Block Island, RI 18 August 2007

We came into Great Salt Pond a couple of days ago with hopes of being able to lay over for a "short" period of time until a front came through and head further east.

We had noticed some problems with boat speed coming down from Mystic so Gordon put on his face mask and dove down to check the propeller only to discover that we had snagged some line from a lobster pot along the way. We contacted Tow Boat US and fortunately they had a diver in the harbor that was dispatched within 30 minutes and we had the line cleared by late morning.

On the chart Great Salt Pond appears to be a good protected anchorage as it is completely land locked, but it is very large, about 1 mile in diameter, and only has protection from some low hills on the south side. Otherwise it is very exposed to winds from the west to the north.

The cold front with an associated high pressure system came through last night about 2:00 in the morning with winds that went from calm to gusts at over 35 knots in a few minutes. Even in this small harbor the waves can build significantly. Needless to say this kept us up most of the night with the engine running in case our anchor broke free. Quite a number of boats had problems and three or four large boats ended up on the beach. Tow Boat US and the Harbor Master had their hands full getting folks out of trouble in the dark. This harbor is notorious for these kinds of problems with weather systems. The wind finally calmed down around 10:30 this morning and were were able to get caught up on our sleep.

Now everything looks serene!!

We are planning on leaving tomorrow late morning and head to Sandy Hook, NJ. This is an over night trip of about 20 hours that should put us in mid morning on Monday. There is more poor weather coming up the coast and the promise of easterly winds on the New Jersey coast for a few days, so we will probably stay at a town call Atlantic Highlands through the following weekend at a minimum.