and for those that don’t boat (and probably some that do) there is a nice beach on the east coast near town that ferries take you straight to from downtown Newport. For boaters, there is a tight entrance to a larger well sheltered bay off the west shore. It effectively makes the island look a little like a donut since there is such a large bay in the middle of the small island. Therefore, it is great for visiting with the boat. The anchorage was large and quiet. There were many mooring balls but also enough space for anchoring. Moorings seem very popular in many towns here on the east coast and at times can take up more than their share of the available bay, making achoring more challenging.

We motored over to Block Island. We left late in the day because the kids did school work first, and Kevin and I were teaching, and there wasn’t any wind. When we got there, we anchored and immediately took the dinghy to the town dock. Everything at this small town, or side of the island, was closed up for the season though. So, we walked 30 minutes across the island to the main town and got some ice cream and groceries. There had been a fire last month in one of the town’s oldest hotels and they were just starting to tear down the remaining charred rubble. It was impressive to see and the kids had to check it out.

The next day we left and headed west to an anchorage called Orient Bay. We were going to go to Greenport but decided it would require a little too much back tracking the next day when we wanted to get back into the main Sound again. Orient Bay was very quiet. We pulled in just before dark and the start of some rain so we didn’t go to shore that night. However, our trip over from Block Island was really lovely. We managed to sail for at least half of the day. It was mostly sailing close hauled and there wasn’t lots of wind, but we were sailing and in no rush. We so enjoy the silent movement through the water. The kids also managed to get some schoolwork done even while we moved.

The next day was much of the same. We sailed again about half the time and enjoyed the traveling. We made our way first out of Orient Bay and around the north east point of Long Island and into the Sound before heading west. The Sound was much less busy this time compared to our trip east one month prior. This was probably because it was midweek but also because the summer holidays were over. Last time we saw dozens if not hundreds of personal fishing boats along with the ferries that go between Conneticut and Long Island. The weather was still warm and sunny though. We found ourselves in Port Jefferson at the end of the day. It had a narrow channel in and was frequented by one of the ferries. In fact, we had to wait for one to come out and one to go in before we made our way into the bay. At this point, the wind was starting to pick up a little due to Hurricane Lee’s approach (the reason we were leaving Newport to the more sheltered Port Washington). The forecast was for the winds to come Friday just as we were to arrive in Port Washington. We went to bed with winds at 15knots. Kevin can tell when we are at 15knots now because that is when our boom starts to resonate and he can hear it.

We woke to 30knot winds at 7am with rough waters in the bay. We had read in the forecast that things were going to get worse by the end of the day, so we decided we would leave right away so that we could be in Port Washington for the worse of it. We headed out with another 40-foot monohull. There were obviously big waves coming through the channel but we figured if we got past the channel and out into the Sound a ways, that we would be able to turn towards Port Washington and calmer seas. It took a little longer than we thought, and the waves were bigger than we anticipated as well. The monohull ahead of us actually turned around at the entrance to the channel and looked at us while we were heading out like we should re-think things ourselves. But we really didn’t want to be stuck in Port Jefferson for the worse of the storm because it wasn’t as protected as Port Washington and the hurricane was expected to take another two days to completely pass us. Plus we knew we had a bigger, more stable, boat. I don’t think we regret going when we did, but it was definitely an adventure!

Once we got out into the bay the waves got significantly bigger. We would guess they were probably about 5m high. Kevin, who was sitting at the helm and driving, saw each wave as we approached it and said it was ‘mildly terrifying’ to watch. Owen, Halyna and I had to run around securing things better than we had previously and would see the water drop out from under us as the stern of the boat went over the wave (sorry no photos or videos because we were too busy holding on!). We headed out at an angle so that the waves hit us from our starboard bow mostly and looked forward to having the waves behind us when we turned. However, we couldn’t turn until it was safe to do so (i.e. there were smaller waves). We ended up having to go about 2/3 of the way across the Sound, and 2 hours, before the waves finally subsided enough for us to turn. Needless to say, everyone (but Kevin and his iron stomach) was feeling pretty rotten by the time we got to turn. Norah and Simon bravely hunkered down inside the deckhouse during the trek across.

Luckily, when we did finally turn, the waves quickly improved and we now had plenty of wind to move us along. We put up the sails, in what was now 15knot winds, and sailed. We even got ourselves up to over 9knots SOG (speed over ground, our speed related to land versus the speed in the water with the help or hinderance of the current). We actually sailed the rest of the way into Port Washington, turning the motors on only for anchoring. And, true to it’s reputation, the bay was much calmer. Now we have experienced big waves and are happy we didn’t try to push ourselves to stick around Newport while the hurricane passed, or try to cross the ocean between hurricanes (not that we ever considered that).