Fisher’s Island

Saturday, July 30:  We had a leisurely morning on the boat at Mystic, including a nice bacon and eggs breakfast and some boat cleaning and provisioning.  Then, at mid-morning, we set out in Long Island Sound for a fun sail “where the wind blows” as we had only a short distance to go to our next anchorage at Fisher’s Island, CT.

It is Saturday and there were a lot of boats out and about, both sail and power.  It was a beautiful day, with high in the upper 80s, blue skies with some clouds, and good wind.  We sailed around in the Sound for a while, dodging boats, throwing lots of tacks, and just having a good time.

As we were heading for Fisher’s Island harbor, a small piece of hardware fell to the deck with a loud clack from somewhere high in the rigging.  We could not tell where it came from and nothing bad happened, leaving us both puzzled and concerned.

We anchored out in the harbor, had lunch and went ashore to rent bikes at the Gold n Silver shop.  We rode all over the island and got some spectacular views of the Sound with all the boats and a lighthouse.

Had an early dinner on the outside patio of the Pequot Inn, then dropped our bikes off at the bike shop and walked back to the marina to dinghy back to the boat.

Back on board, Ted started investigating the source of the falling hardware and eventually found that it had come from one of the top-most slides that holds the main sail to the mast.  This was a great relief, because while important, this hardware could not have resulted in a major rigging failure.  We will all sleep better tonight, having fixed this problem.

Tomorrow, we are supposed to meet up with our cruise leaders, Stephanie & Lance, on their Jeanneau 37, MerSea, at Watch Hill, RI.  They are the only other boat on this cruise and they took the “inside” route, up the Chesapeake Bay, through the C&D canal, to Delaware Bay and points north.  This did require them to do an overnight sail to get past New Jersey.