Headed Home

[5th Tuition]

Unhooked the mooring ball at M.V. at 5am and headed back toward Maryland. Our goal today was to either make a short run to Block Island, or a longer run to New London. The weather and tides would determine the final destination for the day. What gorgeous weather. We heard about the “hot” spell sweeping across Maryland. I believe they said there was a heat index of 105*. Our high was 82* with hardly any wind, and a favorable tide.
Now anyone who knows me knows I’m not a sailor. When I want tidal information, it’s for fishing. However, sailors are constantly checking the tides in hopes to squeak out another 4 tenths of a knot on their speed. Our “normal” speed was 6 knots; with a following tide, we could make 6.4 or a speedy 6.8 knots.
Now I know you are thinking, “What about the sails?” Well; we rarely put out a sail because either the wind was off our bow, or even when we had wind off our amidships or stern, it was very light. This was ok with me; a straight line under power should get me home quicker than “tacking” all over Block Island Sound and Long Island Sound. There were a few times we put out the “Jenny”, but either the wind would die or shift to an unfavorable direction.
Before I left on the trip, I looked online for a solar charger for my iPhone. I eventually decided against purchasing one because I wasn’t sure how long it would take to recharge. It turns out that I didn’t need it. The Pastor’s boat had an “inverted” that converted his 12 volt system to 110 for my phone charger. However; Ed did buy a solar charger and it fried his android phone (bummer). Even the Verizon Wireless stores in Port Jefferson couldn’t get it operational.
This meant that my phone did double duty on the trip. I used the “Sea Tow” app to check tides and weather radar. I really like the app because it uses your location (based on the gps built into your phone) to give you more precise information. It also not only gives you a written tide table, but if you turn your phone sideways, it gives you a graph of the tide and a vertical line showing where you are on the tide graph. From this, you can tell if you are having a big incoming or a small incoming as well.
The good weather allowed us to make good time, and we blew past Block Island and headed to New London for our first layover.

Next; we take someone’s mooring by mistake 