We have headed back to Jamestown, Rhode Island to do laundry of all things. The Vineyard didn’t have any accessible laundromats… geez! I’s been chilly lately and we think it’s time to head south with the geese.

We had just about been fed up with the Vineyard anyway. Diane Sawyer wasn’t home, David Letterman wouldn’t answer our calls, Spike Lee was, well Spike Lee and after all those years of watching Cheers, Ted Danson didn’t even invite us out for a cocktail.

Be sure to check out the three posts prior to this one. We have been internet deprived and are just now catching up. I will also update photos to the 2008 gallery.

After quite a bit of rest we ventured forth to tour the island. We bought day passes for the bus and set off for Oak Bluffs. Each little town has it’s own ambience. Vineyard Haven is very Cape Cod(ish) and commercialized. Oak Bluffs has a great deal of Victorian charm, Edgartown is bigger, has a lot of charm but also is commercialized. The outlying areas of Menemsha and Aquinnah are as you might have found them years ago. We ate lunch in Oak Bluffs. The seafood chowdah was very good.

Oak Bluffs

Edgartown

The Gay Head Lighthouse and the colorful clay cliffs at Aquinnah. Menemsha is in the next bay and Wood’s Hole is across the sound.

We walked down to the beach to see the cliffs up close. They were pretty cool but not as cool as the weird stacked objects we saw everywhere. I still think it was aliens from a far away world but Mary thinks it was just all those naked guys with nothing else to do. Oh, I forgot to mention it was a nude beach. Seems as though it must have been guys day out as there were no naked women. More rock stackings …

We finished the day off with an unbelievable meal at the Black Dog Tavern. I had seared Ahi Tuna filet, topped with a cilantro sauce, served with wakame seaweed salad and wasabi ginger mashed potatoes. Mary had a pounded chicken breast with sage, prosciutto and parmesan with a lemony butter sauce. Yum!!!

To think that should be a fitting end to quite a day we were in store for one last surprise. We arrived at the dinghy dock at about 10:30. No moon, it was seriously dark. The stars and Milky Way were so brilliant. It was breathtaking. We started up the outboard and took off to find the boat. In our wake was a mass of bioluminescence. It looked like I had lights on under the dinghy. It was unreal and as we would hit a jellyfish (there were lots) they would burst into light. I didn’t want to turn off the motor but all good things come to an end. We shut everything down and sat in the cockpit, in the dark watching the stars and the flashes from the drifting jellys. Ahhhhhhhh….. what a life!

The Forbes family was having a big party on the island over the weekend and in protest of not being invited, we left for Martha’s Vineyard. It was a short motor across Vineyard Sound to Lake Tashmoo, just west of Vineyard Haven (aka Tisbury). Entering Tashmoo at low tide was an adventure. It is shallow and very narrow. We clipped the bottom as we cleared the breakwaters but didn’t touch again. This lake is very protected but shallow.

Holding is mediocre at best. Lots of eel grass and soupy mud makes for a sort of luck of the draw when it comes to anchoring. We tried several times, once picking up an old pump out hose from the bottom. Third time was the charm and we stayed put until the winds picked up above 25 knots and we slowly inched our way downwind. A barge operator has some storm moorings up at the head of the lake and we decided to take one for a couple nights.

Our new mooring…

Tashmoo is a short walk from Vineyard Haven so we set off. Shortly we became aware that we hadn’t been off the boat in awhile and our legs were suffering.

We explored for awhile and stopped at Stop & Shop to pick up some groceries. As we were leaving we ran into John and Diane (on s/v Tenacity) our friends we had been traveling with since Cutty. We all shared a cab to get home.

After finally leaving Cuttyhunk we actually “sailed” along past the Elizabeth Islands and arrived mid day at Hadley Harbor. Naushon Island has been owned by the Forbes family (Naushon Trust) for more than a 150 years. As you enter from the Woods Hole channel you come upon a beautiful protected harbor.

The Trust has installed many moorings in the inner harbor and they are marked private but unless someone on the island needs one they are free to be used by cruisers. We anchored the first night and then moved over to a vacant ball the next day.

Aside from the big house, the architecture is wonderful. Just what you might expect from this remote New England island.

Bull Island is open to the public and Goliath claimed it as his own. If you look carefully, he is smiling!

We stayed three nights. It was fantastic.

Cuttyhunk has been sort of a benchmark destination for us. We had intended to go from block to Jamestown and then on to Cutty, and so two weeks later we’re finally here. Courtesy of Wikipedia, Cuttyhunk Island is the outermost of the Elizabeth Islands in Massachusetts, located between Buzzards Bay to the north and Vineyard Sound to the south. Penikese Island (a former leper colony) and Nashawena Island are located to the north and east, respectively. The island has a land area of 2.35 km² (0.9065 sq mi, or 580 acres) and a population of 52 persons as of the 2000 census. It is the fourth largest in area of the Elizabeth Islands and home to the majority of the population of the town of Gosnold, Massachusetts.

The sail over from Newport was an easy half day and we were surprised to see that moorings were available in the inner pond. They are very close together but no one has hit, yet.

We hiked to the high point on the island where the view is quite spectacular. Later, we took a dinghy ride out around parts of the island and then over to the beach where we walked in the surf and let Goliath run.

Aside from the 50 or so boats moored closely together, it’s pretty remote here and very quiet.

We left Wickford early and arrived in Newport several hours later. There were quite a few moorings available so we took one near the channel, sort of center stage. There are so many large yachts here that they don’t really look at that large any more. The docks are filled with 100 footers with a few in the 150′ range thrown in. Quite a few 12 metre (International Rule) yachts were seen out sailing and at docks.

We patiently waited for the other two Odays to join us. They were coming from New London and Block so had a lot longer trip. The Coxes arrived mid afternoon and we greeted them at their mooring. Soon the Nowitzky’s showed up and we guided them in. Soon it was raining cats and dogs. This weather would continue throughout our stay.

Newport is the center of East Coast yachting. Everything revolves around it. The town itself is beautiful. Lots of small shops, narrow streets and people everywhere. The residential areas are nicely maintained with lots of cedar shake and well kept gardens. This area was (and still appears to be) the place for the rich to vacation and have their summer homes. Fabulous homes everywhere.

Pictured above, we visited The Breakers, the Vanderbilt’s summer “cottage”. Built in 1895, it is unreal. We took the tour (no pictures allowed inside), and it was awesome. Built right on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic. This is the kid’s playhouse! Unreal.

We’ve been up in lobster country for quite some time and still haven’t had any to eat. Aquidneck Lobster Co. is right at the wharf so we grabbed a couple of lobsters (which they steamed for us) and had quite the dinner on board. Pretty yummy but we concluded that a big juicy steak probably would have been just as good or better.

Tomorrow we finally leave Narragansett Bay and head for Cuttyhunk, Massachusetts.

After a short, 2 1/2 hour trip around Prudence Island and then southwest across Narragansett Bay we arrived in the harbor of Wickford, Rhode Island. We had arrived early enough to grab a free mooring provided by the Town of North Kingston. There are five balls available on a first come first served basis. A very nice service and we obliged them by going ashore and spending a few dollars.

Wickford is another unpretentious small New England town that has kept it’s old image intact. The downtown has been preserved well and is very nice. There are shops, restaurants and some other services available.

The harbor is beautiful with many boats on moorings and several large marinas. It was quite interesting to see the pole moorings for the first time. An efficient way to use their limited space.

After visiting town we went back to the boat to settle in for the evening. We were heading to Newport the next day for a mini Oday reunion with friends Bill and Patti and Mike and Anne. A Catalina 42 had taken a mooring near us and they came over to inquire of our hailing port. Turns out they know some other Wisconsin cruisers that ironically we have also met along the way. What a small world. We went over later for a visit and had a great time. You meet the nicest people cruising!

Well, folks it was one year yesterday, that we left Wisconsin on our little adventure. We have learned a LOT and continue to do so everyday. According to our “odometer” we have traveled close to 5000 statute miles during this time. And the beat goes on …

For some time now we’ve been having problems with our MacBook starting up in the morning. This all started back in October of last year. We thought maybe it was battery related (seemed to be ok on a full battery) or software related (we had installed a USB amplified wifi antenna and software) or many other speculations. I called AppleCare to no avail and finally was able to leave it at the Apple Store in NYC. It wasn’t starting when I left it but by the time the techies look at it, it started right up.

It worked for awhile after we got it back but soon started its cantankerous ways.

I decided to put the old thinking cap firmly in place, hmmmm.
Chooses to not start usually in the mornings (lack of usage overnight).
We live in a humid environment, hmmm.
Starts up after being charged for awhile (heat from battery…picture becoming clearer)
Started fine in temperature controlled facility at Apple.

My solution …

We store the computer in an ice chest under the saloon table. Starts every time!

A short trip up Narragansett Bay took us to Bristol, a historic yachting center and home to the Herreshoff Marine Museum. We took a mooring at the Museum and toured the facility that afternoon. What an amazing pair of brothers John and Nat Herreshoff were. John or J.B. became totally blind at 15 and his younger brother, Nat became his eyes. Nat was an inventive lad and the two of them soon became the forerunners in yacht design. It is a truly amazing story and to see and walk through their designs is indescribable. We learned right off that we have been pronouncing their name wrong. The second “h” is silent. It is “Hares-off”.

The Americas Cup Hall of Fame is here as well and it was quite interesting to look at all the pictures and see the history of the oldest trophy in the world.

Bristol is a beautiful town, everything that you might expect in a New England small town. If it quits raining today (Monday) we’ll get to see more.

Photos of the museums and Bristol are in the gallery.