Wickford, Bristol, Newport

Well, the area of disturbed weather finally passed giving us several consecutive days of beautiful New England weather. We were so ready to get off the boat after being cooped up for a day that even having to do laundry and grocery shopping seemed darned exciting. After the chores, we were ready to explore Dutch Island. This rocky shrub covered island about a mile in diameter is part of Rhode Island's wildlife sanctuaries. Once the site of a Revolutionary War fortress, the island is now uninhabited. After trudging for about a mile through thick underbrush, we decided to hike along the water's edge. As we walked, the beach transformed dramatically such that over the course of 3 miles, we went from stumbling along large rocks to crunching through foot deep piles of mussel shells to scrambling along sheer rock outcropping.

A short sail up the West Passage the following day brought us back to the quaint town of Wickford. The town provides several free moorings in the outer harbor behind the breakwater for up to 24 hours. From here we had a front row seat for the Wednesday evening yacht races as well as a terrific sunset. All was peaceful and settled for a quiet nights rest when the wind suddenly picked up out of the north to over 20 knots. So much for the peaceful night as even in the harbor the waves quickly built causing us to pitch and roll to an uncomfortable degree. The wind remained fresh the following morning. Despite the northerly direction, we decided to press on the Bristol.

Bristol has one of the finest harbors in the Narragansett. Two miles long and about a half mile wide, the harbor is protected from all but a south to southwest wind. Only trouble is that during the summer in this part of the world, the wind blows from the southwest 4 days out of 5. However, another low pressure system was working it's way over the New England area with the prospect of strong northerly and easterly winds. So we tucked ourselves up in the shallow far northern end of the harbor, finding room to anchor despite the hundreds of moored boats. As the system worked it's way towards us, we were confident in our position for the predicted winds. But as the system approached, the forecasters changed their minds and decided that the wind was going to blow out of the south. Fortunately, the wind doesn't listen to these weather forecasters. When the front did arrive on Friday night, the wind direction was northeast as originally predicted. So despite being holed up in the boat for another day, we were well protected from the storm.

While much of boat building industry has retreated from Bristol, the history of such has not. A rather famous designer of countless yachts by the name of Captain Nat Herreshoff resided in Bristol. For much of his life, his yacht designs dominated the world of sailboat racing by including eight consecutive America's Cup defenders between 1893 and 1934. What's really fascinating is that while Nat was the designer, his brother John who became completely blind at the age of 15 founded and operated the Herreshoff Manufacturing Company his entire life. Nat would carve a to-scale model of his hull designs out of wood; thus his brother could ‘see' the design that the yard would then build.

Also on the display at the America's Cup Hall of Fame at the Herreshoff Museum is a more recent contender for the America's Cup. It's the 1992 yacht, Defiance, which was raced by the women's America³ team.

Aside from the Herreshoff Marine Museum, we also found entertainment in a real old fashioned movie theater. As multi-complex theaters have taken over, we've noticed that most of the small town theaters where we have visited have either closed or converted to another function. Even Bristol's theater no longer shows first run movies. But we didn't care. We haven't seen any movies at all for awhile anyway. So what did we see? What ever was showing! Thursday night was The Matrix (strange but good) and Friday was Notting Hill.

While still overcast and threatening, on Sunday we made our way back to Newport, where we had started in the Narragansett Bay. More a stop of convenience then anything, we needed to take care of some chores before heading out for a planned stop at Block Island. Between our trip here two years ago and the present one, Newport has started taking on quite a bit of familiarity.

Speaking of weather, the hurricane season appears to be in full swing. Our proximity to Providence allowed us to keep up with the news of Hurricane Brett as it prepared to belt the Texas coast. More worrisome is the amount of activity in the Carribean. Already thinking of escape routes should a hurricane threaten here. But as slow as we are, it's pretty hard to run away from a storm. We make plans in the event of, but mostly we just cross out fingers and hope they stay away from here.