Our Long Island Sound "Summer" Sail 1

 

When Susan went off to her niece's baby shower in Ohio, flying through Boston from Nantucket to Cleveland, JP and I stayed aboard on our week-long mooring in Nantucket Harbor.  For fun, I wrote an account of our laundry day, reproduced here:

Laundry Day in Nantucket, Raconteur-style

We have been out on the water for nine days.  The laundry basket turned on its side on the shelf at the foot of the bunk in the aft cabin is getting full, mostly underwear and sailing clothes.  We’ve acquired a couple of items of clothing on the way, but it’s time to do laundry.

Nantucket boasts one or two laundry services, one provider of linen services for the island’s hotels and the superyachts that grace the docks at the Boat Basin, the island’s fanciest marina. The other is up-island, inaccessible without two round-trip taxi rides

Susan has gone off-ship – to Cleveland for her niece’s baby shower – so JP and I decide it’s a good day to head to the coin laundry facility we’ve discovered at the fancy marina. We’ve packed my 42 liter Cotopaxi backpack, reasonably water resistant in case of mishap - a lesson learned the hard way in our years in the Caribbean – with the laundry and we call the wonderfully convenient launch service to pick us up boatside and take us to shore. We make our way through the Saturday crowds coming off the tourist ferry and head to the Boat Basin a few blocks away.

Two problems present themselves immediately: One, the coin granting machine is on the fritz, and two, we have no laundry products.  I go off to the nearby Stop and Shop, hoping to buy a roll of quarters and to acquire small versions of detergent and dryer sheets. The customer service desk is staffed by a very young guy. He says, sounding sorry, “We’re not allowed to do currency exchange.” He mutters something about HR, and I don’t argue.  

I walk from the grocery story further into town and call JP to report my initial failure. The local bank with a lobby (not just an ATM) was open Saturday mornings – until Labor Day. JP is trying to find someone to fix the machine and meanwhile suggests I try Nantucket Pharmacy a few blocks up the cobblestone street. We had stopped in the evening before and knew it from our summer 2025 visit.  It’s that rarity: A genuinely local pharmacy, complete with a soda fountain lunch counter and prescription service, plus aisles of necessaries and things you didn’t know you needed stretching between the two.

I go to the back counter; the woman who helped us the night before appears.  I practically whisper, “The laundromat’s coin machine is out of service.  Do you know anywhere I might find a roll of quarters?” She smiles.  “I have a roll of quarters. I’ll sell it to you.” She laughs. “For $20.” “I will happily pay $20 for a $10 roll of quarters,” I say. “No, no. $10. BUT. Don’t tell anyone!” “My lips are sealed,” I promise.

I call JP to report success, and take my precious quarters back down the cobblestones, stopping back at the supermarket for laundry supplies. Back to our previously scheduled program, an hour later.

The guy arrives to refill the machine right after we made the executive decision to add all the clothes, tutti-frutti, to one washer, to save enough quarters to run two dryer loads simultaneously after, so as not to spend the entire glorious sunny day hanging out on a bench outside the laundromat.

Four hours after we set out, the clothes are washed, dried, folded and tucked back into the Cotopaxi. We ask the launch to wait while JP tosses it into the cockpit, then climbs back aboard for the return to town. Laundry day is over. We can go back to being tourists — although by now, having located the laundromat, negotiated the quarter economy and made friends at the pharmacy, we feel slightly less like tourists than we did that morning.

It was a summer of putting the house back together after the lightning strike on 11 June, just in time for our joint 70th Bossa Nova birthday party on 15 August, so we scheduled the longer sail to start just before Labor Day weekend. We had been invited many months ago by our friend Dianne to join her and her husband Art in Newport for a sail on the 12 Meter Americas Cup 1956 yacht Columbia, on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend.  We left Guilford Yacht Club and overnighted at Fishers Island before docking at Newport Yachting Center (which doubles as a wedding factory) for three nights.  

7 November I see that I abandoned this at some point - oh well.  Let's try to remember the rest of the voyage.  We headed to Nantucket from Newport on Labor Day, did one overnight at Cuttyhunk, where we learned that one of the shoreside seafood shacks has a boat that brings oysters, clam chowder, clams casino and such around the harbor.  We indulged twice - on the way to Nantucket and again on the way back.  These always feel like tiny bits of cruising-only magic.

We ended up getting to Nantucket earlier than planned, and leaving a bit earlier as well, in service of the weather.  We had a great week - says Leigh, whose almost-favorite New England place is now ACK - and Susan even got off and back on by flying through Boston and back through New York to get to her niece Madi's baby shower - in Cleveland! 

When she got back, we decided to rent a jeep so that we could take the iconic drive on the beach (you lower the tires to 15psi or less~!) - it was a beautiful day, super windy, no temptation to swim - and that let us explore a bit more of the island.  We had taken bikes the year before.

In the end, we skipped a planned longer stop at Fishers Island, in part because the weather wasn't going to be conducive for the last few days of the original itinerary, in part I think because we were ready to be home.  So we were back on the 19th, so we were sixteen days and nights in the round trip.

We thought we might make it out once more, for a few nights in Mystic in the first week of October, but some boat work (new sails for 2027) and again, unpromising conditions, cancelled that plan for this year.  We actually hauled out on the 14th of October, and she's safe and snugly covered at Branford Landing once more.

We are off to Florida by car on the 12th, arriving the 16th or 17th after a few nights in Beaufort, SC, where we spent some fun days on Raconteur on our way down the ICW in 2010. Then, on to putting Third Flight back in the water - a different experience this year, as she is on a rack, just awaiting orders!

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Third Flight's new home

JP and Susan set off for Port 32 Marina in Lauderdale, west of downtown and in the vicinity of the airport, on the south fork of the New River, Third Flight's new home for the hurricane season this year.

They had a good run, with a little traffic excitement upon arrival, and a downright traffic jam in the queue for the lift.  It's a new thing for us: dry storage on racks.  They took the canvas down on Wednesday and then had to put it back for a few hours so our excellent canvas guy, Oscar, could come and take some measurements...and then take it down again.

Here's JP with the dry stacks and the crane/lift in the background.  Lots of small(er) boat owners keep their boats in this kind of storage year round; part of the service is to fetch it out on demand and then put it back.  We still have the option to keep her at the dock behind the building; we don't love the amount of wake she takes there, being directly on the ICW with its I95 like traffic and lax enforcement of the clearly posted no-wake, manatee crossing zone to the south of the Sunrise Bridge.  But we can just take the elevator down and go when we want to make a voyage, short or long.

Here she is, waiting her turn; apparently, the (bright yellow) Water Taxi - a consistent wake zone offender - also stores one of its ships there.

And that's a wrap for Third Flight until we fetch her at the end of the year.

One in, one out

 

This is Raconteur just after she hit the water at Branford Landing marina, where she was stored for the winter, on 3 June. Susan and JP took her back to our slip at GYC for the first time since summer of 2024 after the delayed dredging made getting in and out of their so difficult last year.

That said, the dredging they did manage over the winter was, shall we say, incomplete, but the controlling depths in the channel are good, the fairways are okay, and the C dock slips, while silted in pretty badly, are deep enough if we keep her out a few feet from the dock, which is what we did.

No immediate sailing plans - we've booked the key parts of a planned three-week voyage in September (Newport on Labor Day weekend and Nantucket five or six days later) - as Susan and JP are now in Florida to haul Third Flight out.

We'll be in a new place this year; the old Florida marina, Banyan Bay, where we've kept her for hurricane season since we brought her home in early 2022 has been sold to a developer and will now be something sad - warehouse space, we hear.

We did manage a nice trip on Third Flight in late February and early March; as we did two years ago, Susan and JP took her down to Marathon over a couple of nights via Elliott Key, and Leigh drove the car down [hitting a perfectly horrendous traffic jam after a bad accident closed Card Sound Road].  We stayed at a new marina this year as Safe Harbor Marathon originally had only a too-large slip available. We landed on the Bay side, at a place that was planned as a high end condo and marina for the owners.  That didn't quite work so now the multi-story townhouse units that were built - a dozen or so - have a large pool, clubhouse with fitness room, a pool bar and are rented by the week or month and the marina slips are available on Dockwa.  We enjoyed our stay; several of our Marathon favorite restaurants for breakfast and for dinner are in walking distance, the pool and bar were great, and since it was pretty cold and windy for March we were happy to be on the bay side.  Alas, ONE shower in the clubhouse, open only from 7am to 7pm, so that was less convenient (pool bathrooms 24/7 though).

Here's a shot of the pool, taken from the clubhouse; Third Flight was a few steps beyond all that, to the left, and stayed put the whole time we were in Marathon.

Susan and I took a side trip to her niece Caroline's wedding shower, leaving JP on the boat and driving to Miami on a Friday, flying back Sunday and driving back to Marathon Sunday night.  That's one of the nice things about bringing a car down. That and (this year) being able to get ourselves to what is probably our favorite dinner spot, Castaway Waterfront Restaurant and Sushi Bar.  From Safe Harbor, we could dinghy around, but it's worth crossing the Overseas Highway for. Castaway Marathon

Here's a snapshot of Castaway; probably have a better one somewhere.  The fish is the freshest anywhere.

JP and I will be 70 this year; Susan passed that milestone a little ahead of us.  I think we are all grateful we can still do this.  JP and Susan do the lion's share of the work - and it's a lot of work, as my mom always said when she heard our stories. Here's hoping the pleasures outpace the pain for a while longer.

Bill Buckley sold his beloved Partito when he was 78 - here's a gift link to the Atlantic article he wrote about it - 

Aweigh

after a lifetime of sailing (he was 12 or 13 when he got his first sailboat, about the age JP was when he started sailing and racing on Lac Leman).  

Here's to 8 more years? 

Last Hurrah, Mystic Seaport, and end of season

 I realized I never hit "Publish" on the blog post for our one long trip of the summer, to Nantucket and back in July, so now I'll just do a little flurry of posts to cover the season.

JP decided against doing another two week trip - too many encroaching events, including the trip to France that he and Susan took with her sister Jane, her niece Caroline, and Caroline's fiancé Ben in September.  We made it to Port Jefferson to meet our AOTP condo board chair Aaron and his wife Sheryl the first weekend in August, and to Shelter Island (a favorite) 30 August to 2 September that featured the only actual SAIL of the season. 

We had set a haul out date of 9 October, so I lobbied for one more trip, and we decided on Mystic Seaport.  We had been there two years ago and really enjoyed it, and this year was fun too, except for the two bridges in succession that can be quite - interesting - a railroad bridge followed by what is quaintly known as the Mystic Highway Bridge, which is really just the road and sidewalk over the river into the downtown area. It opens only once an hour, at 40 minutes past.

JP and Susan took out a small sailboat from the museum's fleet (the first photo), and we were among a number of boats - full house the first (Saturday) night - at the dock and I snapped the second photo from across the way.

We got back to Bruce and Johnson on Monday very late afternoon, and totally grubby (no option to swim at the Seaport marina) and reluctantly agreed to have supper at Dockside - we kept meaning to and never did - it was quite good and great to go home and crash directly after a shower.

Here we are, back at Branford Landing - I barely beat Raconteur from Bruce and Johnson to here driving the car! 

The dredging has begun at Guilford Yacht Club, at last, so we expect to be back there next season.

JP and Susan put the cover on today, and JP will go to empty the fuel tanks tomorrow.

Then there's the next launch: Third Flight in Lauderdale.  Before Europe? Between Europe and Asia? After Asia?  Stay tuned.

To Nantucket and Back

I'm getting more and more lax in my picture taking - not to mention my cooking - when we're onboard.  But give it a minute - I'll have some from Nantucket, at least.

Day One: We set out from the marina on Sunday, 6 July and headed for a first overnight on the hook at Fisher's Island.  We've been there several times - let that be my excuse - it was a motorsail (engine on, mainsail up) and we got into the anchorage at West Harbor around 1530.  A few boats there with us, but quiet at the end of the three-day weekend. We ate the first of the meals we had brought from the freezers at home (though I can't now remember what)

Day Two: After glorious weather yesterday, Monday the 7th was cool and intermittently rainy.  We had wrapped a fishing/crabbing line around the prop, which eventually required the deployment of our portable diving tank - Susan had already done many short dives but it wasn't enough. We only lost an hour or so, though, to our planned departure time, and we arrived at Block Island for a mooring - no problem on a random Monday - and had time to relax and get our bearings and to call the launch service (one of my favorite things in these popular island anchorages) to go ashore for dinner at Dead Eye Dick's, on the porch.  Weather turned glorious again, though it was good to be in the shade.

Day Three: We took the launch and then a taxi over to the "town" side, for ice cream (all), a candle (me), a piece of pottery (JP) and a top (Susan). Back for dinner on board - the white chicken chili, maybe?

Raconteur from the launch at Block

Day Four: We stopped for fuel at Payne's on Block, on the early side, and then headed for Cuttyunk, where I had reserved one of the outside moorings for two nights.  I managed to have writing group, somehow, on Zoom, even as we were underway. JP's Chili from the home freezers for dinner.

Day Five: Lousy weather, so we are not sorry to be at the mooring, though it might have been better to be somewhere we could go ashore. No clue what we ate - so sad.

Day Six: Friday, 11 July, the first of our four nights at Nantucket Moorings. We had another motorsail from Cuttyhunk - six hours - and arrived at about 1300 thanks to a strong current in a favorable direction. We took the launch ashore and got ourselves to the (smaller) Stop and Shop near the waterfront, and to the pharmacy (for cough drops for me), and were back on board by 1530.  We went back to town, all cleaned up, for dinner at Brotherhood of Thieves, a pub-like spot with very good food and service. Excellent cocktails. We stumbled on a long line for ice cream at The Juice Bar afterwards, and joined it.  Luckily, the group in front of us said 1) it's worth the wait and 2) order your ice cream in a waffle CUP.  I had Peppermint Stick with hot fudge sauce and it might be the best ice cream I've ever had.

Brotherhood of Thieves, behind JP's head

Day Seven: We came and went from the boat a couple of times, so did some shopping and toured the historic district as well, with JP as tour guide. A tasteful selection:

We took the launch early, and stopped for a spontaneous drink at The Club Car,

 

and then took a Lyft to the Chanticleer in 'Sconset and had a lovely dinner outside in their garden.

Day Eight: I'm re-reading an Elin Hilderbrand (queen of Nantucket) that I hadn't read in along time - The Matchmaker - and it's really fun to read it now that we're here.  She even mentions The Club Car - it's not in her "Blue Book" - my theory is because it's such a local hangout. Went in a little early for dinner, to get JP a sweater, stopped at The Club Car again and got lucky with a table again, then met Susan's old boss Bob Bettacchi for dinner.  He's had a house on the Island since the 1980's. We ate at The Proprietors, where his granddaughter hosts a couple of nights a week (which helped him get the reservation at a civilized hour), and which IS in the "Blue Book"

Day Nine: Our last day on Nantucket, for now - we will be back, we hope.  I think we all were pretty taken with the place.  We rented ebikes in town, and after the initial terror of navigating the awful traffic and narrow roads (e.g. paved cow paths) had a nice ride out to Cisco Beach and lunch at Millie's.  I had booked dinner at Slip 14 on South Wharf, so we launched to the boat, showered and dressed, and launched to and from dinner.  Very nice last evening.

The quiet side of Nantucket

Millie's

   

Beach Road and Lagoon

Day Ten: Motored across to a mooring at Vineyard Haven for two nights; dined on board from stuff we bought at Bartlett's Farm on Nantucket.

Day Eleven: Rented bikes again; road through Oak Bluffs and on to Edgartown, then stopped and Morning Glory Farm, still a favorite, and then up past the airport to arrive back in VH. The launch was having some trouble so we had launched the dinghy for the first time; the only real dinghy dock there is on the far side of the ferry landing.  Walked from there to dinner at Beach Road - excellent, and beautiful view over the back side of the Lagoon - we may have become Nantucket people, but the Vineyard still holds a place in my heart.

Day Twelve through Fifteen: We made our way back to Branford over the next four days, with a stop at Safe Harbor Jamestown, through a sporty thunderstorm, to a mooring there and dinner on board (lamb kebabs and chickpea dal from Morning Glory), lunch at JB's on the Water in Jamestown with a nice view over the bridge to Newport, and another "boughten" dinner on board.  We split the remaining trip into two days - a perfect breezy summer anchorage stop at Fisher's Island, and a long slog from there to Branford and our temporary home dock.

Getting ready for a first long sail in 2025

 

Our friends Fredy and Jaques flanking Captain JP (Susan was on the foredeck), leaving her winter home at Branford Landing and heading down river to Safe Harbor Bruce & Johnson Marina for the summer season - an epic voyage of about 20 minutes.

We decided not to bring her to GYC this season - the club wasn't able to dredge - by the time the permits came through, the dredging company wasn't available, so the silting continues and it was already difficult to get in and out last year with our 5.5' draft.  At MLW, the channel out to the Sound is carrying maybe 4'.

We've planned our first excursion, to Nantucket and back, starting Sunday July 6 and coming back Monday July 21st.  We've secured moorings at Nantucket for four nights, at Vineyard Haven for two, and at Jamestown, RI for two; we'll try to moor at Block as well, though it's first come first serve there.

I had backpack envy, so I splurged on a new 42L Cotopaxi Del Dia - JP had bought the 35L before our abortive season with Third Flight in Florida - so we shall see how much of my preferred sailing wardrobe I can fit in there.  I put a few things on hangers, too - JP says I can have 3 or maybe 4 max - I like having my clothes with me. Here's an (unpaid) link to it on Amazon: New backpack

I'm starting to write about Raconteur for the memoir in essays - I wrote a couple of short pieces about our first sailing adventure together, the ASA liveaboard course that we took with Blue Water Sailing in Lauderdale, when we were still living in Boca and working in Florida.  Since the focus of the memoir is "home" - what I brought to them, what I took away - it will be interesting to see how this blog helps with that, or doesn't. Taking the two-week trip will help refresh my thoughts, though.

Speaking of Third Flight, here are two pictures of me waiting for her to arrive at Gilbert's after I had left JP and Susan off in the early morning to bring her from Marathon, not long after JP's pneumonia adventure.  

The departure.

How I staved off boredom.

Yes, that is one of their famous Boobies...I may have had two.

But I did save a perfect dock space for them.

Getting ready for the seasonal transition(s)

We've scheduled to splash Raconteur from Branford Landing Marina the week after next.  It will take two days because the high tide is at 1030 so by the time we are in the water it will be much too late to make it through the heavily silted inlet at Guilford Yacht Club were we keep her in summer.  We will splash on the 20th, overnight on the river or maybe in the Thimbles, and then head to GYC on the 21st.

This is her at Branford Landing in November, with cover installed:

We had kept her nearby at a different marina last summer but it took way too long to get the engine replacement project done and we didn't splash until sometime in late July!  Branford Landing is a little bit more of a "bring your own" (contractors) kind of yard, so we'll see if it turns out to work better for us.

Float plans are - floating?  Susan is doing less labor-intensive gardening this year, in theory - at least, no tomatoes this season, which is a full time job - but we do seem to have a few things scheduled: Third Flight haul out in June; Reese and Kayla (niece and BFF) visit to Guilford in July, followed by Leigh's 50th high school reunion; ten days in the Galapagos in early August.  We'd like to get to the Maine coast this season, even if just to the southernmost bays (Kennebunkport maybe?), so that will likely have to wait for mid-August to mid-September (ahead of BRRRRR season).

Between the Europe trip and some less than cooperative weather we didn't get much more Third Flight time after the excursion to the Jupiter area in March.  I don't remember if I posted this after we got back from that trip: Many Small Bags!

We will haul out for the 4th? year to Banyan Bay, south of us and west on the Dania Cutoff Canal.  They have been great to deal with; we basically give them a list of projects and they do estimates and bring the contractors.  We're lucky to find a yard that still wants to deal with small boats in South Florida.

Still no game plan to bring boat #3 back into use - Baladin (the 19' daysailer) is at Susan's sister's farm in Bowie.

Sad news from Grenada today: Patrick "Shademan" the taxi driver and guide and cruiser support go-to from our time there, has died.  I had some inkling that his health wasn't great.  He wasn't that old...he was a memorable character, and he will be missed. I'm trying to find a photo.