Sunday, July 12, 2015

New London CT

Tuesday, the 7th, our time at the marina was up and we had to move on.  We left the marina and sailed out of the bay and turned up into Long Island Sound.  Our destination for the night was Huntington Bay and then into North Port Bay.  When we arrived we moved around looking for a spot to anchor and finally picked one at the east edge of the bay off from the public beach.  In the morning we left North Port Bay and once into Huntington Bay we tried to sail out.  The winds were light until we got into the sound.  From there we had several choices of locations for the night.  We decided to make the run across the Sound to the Connecticut side.  The wind was almost directly behind us so we put up the spinnaker and had a great ride across to Stratford CT.  We tucked behind Charles Island to anchor.  It was not as protected as I like but it turned out fine.  In the morning we got a swell from the Sound and started rolling.  We pulled anchor and headed out of the anchorage just as it started to rain.  It turned out to be just a short shower.  The winds were light and variable so it turned out to be a motor trip.  Again we had several anchorages to choose from depending on how long we wanted to motor.  We finally made the decision to continue to Old Saybrook.  It brought us closer to New London for the next days trip and we were able to use one of the free mooring balls at North Cove Yacht Club.  We arrived just at high tide so we were able to get into the cove without touching the bottom.  Once we were tied up and relaxing we got to watch the bait fish swarm.  All over the cove the water was being churned up as the bigger fish were feeding on the smaller fish.  In the morning we had an early start to take advantage of the high tide and stopped at the the closest marina for fuel.  We had last bought fuel at in Norfolk VA.

We only had about fifteen miles to go on Friday to arrive at New London CT.  With the current and trying to sail all of the way it was a little longer but we were able to sail again.  Once withing range of the harbor entrance we got our instructions to the mooring ball.  While in the Bahamas we met Dan and Marcia on Cutting Class.  They live in Mystic and their yacht club has two mooring balls that are free to use for three days.  As their guests we are able to use the facilities.  They picked us up and gave us a tour of the area, a stop at the grocery store and then to their house to do a load of laundry and go over charts to learn their favorite spots in the area.  In the evening we joined them for the yacht clubs Friday night barbecue.

This is the weekend for New London's Sailfest so we took the dinghy up the river to check it out.  There were a lot of vendors and a carnival but the best was being able to go aboard the Armistad.  The ship is a replica of the original slave ship Armistad  and was used in the movie of the same name.  In the evening we joined several others from the yacht club for the fireworks display.

Sunday morning we went into the marina to get together with Chuck and Sandy from the yacht club to go over their cruising guides for the area.  While there we got invited to join some of the others on the beach on the other side of island next to us.  It was a short dinghy ride around and felt good to just sit on a beach, visit and get out into a cooling breeze.  This will be our last night on the mooring ball and will be moving again tomorrow.

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