Wedding Bells

November 2012 brought another trip north to New England. Our daughter Sarah and her fiancé, Eric, planned to marry& honeymoon in St Lucia then return home to Newport and host a party in Providence. So once again we made the trek north...this time travelling on the Amtrak auto train. this train leaves Sanford, FL just 1 hour from our house and goes overnight to Lorton, VA. Once there we have an 8 hour drive to Newport. This saves us about 11 hours driving time. Once aboard you are treated to a lovely meal in the dining car and retire to you sleeping accomodations. They are a little tight but adequate for 1 night.

Dining car

Sleeper cars

         

Unloading the cars

Once in Newport we stayed at Sarah's house while they were in St Lucia. The next day we drove to Logan airport to pick up Peter's cousin, Judy, from the UK and her daughter & granddaughter, Anna Louise & Olivia. They stayed with us at Sarah's house for a few days before the wedding. When Sarah and Eric came home from St Lucia we all moved to the Newport Marriot. On Sunday morning after pictures we all rode a bus to Providence. It was quite a party!

Arrrgh!!!

Arrrgh!!  Aboard Monarch of the Seas

We had a very busy 7 months in our home in Florida.  The "fall was spent getting our boat stuff unpacked and put away and putting the house in order.  Then it was time to renew friendships and the annual Disney pass. After a week or so we went to visit our friends Fred and Verena to see what they were up to. Another cruise was planned for the end of September so Verena wanted us to go with them. Of course we said no...after being aboard Kinvara for 5 months we were looking forward to being land bound.  Until......Verena googled the website and we found a last minute deal on the sailing for $119 per person.  Needless to say 2 weeks later we were aboard Royal Caribbeans Monarch of the Seas headed to the Bahamas. We even visited with Peter's friend Ian Kelly in Nassau for an afternoon.

Back to Newport

We returned from Block Island to Newport and ended up staying here except for 2 nights in Cuttyhunk.  Kinvara is being hauled out in Warwick, RI next week and remain on the hard for the winter. We have started unloading stuff from the boat to Sarah's house in Newport. It's amazing how much stuff collects within. Our Ford Escape will not hold all the "stuff" so we have rented the small trailer from U Haul to get it all home. We plan to leave Newport on Sunday, September 9th and be back home in Florida by the 12th or 13th.

Kinvara underway

Cuttyhunk

We made a brief visit to Cuttyhunk Island. Originally we were on our way to Hyannis to visit friends and neighbors from Florida. We ended up staying an extra night then returned to Newport because our anchor remote connection had corroded and was unusable. Peter ordered the part and we returned to Newport to fix it and ended up visiting our friends by car.

Sunsets are always awesome on Cuttyhunk

Steer on a nearby private island

Can you find the bird?

Patriot Place

While on a trip back to Franklin, our old home town, we stopped off at Patriot Place...home of the New England Patriots.  It has changed quite a bit. there is a large shopping complex attached to the stadium area as well as a medical center with emergency services from Brigham and Woman's Hospital. It was very impressive!

 

 

A Week in Block Island

The sunsets in Block Island are beautiful!!

Block Island, Rhode Island was the last stop we made leaving the New England Area in 2009 and our first stop returning this year in June. Our week was dominated by beautiful weather in which we relaxed on the boat, swam off the boat, and had company 4 times. Our first visitors were Don and Barbara Lane who had arrived a few days before us on the Island. They joined us on Kinvara for cocktails and dinner and we talked well into the evening. Next to arrive were Joe Pedro and his partner Jackie who came out for a day on Monday and decided to stay overnight and return the next day. Our yhird set of visitors were Glen and Ani from s/v Poia. They arrived in Block Island on Friday evening just before a long series of severe storms moved through. On Saturday morning they moved and rafted next to our boat. We had a wonderful time visiting and eating dinner out Saturday evening. Sunday morning our 2 girls, Sarah and Natalie, arrived on the early morning ferry. Jane walked to town to meet them and they walked back the mile to the harbor.  We went to the beach with big waves for body surfing and had a great time just talking and sunning. Once back aboard we grilled Italian sausages for lunch then went into the town to stroll through the shops. The girls returned on the evening ferry happy but exhausted. We now sit watching the closing Olympic ceremony and will leave tomorrow to sail back to Newport for a week. 

While here we watched the culmination of a fishing tournament with the weighing in of really large yellow fin tuna. One day a small sailboat motored through the channel with a man on the foredeck playing bagpipes. Sunday they left the harbor and he was again playing the bagpipes.

A day to relax

Laundry day

A day in the water

Peter, Sarah, Natalie, and and the local
pirate...Arrrrgh!!!

Kinvara looks huge from this angle

The New England Cruise ship
comes in for a day

Yellow fin tuna from the fishing

tournament



Glen and Ani from Newport

Marthas Vineyard to Block Island

We had a calm night to sleep in but Peter woke early and raised the crew by 6:30AM to head to Block Island. We raised anchor by 6:45 and headed north. Unfortunately when we reached our turn to the west into Vineyard Sound the fog closed in. Peter decided to turn into Vineyard Haven and anchor for a while to let the fog clear. This place on the sound is extremely busy with ferry traffic between Woods Hole and 3 locations on Martha's Vineyard. We were going against a strong current and had limited maneuverability so the wisest decision was to wait it out. After an hour at anchor we decided to go ashore and do some provisioning at the grocery store on shore.

Just a little boat with it's own helicopter

The original "Black Dog" schooner



By 1:30 the fog cleared and we hoped the current had slowed to give us a better passage through Vineyard Sound. We got our wish on the fog bit but the current was still on the strong side so we had to abandon the trip to Block Island and decided to pull into Menemsha. This is a tiny fishing village which has not changed it's character on Martha's Vineyard over the years. Years ago the fisherman made there living by spearing swordfish offshore and fishing in the sound. Once "line fishing" started with the bigger ships it depleted the swordfish supply and the govn't had to regulate the number being caught. This changed forever the nature of Menemsha. There is a beautiful sculpture at the harbor entrance depicting a fisherman spearing a swordfish.

The other claim to fame for Menemsha is it's use in the film "Jaws". There were sheds built along the docks for the movie that remain today and the harbor entrance is the same used when Jaws swam in through the breakwater. Every August the little town celebrates a Jaws Festival.

The infamous Jaws breakwater

The harbor masters office

We would have loved to stay longer in Menemsha but all night we were rolling violently in the waves from a west wind so we did not sleep much.

The next morning we left by 8:30AM thinking the fog was clearing. It didn't. We had about 25 miles to Block Island, well offshore on a direct route, and had fog almost the entire way. The visibility changed from about 1/2 mile to 500ft. Once it cleared as we passed Newport then came on top of us again. thank goodness we had our radar and AIS on so we could see boat traffic. We had to cross 2 shipping channels but found no large ship traffic to worry about. Jane got to use her favorite toy (new in 2009), an automatic foghorn. this allows her to relax a bit and not have to constantly blow the hand held air horn.

It was a slow going trip as we had current against us all the way. Our top speed was maybe 6.5k. Closing in on Block Island the fog came and went but thankfully it did clear long enough to allow us in through the channel and get anchored for the night.