Block Island is often referred to as the "Bermuda of the north." Although that's certainly stretching it a bit in the best of sailors yarns, Block does have real appeal. Situated 12 miles from the mainland out in the Atlantic off the Rhode Island coastline, it offers the challenge of ocean sailing in a daysail. Many boaters from Long Island Sound and Narragansett Bay make the annual pilgrimage to Block. The favored harbor for small craft, called Great Salt Pond, can be a bit intimidating should bad weather approach because of it's openness. But the water is so beautifully clear that we could easily see the bottom through the 8 feet of water where we anchored. Just for fun, I (Jim) took my snorkel gear and went over the side to assure myself that the anchor had dug in. I found the bottom alive with sea creatures of many kind including claims, mussels and several varieties of crabs. I approached a rather large hermit crab occupying a full size conch shell but though better of disturbing him as he gave me the "Go ahead, make my day" look.
Another appeal of Block Island is the daily visits to the anchorage from Aldo, the bakery afloat. Twice a day, the Boston Whaler cruises through with someone shouting "Andiamo" but it really sounds like "onion rolls". Oddly enough, a boat anchored beside of us was called Andiamo. Showing our obvious ignorance of the Italian language, we had to ask Bobby (Aldo's son) just what this means. Want to know? Well look it up for yourself. No really it means "lets go". So now we say "Andiamo".
It seems as though the Aldo family owns everything on the island. In addition to selling baked goods on the water, they own several land based bakeries scattered over the island. There's Aldos ice cream shop at one place, and Aldo's Italian and Seafood Restaurant in another. And guess who owned the bike rental business where we rented bikes; you guessed it; Aldo.
On Tuesday we rented bikes to explore the island and to visit Block's two lighthouses. The Southeast Light is perched atop Mohegan Bluffs, some 200 feet above the sea. In an extradorinary operation in 1993, the 1873 brick lighthouse was moved 360 feet to save it from the erosion of the bluffs. A new stairwell allowed us to see the view of the Mohagan Bluffs from the water's edge. Who says we don't get much exercise!!
After wearing ourselves out pedaling along the steep terrain of Block, we took a break on Wednesday and went to the beach. Snorkeling on the rocks off the beach produced nothing more exciting than a few fish and hordes of starfish. And we found out that Joyce is still a chicken as she left me in her rush to get back to the beach at first sight of a patch of eelgrass. But the beaches are lovely with azure water and pure soft sand. We really hated to have to leave.
But the weather turned foul on Thursday and kept us mostly boat-bound. We did venture out to get dinghy fuel as it appeared to clear briefly. But the clearing was short-lived and we ended up getting drenched on the dinghy ride to the fuel dock. The forecast for Friday looked favorable for a crossing over to Long Island Sound. But by late Thursday evening, it looked much less promising as heavy fog descended, even obscuring the boat anchored 40 yards behind us. Friday am looked equally bad so we resigned ourselves to wait another day and made ourselves a nice breakfast. But amazingly, the fog lifted during breakfast revealing an un-expectantly blue sky. So we said "Andiamo" and left Block.
Back at Stonington Connecticut, we tied up at Skipper's Dock in what has to be the best deal in New England. Off the restaurant is a 500 ft pier where boats can tie up first come, first served for as long as you like. We felt a little guilty about using the dock without eating at the restaurant so we quietly ate our dinner down in our cabin. Joyce thought that it might be a little too conspicuous firing up the grill with those eating out on the dock looking on. Later that evening, some very nice folks from the local area that had also tied up at Skipper's Dock stopped by to chat. We got to talking and ended up spending the evening talking over places to see on our way through Long Island Sound. They along with the hovering hurricane Dennis convinced us that we should take a side trip up the Connecticut River to Essex.
The extensive sandbar at the mouth of the Connecticut River has kept the river from becoming overly developed as has happened to most other significant tributaries along the Connecticut shore of the Sound. We sailed in past the breakwater on a stiff northeasterly breeze into a meandering river with steep mostly wooded hillsides. As it was Saturday, a virtual armada of power boats, large and small were making they way out creating the only significant hazard. We crossed under both the bascule Amtrak bridge and the 80 foot I-95 bridge, making our way the last few miles to Essex.
Here's a funny side note. For various reasons, we did not expect people to randomly find our website. We therefore were surprised to receive messages from Jeff Wentz of Greenport, NY. A fellow Sabre owner, he had searched the web for information about Sabre's and cats as he was thinking about doing something very similar to what we are doing and somehow found our website. After trading several emails, we learned that he was shopping for and recently purchased the same model boat as ours. More of a coincidence... While in Stonington, we responded to one of his emails and quickly found out that he purchased his new boat in Essex and was picking it up during the weekend to sail it back across the Sound. A rendezvous was obviously in the making.
Without knowing where Jeff's new boat was located in Essex nor the name, we spotted the boat almost immediately as we came into Essex. We arrived just as the champagne was being uncorked, much to Jeff's surprise as he had no idea that we were coming. We spent much of that afternoon and into the evening cocktail hour exchanging sea stories with Jeff, Rusty, Jane, Mike and Muff who had all traveled to Essex from Greenport via boat. Mike and Muff along with their adorably cute dog played a very accommodating host for evening cocktails.
Essex was very much worth the trip up the Connecticut River. And as we find happens more often than not, we contemplated another detour. Some local folks told us that we just must go a little further up the Connecticut River to Hamburg Cove, even offering us the use of a mooring for our visit there. So while Hurricane Dennis swirls around aimlessly in the Atlantic preventing our trip down the coast, we might as well go someplace nice to see what this storm is going to do.
