Thursday, June 20, we cruised from the Lake Montauk anchorage to Block Island, a trip of only 3.5 hours.
We are finding that every time we move to another location we need to consider:
-currents at inlet from where we are departing
-wind direction at inlet from where we are departing
-currents at inlet where we are going
-wind direction at inlet where we are going
-currents along the route
-wind direction along the route
-tides along the route in case of skinny water
-wave heights along the route
This means that even though we are up early and ready to move on, we often cannot, and have to wait for currents, winds, and tides to line up.
Block Island is not what I expected. It is a bit like Key West but up north. Laid back. Landscape is on the natural side.
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| The restroom walls |
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| Interesting features on one of the houses. |
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| Another interesting house. Notice lack of landscaping. |
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| There are numerous places to rent bicycles and scooters. |
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| Walking towards the Old Harbor |
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| Old Harbor with high speed ferryboats and fishing boats. |
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| Another view of Old Harbor. |
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| Stone walls were all over the place. |
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| Gigi in her basket. |
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| We took a bike ride but used our own bikes. |
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| On the way we discovered secluded places to rest. |
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| Crested cranes on the Island Alpaca farm |
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| The alpacas |
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| Having a birthday martini at the Hotel Manisses. |
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| Beet salad was incredibly tasty. |
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| Flounder was yummy. |
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| Flaming coffee - excellent. |
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| The next morning, the bakery boat came around. |
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| Croissant and cinnamon roll - guess they are still working on the recipe. |
Westport
We were planning on heading to the Jamestown, RI, area for a few days and then on to Westport, MA. The weather forecast changed our mind and we went straight to Westport instead. Our house battery was not charging well and we had arranged for a mechanic at Tripp Marina to look at it and did not want to miss that appointment.
As it turned out Tripp Marina is home port for friends Lou and Genevieve from Naples. We had a blast with them and so appreciated their hospitality, walk on the beach, run to the grocery store, fresh herbs from the garden, and all the good eats.
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| We learned to cook and eat steamers. |
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| The lobsters ready to be cooked. |
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| And ready to be eaten. |
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| Nothing like eating lobster on the boat. |
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| View of Wesport harbor from the marina. |
The battery charger and the house battery were replaced. A missing ground wire was replaced (thanks Dog River). The isolator installed by Dog River does not work properly with the alternator we have (thanks Dog River). Apparently, if we get the right kind of alternator, the isolator will work, which means we do not have to remember to switch back and forth between batteries. And that would be a good thing, given our age.
So it seems we have a working solution for the starter and house batteries. Now we have to figure out why the inverter batteries are not going to a full charge. In fact, they are having a hard time getting to four green lights. The batteries are only two years old but that does not mean anything because we may have inadvertently killed them.
We looked at the manual, we did google searches, and we asked for advice on a trawler techie site, hoping that Jim Healy would respond. He did. Jim has been like a father to us, providing loads and loads of guidance over the last three years.
We need to synchronize the monitor to the batteries. The manual talks about it too. Trouble is, we had no clue how to proceed and so another email went out to Jim and he walked us through the steps.
We had to disconnect the power source to the monitor so that the memory would be wiped out. After another email to Jim, we found out the power source was not at the monitor but at the inverter box down in the engine room
There were two in-line fuses. Rusty picked one of them, disconnected for one minute, and the settings were normalized, sort of as it turned out.
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