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Sound Advice
Sound Advice - sent September 24, 2008
As we left you, Hanna had been hard hearted, but not hard to take, as her energy was sapped, apparently, by the trip up the east coast and down Long Island Sound. We're hoping to pick up some of that energy as we move in the other direction, toward New York City, but first we have to get to Long Island Sound. As we sheltered in Three Mile Cove on the south end of Gardiner's Bay, there's a bit of a trip involved, but nothing much. Undoing all the storm preparations took a while, and our usual sloth and indolence in the morning prevailed before that, so we didn't get off our very kindly-offered, very secure mooring, before about 2:30. You may recall from the last that there's a very defined channel, and a lovely anchorage, surrounded by much shallower water. On the way out of the anchorage, Lydia, not yet quite awake, got on the wrong side of the red buoy, and ran very hard (as in, firmly, but not in any way damaging or permanent) aground on a sand bar, throwing me to the salon floor by way of the mast on the side of my head. That reinforced the saying of "one hand for the boat, one for yourself" - a safety mantra - you never know when the boat might suddenly move in an unexpected direction. Of course, we weren't really under way, so I'd not taken that precaution, and, in the end, the biggest result was a lozenge-shaped bruise with a slight skin split on the side of my head, quickly becoming nothing but a discoloration. All our misadventures should end so quickly and easily! Our MaxProp reversed us out of the sand in very short order, and we proceeded out of the harbor under sail. NOAA had, in all the areas available to us, been saying that the wind would be, of course, different than we found in reality. We've come to rely more (not ignoring NOAA, but looking for other inputs as well) on local detailed forecasts, so, before we left, we'd checked and found that the wind would be nearly ideal for our passage. Our trip from Three Mile Cove up to Orient was a close reach in 10-15 knots of wind, helped by the tidal current which, instead of the usual set to the leeward side, actually pushed us to windward, and we made great time through the rip out into Long Island Sound. Once we got on the Sound, not only did the wind and waves pick up, but so did, as forecast, the wind, moving to 15-20. Due to our angle of attack, it was a beat to get high enough to tack down to Mattituck, and still make some westing. However, our sloth in the morning made it such that it was apparent we'd not make it to Mattituck until well after dark. So, we headed up the Connecticut River, anchoring in Saybrook Shoal in plenty of water, less than 2 miles from the entrance. As the currents were against us, we didn't leave for Mattituck until nearly noon, taking advantage of the enforced time to do some minor chores around the boat. Forecast winds were very light, but at least, early, supposedly to our advantage. We pulled up our very firmly stuck anchor around 11:30 and set sail. The trip down the river was fairly fast, as the current and the tides helped, gaining 8+ over ground. As our prior entrance to the area was back to the east, we elected to turn west but not go so far that we'd have to deal with the shoal. Wind was such that we had to beat the entire way, but our marvelous ship took it in stride. About 30 degrees of apparent wind, on a great sailing day, we tacked our way up the Connecticut shoreline, then turned south when we could clear the shoal. Winds were very consistent, 10-12 knots, once we got into the sound, and we were making about 5.5-6 knots very closely hauled. Our tacks look like someone drew them with a square, and we tacked several times to get to the point where we could be on a line with the opening at Mattituck. Just before our last tack, we hooked a bluefish, which, darn him, tangled in our other line, so it wound up cutting it, losing a lure we'd just bought. In retaliation, I killed and fileted him as soon as the wind died on our last tack! With the wind dead, we reluctantly motored the last couple of miles, as we'd timed our travels to be on the hook before dark. The inlet looks very scary on the charts, but the reality is much more benign. We came in at about high tide, which, of course, helped, but rarely saw less than 5' under our set-for-7 feet sounder, and frequently were over 10'. The inlet is pretty clearly marked, with one anomaly of a red without its little hat, which in marginal light might have been confused for the otherwise-all-cylindrical greens. No lights on any of them, but easy to see and follow. A couple of 3's had my attention, but the anchorage proved to be consistently over 6' deep everywhere we motored around it, and we got the hook set in hardpan grass on the second try. When we arrived, there were two boats here already, and just before dark a 4th boat pulled in. In entirely flat water, with the gentlest of breezes, we enjoyed our fresh fish dinner, looked at the internet provided on a strong signal, and rejoiced in another enchanting, invigorating, marvelous day on the water before we took an early bedtime. Tuesday we took a relaxed approach to getting up, as we'd not leave until the full tide tomorrow, and the weather and wind would have been iffy Tuesday, anyway. A quick check revealed that Matt-A-Mar had gas, diesel and water, so we'll fill up when they open and leave on Wednesday's (10th) high tide. We went for a walk around the town, enjoying Love Lane, and found the local plaza without too much excitement, obtaining our very few supplies, and headed back to the boat to another blissful evening aboard. It doesn't get much better than this! I'll leave you here for another time; stay tuned! L8R Skip Morgan 461 #2 SV Flying Pig KI4MPC See our galleries at www.justpickone.org/skip/gallery ! Follow us at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFlyingPigLog and/or http://groups.google.com/group/flyingpiglog "You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it however." (and) "There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts." (Richard Bach, in The Reluctant Messiah) |
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