{"id":209,"date":"2023-07-04T09:56:59","date_gmt":"2023-07-04T08:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildhorse.fun\/?p=209"},"modified":"2024-06-10T14:35:39","modified_gmt":"2024-06-10T13:35:39","slug":"finally-cruise-is-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildhorse.fun\/?p=209","title":{"rendered":"Finally, cruise is on!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy 4th of July! It\u2019s been a while since we posted, so here\u2019s what\u2019s been going on. \u00a0This is a bit of a long post…<\/p>\n

We finally made it out of the boatyard on June 22 for the rest of the summer. \u00a0Frank Hall Boatyard was great and they made us feel almost like okd friends, and in fact we made some new friends there. \u00a0Even though we didn\u2019t get every last thing done that we wanted to do on the boat, we did get the things that I considered safety or boat integrity related done, and at a certain point, you just have to go and do the other things on the way. \u00a0The previous owners of WildHorse, who we became friends with, heard about our departure via the grapevine and came down to the boat to wish us well and gave us a nice bottle of WildHorse pinot noir, whch is at least partially why the boat has it\u2019s name to begin with.<\/p>\n

Our friends Guy and C\u00e9line from Vallleyfield, QC and Dave from Burlington jioined us for the beginning of our extended cruise.<\/p>\n

Next day at high tide we left the Pawcatuck river, passing the dreaded Sandy Point shoal, again without any problem. \u00a0We went sailing in Fishers Island Sound for a couple of hours, and agan the boat performed very well. \u00a0We then mototed up the narrow and twisty (but no shallow spots) Mystic River and took a slip at the Mystic Boatyard.<\/p>\n

The town of Mystic, CT is very quaint New Englandy, and kind of touristy but not terribly so. It is famous of course from the movie Mystic Pizza, which apparently isn\u2019t that good and there are better pizza places in town, but also has a long maritime history of whaling.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

Naurical secondhand Junque Shoppe. Closed, which was probably a good thing.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yesterday we all went to the famous Mystic Seaport Museum where they are also having the Wooden Boat Show this weekend. \u00a0Even though rain was forecast, it turned out to be a lovely partially cloudy day. \u00a0The museum is fascinating. \u00a0They still practice the old crafts and trades there, and love to talk about it. \u00a0There are also many beautiful boats and an original whaling ship.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

The crew, Dave, Lucie, C\u00e9line & Guy at Mystic Seaport<\/em><\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/em><\/p>\n

Whaling ship Benjamin F. Packard<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/em><\/p>\n

Blacksmith Shop<\/em><\/p>\n

The next day, C\u00e9line and Guy left, and Lucie, Dave, and I left for Fisher\u2019s Island. We sailed a bit in the sound again, trying out various sail combinations, then anchored in West Harbor. \u00a0About 60% of the island is private, but we were able to walk around the regurlar town part. Some people say that the people there are unfriendly to visitors, but for us they couldn\u2019t have been more nice, talkative, and friendly. \u00a0There is a little local museum which was closed, but the museum director happened to be there waiting for an electrician and let us in and gave us a mini tour. It was another beutiful two days there. We even went for our first ocean swim of the summer!<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

WildHorse at anchor at Fisher\u2019s Island<\/em><\/p>\n

The next morning was very foggy, but was predicted to lift during the later morning. We took off and sailed in light winds along the southwest coast of Rhode Island. \u00a0I couldn\u2019t tell you if it is pretty or not, since the fog never lifted the whole way, so we were sailing in a grey globe. \u00a0At least we did get some practice using the new radar.<\/p>\n

That evening, we anchored in Dutch Island Harbor, in southern Narragansett Bay. \u00a0It was pretty rolly, since it seems that the ocean swell wraps around the point and comes in from the side. \u00a0That night we had fairly intense thunderstorms with gusts of wind up to 30kn and heavy rain, but our new Vulcan anchor was bombproof. \u00a0It was reassuring to have it tested like that and to pass with flying colors.<\/p>\n

That morning was breezy and clear, and we hauled the anchor and had a fast downwind sail up to the northern part of Narragansett Bay. After some trouble finding a place to moor (all full), we ended up taking a slip at Safe Harbor Marina Greenwich Bay, for Dave to get ashore and head back to Burlington.<\/p>\n

That was a real marina with a pool, laundry, and all the amenities, quite different from the working boatyards that we had been in before. \u00a0I spent a 6 nights there catching up on various boat tasks while Lucie rode back to Burlington with Dave to pick up our new folding bikes. \u00a0She came back with them the day before yesterday. We have them aboard now and they are sweet!<\/p>\n

Yesterday, we left the marina and motored a short distance to Goddard Memorial State Park. We were concerned about finding a place to anchor over the 4th of July, but it looks like we didin\u2019t need to worry since last night we were the only boat here. \u00a0The forecast is for heavy rain and thunderstorms today, so that probably helped. \u00a0Turns out that it only rained a little and no thunderstorms overnight. \u00a0We could see about 5 different fireworks shows from here and spent a quiet night on the hook.<\/p>\n

After here, we are planning to head back out of the bay and go to Martha\u2019s Vineyard and some of the other islands.<\/p>\n

That catches us up to the current time! \u00a0More to come as things develop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy 4th of July! It\u2019s been a while since we posted, so here\u2019s what\u2019s been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":207,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildhorse.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildhorse.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildhorse.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildhorse.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildhorse.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=209"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wildhorse.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":757,"href":"https:\/\/wildhorse.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209\/revisions\/757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildhorse.fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wildhorse.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildhorse.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wildhorse.fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}