Namani at Sea

We slipped our mooring at the 79th St Boat Basin at noon on Wednesday, sailed out under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and "turned right" towards Cape May where we arrived Thursday afternoon. After a very bumpy ride out of New York with wind against tide things settled down a bit once we were south of Sandy Hook. We had a nice close hauled sail through the night but then got drenched in a series of showers and thunderstorms that accompanied a passing cold front on Thursday morning.

Made it to New York this morning after an overnight motor sail from Block Island through the Long Island Sound. Timing worked out perfectly, catching the start of the flood current at The Race at the eastern end of the Sound yesterday afternoon, then arriving at the Throgs Neck Bridge just before sunrise at 6 am this morning and hitting the start of the ebb current through Hell Gate into the East River just after 8am.

... this time on Block Island, RI. Got here yesterday after a nice short sail down from Newport and were happy to see our friends ob and Maggie aboard Decoy again moored in Block Island's Great Salt Pond. Feels very different from Peaks Island (our universal reference for islands in the US) - bigger but fewer people and rolling hills with green pastures that almost look like a piece of Ireland. The picture above was taken in front of the island's Southeast Lighthouse that started operation in 1873.

Almost forgot to mention: The new Hydrovane seems to proof a worthy successor to our old Windpilot self-steering. Have used it on a close reach/close hauled towards Gloucester and down-wind and broad reaching towards Cuttyhunk and Newport. Very satisfied so far. Now we have to see how it copes with bigger seas (where the Windpilot struggled)...

While we're at it: A picture of Nicky relaxing with the Hydrovane at the helm...

In Newport, RI, for two days. Feeling a bit small among all those old 12m Americas Cup yachts and new mega yachts ;-). We went to The Newport Shipyard today where the average yacht's boom is bigger than Namani! Had a very surprise there with the people from Bluewater Technologies, who went out of their way to provide us with 15 feet of GTO15 cable for our SSB antenna connection. Made us feel not so small after all ;-).

Planning to sail to Block Island tomorrow and then on to New York on Friday for a Saturday morning arrival.

Moored in Cuttyhunk, the outermost of the Elisabeth Islands. Feels very tranquil and remote with some interesting WW II lookout posts. Ironically, this is the first place where we meet another German boat, Rasmus (I guess thise lookouts are no longer manned...).

Made it through the Cape Cod Canal today and are now anchored in Onset Bay, enjoying a beautiful sunset. Feels like a bit of a milestone and we are curious to explore a few more places that we zipped past on our way north in 2008 (Cuttyhunk, Newport, Block Island, Long Island Sound and New York).

While we had planned to make a long day sail from the Isles of Shoals to Plymouth, NH, we heard an unfamiliar noise from the steering when we were just ready to slip our mooring at 6 am this morning. After some diving and disassembly it turned out to be nothing but by then it was too late to make Plymouth before nightfall (and we weren't keen on navigating the narrow and shoal entry channel at night time). Hence we opted for Glouvester, MA as an intermediate stop. What a nice surprise it was!

Spent a day and night here before continuing south on Wednesday, destination Plymouth, MA. A very interesting place here, largely uninhabited, save for a research station and a Star Cooperation retreat (they own the main Island, now named Star Island). These Isles were the only spot that Captain John Smith (who coined the term New England in the 17th century) had originally named after himslef ("Smith Islands") but the name didn't stick...

Picked up a mooring at Portland Yacht Services this morning after a short early morning sail from The Goslings. Were expecting to stay for 2 days to knock some jobs off the boat to-do list. However, after a brief look at the weather forecast decided that we should continue southwards to the Isles of Shoals the same night because we might otherwise be stuck for longer than planned. So we did real whirlwind turnaround with laundry, major food shopping and a few other errands in town (incl.