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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Murphy Strikes Back

Great Salt Pond, Block Island, RI N 41 11.588 W 71 34.950

We got here fine about an hour before dark. The guide book said that there could be as many as 1500 boats anchored here so were nervous about not finding a spot. However, there are perhaps only 300 boats here in reality, so there's lots of room. We did have to anchor in 37 feet of water, that's deeper than we're accustomed to. Oh well, no storms forecast.

My plan was to go ashore and tour the island today. But Murphy had his revenge. The wind picked up, to SW 15-20, it was the wind we wished we had to sail here from Cape may. Also, my plan was to tour the island today. It turned out that we were more tired than we thought. We ended up staying onboard, sleeping and reading books all day. Oh well, we have no deadlines, we'll stay here another day and tour the island tomorrow.

I spent half the morning splicing a nylon line that had frayed. Even though I followed the splicing instructions in the book very carefully, the result looks poor. I won't dare use that line for anything mission critical.

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Block Island In Sight

At Sea, N 41 05 W 71 03

Sunday, July 9, 2006, 17:53

Well it looks like we're going to make it to the anchorage at Block Island tonight. We have only 9 miles to go and the island is in sight on the horizon.

In the interest of being candid on my blog, I confess to using the engine last night. We were totally becalmed and the noise of the sails flapping as we rocked in the waves drove me nuts. I ran at minimum speed (1000 RPM) with the foresail up. By morning we had a following wind and by midday it was brisk. Right now we're racing to get into the harbor before dark so I'm motor-sailing again. Horrors.

I read an article about the terrible amount of floating trash that sailors see at sea. Our experience seems to contradict that. Even in populated areas like NJ and Long Island we don't see much. Of the trash that we do see, helium balloons seem to be the worst offenders. When they deflate enough to sink, they float on the surface of the water, perhaps for years and years.

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Disorientation

At Sea, N 39 51 W 72 41

Saturday, July 8 2006

Last night, for the first and only time, I wished that we didn't have a GPS. Libby had the watch and I was trying
to sleep. I didn't get much sleep the night before so I was really tired. We were on starboard tack and our
course was north.

After some time, the wind died entirely and we were becalmed. However, there was a southerly current so Tarwathie
drifted south with the current. I was awoken by the sound of the engine starting. I went on deck and asked Libby why.
She said, "I don't know how, but I was heading north but we got turned around south." I went back to sleep. Soon, the
engine started again and I woke up. Then again and again. Finally, Libby said, "I can't make her head north." Then
I really awoke and looked at the instruments, then I understood the confusion.

When we are becalmed, we have no motion through the water. Therefore the rudder becomes useless. One moves the
rudder this way and that, yet the compass indication becomes uncorrelated. However, because of current drift, we still have motion relative to the earth and that is what the GPS faithfully indicates. It also orients the little boat-shaped symbol on the screen to point southward. Libby would see that and incorrectly assume that the bow was actually pointed south. She would start the engine to turn us around (because the rudder wouldn't work without motion). We would turn in a circle and the GPS would respond to indicate our absolute motion. But as soon as the engine was stopped, the southerly drift would resume. It was very disorienting out there in the middle of the ocean, at night with cloud cover and no visual cues.

It occurs to me that in this special case we would be better off with no GPS. On the other hand, I doubt that I'll shut the GPS off; it's addictive.

One more anecdote. The engine started again one final time and it stayed running longer than the other times. I went up on deck to see what was happening and I saw the stern of a ship going away from us. Libby was holding the radio and she said that she had a nice conversation with the captain of that ship. Somewhat mysteriously, she didn't explain what they were talking about.

Sigh, my original pessimistic prediction of 4-5 days to get to Block Island seem accurate. It is now 51 hours since we left Cape May and we progressed 105 miles made good of the 200 mile passage. It sure would be welcome if we could get some more favorable wind. If we could get SW 10-15 knots we could be there in another 24 hours.

p.s. Libby's seasickness is better today.

p.p.s. I lost the instructions for how to send updates to our position reports for the bread crumb trail linked on our blog. I promise to resume when I get the info.

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Dueling with Murphy

At Sea, N 39 22 W 73 27

Murphy's law says that the time for the wind to come up would be as soon as we set anchor and went to sleep. Well it happened, that way but we got the best of the deal. We went to sleep at 2200 and got four solid hours of sleep before the wind started at 0200. Further, the wind blew at 13 knots. Ideal. So we got the best of Murphy that time.

I retrieved the anchor, set the sails, sent Libby back to bed and away we went. If only the fresh wind hadn't been from the NE. That's exactly our course. So we had to beat upwind the whole time. The breeze lasted about 10 hours. Then it dropped off.

This really is going to be a slow passage. After 36 hours on port tack, we had only made 60 miles good toward Block Island. Now we're on starboard tack and headed toward NYC. But we're only making 2 knots, so it would take us two more days to get there unless the wind changes again. If we get close to land before arriving at Block Island, I'm guessing that we'll succumb to the temptation to put in and anchor for a day.

The forecast is for more days of light winds. In fact, headwinds. It really will take days to get there.

Libby has had a slight touch of seasickness both days. It's a mild case, but nevertheless it makes one very uneasy. I hope it passes.

We've only seen two or three ships pass by. No whales or other sea creatures. So there's not much exciting news to report.

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