Westport CT to Port Washington NY


Tomorrow is supposed to be a bad day for boating.  Rain, wind (20+mph).  Today was beautiful (5mph wind, cloudy) so we decided to get back close to the city and find a mooring ball or marina that would take us.

That's a little more difficult than one would think.  This is still pre-season and most marinas aren't open .... And those that are want $3-15 a foot for a slip.    Needless to say we don't like paying $175-800 a night for a parking space ... So we won't.   

We first biked to Trader Joes this morning to get groceries.   Gordon Food Service was making a delivery.  A bit of home...  Back to the marina to fill with water, load the bikes and head toward the city ...

When we rounded the corner coming out of the islands near Norwalk we could already see the city faintly in the distance.  40+ miles away ...

After 20 minutes of cruising we heard the US Navy and Coast Guard make an announcement about activities they were doing north of Huntington Harbor..  well, we just happened to be north of Huntington Harbor.....so we looked off to our left (and then behind us) to see them practicing dropping sailors from a helicopter to a moving boat and picking them back off.  Crazy. 

As we cruised they crossed the sound repeatedly moving people between the vehicles at high speed.   No, not me... I wouldn't do anything like that even given then opportunity....

After they finished we started making calls looking for a marina with a mooring ball.   We really don't trust our anchor in a blow anymore and even if we get hooked really well we are leery of hooking an immovable object on the bottom here that will keep our anchor and require a hack saw to get free.  Not worth the risk.  

The best option after lots of calls was to stop back at Port Washington NY where we were just under a week ago.   It's an easy reach from the city, protected, and has mooring balls that are really nice in a protected harbor.   Best of all they are free for the first night ...so $35 for two days.   Score!

We ran into town with the dinghy and stocked up on a few more things (that wouldn't fit on the bikes or weren't available at Trader Joe's- ie: Diet Coke).   Temps are dropping and the weather is a changing.  Time to hunker down for 36 hours again...  Saturday we intend to move again...

32 decent miles today...  No big waves except a few wakes.   We even had the tide pushing us for two thirds of the day....  Tides are so interesting. The water goes up and down seven to eight feet here every 6-8 hours and if you go the right direction and the right time you can really get moving without too much fuel....   It's not like HellGate was....  We will see that again on Saturday ..  and hopefully be going the same direction as the tide...



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