Aisling goes Looping

The navigation app made it clear, as did the marina welcome email. On the approach to the marina you could see the current on the buoys and I was flying along despite spending most time in neutral, so I was not unaware that entering the slip would be challenging. Yet despite all that, I was sideways to the slip in a heartbeat!!!!! Fortunately Aisling has both the power and grace to overcome my mistakes and she remedied the situation with a combination of both. I matched her assertiveness on the second pass and a third attempt was unnecessary!!

Dorian has been lurking all week. We have been fortunate to be able to continue with our original plans thus far. Today was/is a planned marina day and given the small craft warnings it’s right where we should be. With luck, the wind/waves will be within acceptable range by noon tomorrow and we will head to Safe Harbor Capri on Long Island as our staging location for Hell Gate and Liberty Landing early Sunday morning.

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Media loading slowness given our current internet bandwidth limiting our blogging. We will continue the story including info on the Stratford Icon ‘American Shakespeare Theatre’ when we continue….

Those who have gone before us on the Loop have said “Don’t wait!” We have taken their advice and are testing our mettle on a three week cruise from Warwick RI to Half Moon Bay Marina, Croton on Hudson, NY and back to Warwick. Hurricane Dorian may send us on with a slightly different itinerary than planned, but after day two, as we continue to check the weather ahead of us, we press forward with the plan. More on plans later.

We were sent off on Monday night with a toast by Lou and Cory in Warwick, cleared the dock at 8 AM on Tuesday under a glorious blue sky and calm seas, and arrived in Mystic by 2 PM. Familiar passage for us down Narraganset Bay, and aside from watching for ferry traffic out of Point Judith, the journey along the coast was more of a site seeing tour noting the places of our land adventures and those places that we had only read about (Taylor Swift’s seawall upper left!). We passed Latimer Light (a preservation project we hope to assist) and a caution maker (the yellow can in front of the light house) noting the site of a recently sunken 50′ old wooden Cheoy Lee sailing vessel. The long winding entrance along the Mystic River to our Safe Harbor Marina was a slow pleasure as was our exploration of downtown Mystic and the famed 1922 draw bridge.

Greeted by Jack and Stephanie Gosselin, our official Mystic harbor hosts, we shared a lovely sunset on the boat overlooking this protected harbor. Daughter Caty was able to join us as she will along this journey. It is all about the friends you meet and those that you make along the way!

Nuf said…

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and we are all having seafood!

‘Plans are useless but Planning is essential.’ – Eisenhower

As we enter the final month of prep for starting the Great Loop, our plans have changed. The thought was to take Aisling to Burlington, VT and leave her for the Winter picking up the Loop next Spring from there. Well that’s not going to work given Caty has planned a wedding for next June. So the new plan is to make our way to Waterford, NY, where the Erie Canal begins and then turnaround and head back to Warwick. This will gives us the opportunity to continue to maintain and upgrade Aisling while she is an hour away from our home versus 5 hours to Burlington.

This month we will test everything and fix all those things we find are not quite right. Provisioning for a month should be easy as this voyage will largely use Marinas in populated areas. We are tuned into the LNM (Local Notice to Mariners) for the areas we will be traveling to and through, following weather patterns and any named storms that develop. Studying currents approaching NY Harbor and in the Hudson River…

We have been prepping for this for 2 years and will soon be on our way!

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Lyn, Caty and I had a short 1.5 hour trip to lovely Wickford Harbor and Wickford Cove Marina on a very hot afternoon. This is a town we have visited many times, but had never seen from the water. Wickford harbor has a long line of pilings used as mooring for sailboats. I had often wondered how the tie up’s worked and now could see it first hand. I still wonder why all the boats using these moorings are of the sail variety???

We were aware of the Wickford Art’s festival in town which the ladies visited while I got cozy on the flybridge for a nap. Upon their return, they described the enormity of the event and the quality of the artwork being offered. It really sunk in when I went for a walk in town on Sunday morning and could see 10’x10′ tents lining both sides on the main street end to end.

We ( Macks, Lyn and Marty) set out from Warwick with a good forecast of winds < 5 mph and seas < 2 ft. That part remained true to forecast, however the fog we encountered was not! As soon as we turned the corner around Bretton Reef near Newport, a shroud dropped over us and limited our visibility to > 1/4 mile for the most of the rest of the voyage. TGF radar! And it was a great opportunity to focus on using it. We had a boat to our starboard for over an hour and as our paths converged, I hailed them to be sure they saw us. Just after that conversation we saw the trawler for literally 2 seconds through the fog. They reduced speed and fell in behind us. Radar appreciation increased significantly.

Cuttyhunk was nearly empty as the season has not started yet. Fortunately the vendors were open and we were able to enjoy excellent Clam Chowder, Oysters and Lobster. All available steps away from our boat, on the same dock where we were tied up.

Our first outing this year was Memorial Day weekend to Dutch Harbor in RI. Macks, Lyn and I departed a day late due to high winds. They were blowing 25+ in Warwick. The launch operator in Dutch Harbor told us they saw 40+ and with the long fetch from the Northeast, lots of wave action as well. Good idea to stick to our weather parameters; 2-3 ft seas and < 15 knots wind.

Dutch Harbor is small and has some exposure to be considered. We had a SSW wind blowing 10-15 most of the afternoon and evening. It was a bit choppy, but not uncomfortable.

While you can take the launch and walk about a mile to all of the restaurants in Jamestown, we opted for The Shack and Tallulah’s Taco’s. Known for being authentic and fresh, we were not disappointed!

While on shore we took the opportunity to take a picture of Aisling on the mooring ball. We don’t often get to see her from this vantage point.

Back on board Aisling, it was burgers on the grill for dinner, a few beers and boaters midnight (9pm) for me

for those who do not know what it is and where it can take you;

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Our plan, subject to change, is to head up the Hudson to Lake Champlain and then on to Montreal, down the St Lawerence to the Trent Severn Waterway, through the North Channel of Lake Huron to Mackinaw Island, Lake Michigan to Chicago, the Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio rivers to the Tenn Tom Waterway to Mobile, AL, around Florida, up the ICW…. with many stops and side trips along the way.

We plan to leave on the Loop in early September 2019 and we know we want to spend several days in NY Harbor, not so much for the skyline, though Liberty Landing will provide a unique view, but mostly because I grew up in northern NJ and have lots of family and friends there.

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Yeah, that view will work!

So to get there, we are looking at 4 travel days with stops in Mystic, CT, Stratford, CT and Port Washington, NY. Amazingly, we were able to get reservations at all three locations and Liberty Landing in place by March 5th. Fortunately, the first 3 locations are Safe Harbor marinas, which we will get for free given our Summer slip at a Safe Harbor marina in Warwick, RI.

Now if we can just get the weather window we need…. It’s a plan, not a schedule!