Looking at the weather forecast for the next several days, we decided that if we were going to get to Block Island it had to be this morning - early this morning. Winds and seas were predicted to pick up in the afternoon, perhaps up to 30 knot gusts and 2-4 foot waves.So we got up at 5 AM to get ready to go and found very thick fog in the harbor. We had about a quarter-mile visibility, but hoped the fog would burn off as the sun came up more. We turned on the radar and headed out.
The first hour or so stayed quite foggy, but there were short periods of time when it lifted and I could see maybe a mile or two, but then it would close back in. The radar worked well, identifying unseen fishing boats, ferries and even crab pot floats at times. I even used it to find the navigation buoys which I couldn’t see in the fog.
As we were coming into the channel to Block Island, we could hear the fog horn and the bell on the buoy, but didn’t see anything until we were about 50 feet away from it. But, as soon as we entered the channel, the fog opened up, we could see for a couple of miles and even saw the sun for the first time today.
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| Elaine & Carol walking toward the East End lighthouse |
HERON (Dick & Carol) saw us come in and hailed us on the radio. When they are at their house here, they keep their boat on a mooring in the Great Salt Pond and invited us to raft up next to them. We caught up a bit, having not seen them since Norfolk, VA, then they invited us on a several-hour tour of the island. It’s a beautiful and varied island and it was nice to be introduced to it by people who have known it for decades.
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| HERON and IMPROV rafted in the Great Salt Pond |
We had cocktails and dinner together aboard HERON and talked about the possible activities the next few days. We really liked the part about going clamming tomorrow…
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