Block Island Day

Block Island, N 41 11.590 W 71 34.952

This morning I waited and waited for the boat that comes through the harbor to sell freshly baked pastries.
That sounds like a deliciously decadent treat for sailors. Finally, I gave up and decided he wasn't coming today.
We hopped in the dinghy and started rowing for shore. You guessed it, the pastry boat came by just then.

We had a nice morning walking around Block Island. It's pretty, but very touristy. Items in the grocery store
cost 2 to 4 times as much as on the mainland. We won't shop for much. Once exception, we bought a pretty good
fog horn in the marine store. When sailing in New England, one is sure to need it. But we'll get tired blowing on it.
It takes a pretty good force to make it toot. I just looked up the requirement for fog signals when sailing, it is on 5 second toot followed by two 1 second toots repeated every 2 minutes. That a lot of tooting. That also reminds me of my favorite Limerick which I love to recite at every opportunity.

A tutor who tooted his flute,
one taught two young tooters to toot.
Said the two to the tutor,
"Is it better to toot,
or to tutor two tooters to toot?"

That also reminds me. Ask your Swedish friend what "two young tooters" means.

Back to Block Island: I wanted to rent bicycles and ride around the island but Libby wasn't interested.

We took a lot of pictures of the flowers in people's gardens because they looked so pretty. We even saw big (3 meters high) rose bushes ripe with rose hips. That's the first time we saw bushes like that since our back yard in Sweden.

Tonight there are thunderstorms and 18 hours of rain heading in. Already the wind picked up and the fog closed in.
It had been my plan to leave here in the morning but if the weather is bad we'll hold back.

Crisis! My Grundig portable radio died. It has been sick for months but today it totally died. That is the only radio we have that gets NPR most of the time. I'm totally addicted to listening to NPR news and talk programs, not to mention Car Talk and Prairie Home Companion. I'll have to buy a replacement quickly. I think I'll get a Sirius satellite radio instead of a new AM/FM radio. The satellite radio is better; gives better reception; gives more channels; works onshore and offshore. It also costs half of what a replacement Grundig AM/FM radio would cost. It's amazing how quickly we get pushed into new technology even if that's not what we seek.

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