Long Island Sound - Heading west

As we had experienced a few days of wet and windy weather we were starting to get concerned about getting back south, so our hop back along the sound would be a quick one.  First day we left and it was chilly, we were wrapped and in thermals and ollies, as we manoeuvred out of the channel we were greeted by a large cruise ship arriving in Newport for the day, this would make 2 cruises hips which anchor out in the channel and ferry passengers ashore, it would be a busy day in Newport.

We had light SE winds which were making sailing a challenge; this continued through out the day with Mark trying various sail combinations to get us moving, we were glad we had the spinnaker.  So although a frustrating day we made over 50 miles and anchored in Duck Harbour, this would be as close to Connecticut as we would get and we never managed to get ashore.

Next day we had a leisurely start as we knew early in the day the tide running in Long Island Sound would be against us, so progress was again slow and a significant period was spent motoring.  We had been heading for Port Jefferson where we had stop previously but we made good time and managed to get a few miles west of our target and tucked in behind a small headland with some pretty house, this provided enough shelter peaceful night.

Peaceful anchorage

Look how calm

Our neighbours for the night

As we left the next morning the winds were light but the sea was rolly, it was short and choppy and kept knocking the little wind we had out of the sails, another frustrating day ahead!  Mark decided in was another spinnaker day and we had just enough wind to fill this without in collapsing, we were making slow progress.   

The dingy race on the horizon looked like they were making more of the wind than were able to.

All those white dots on the horizon are dingys

There are hundreds of them

It was slightly nicer than our first windlass day as we had sunshine and were actually able to wear our shorts! But with the heat and light winds comes the frustration of the flies, I think we have mentioned before how they seems to swarm in from nowhere – we are at least a mile off shore and them they proceed to bite you and it hurts! Out with the fly swat!

We motored into Port Washington as the wind had dropped off and we no longer had the patience to drift along at 2-3 knots, we wanted to get settled!  We rounded the Sands Point Headland which we have been told is now called Snapple Point as the guy who own Snapple (the drinks) built a huge house on the point.

Snapple House

We dropped anchor close to our previous spot, the buoys were a lot less busy with both visiting yachts and permanent boats, it was October and Autumn was rapidly approaching, you find in this area that many of the marinas actually close from 1st November so most boats are hauled out.