Day 2 of our trip was much better than day 1... although it was not great.... forecast was for NW winds 10-15 knots with seas 3-5 feet... we decided to depart based on the fact that the NW winds would be from onshore and if ran along the coastline we would be sheltered from the wind and waves. We departed at 0800 hours and found the conditions to be acceptable. In fact the waves were not as large as predicted.

But as always the prediction for winds was way off... we did have 10-15 for about an hour but soon they were hitting 25 knots with gusts to over 30 knots.... luckily they were out of the NW so running close to the shore we were not getting a lot of wave height increase with the wind increase. We ran reasonably comfortable until Watch Hill Passage and the waves picked up...more from the opposed wind and current. We did not experience anything near what we had the first day.

We discussed how far we wanted to travel for the day... we had 4-5 hours to make it to Westbrook, CT... winds were still out of the NW and we could hug the shoreline... we had options to duck in along the entire trip... Noank, Mystic, New London, CT River... in case conditions worsened... we continued on staying as close to shore as we could. This made the trip a little longer than the straight path from Fishers Island to Westbrook but it was definitely a smoother ride. There were a few locations where we had to venture away from the shoreline that we experienced the effect the waves the NW winds were stirring up but these times were short-lived.

We did see a few more boats out on the water today... actual pleasure boaters rather than the commercial guys. They all seemed like local boaters rather than any cruisers out heading south for the winter. I think we may be starting later than most of the other cruisers that winter in the south.

We made it to Westbrook, CT at approximately 1700 hours and headed in the channel toward Brewer Pilots Pont Marina... as got to the end of the jetty we could see a large barge that appeared to be fully blocking the waterway adjacent to the fuel dock. Normally this waterway is 100-150 feet wide... it was dead low tide and there looked to be maybe 20-25 feet between the barge and the exposed mud bank. We approached slowly and there was enough width but was there enough depth... we crept forward... 3 feet o mud bank on port and 2 feet side of barge on starboard... water depth... 10 feet, 8 feet, 7 feet, 6 feet, 5 feet.... flashing 5 feet... depth sounder stopped reading it was below 5 feet.... we inched forward... finally the depth sounder came back to life.... 5 feet, 6 feet... and we were past the barge... I moved back out into the middle of channel.... 10-12 feet ... WHEW!

We found our slip and were securely docked at 1730 hours at Brewer Pilots Point Marina South Yard... N41º16.404', W072º28.165'.

Although the day was not the best it was still far better than our first day. We traveled for 9 hours and 30 minutes covering 50 nautical miles averaging 5.26 knots.