Arriving early at Guildford Yacht Club yesterday allowed us to complete a few tasks on the boat as well as SAILS got a nice hose down to wash the salt off from the first two days of cruising. We spent a wonderful evening with Don and Beryl Gillette… fantastic dinner and a lot of catching up…. Had been a year since we had last visited them… it was very nice. Thanks Don and Beryl for an awesome evening!

When we arrived to Guildford yesterday we came in at about an hour after low tide and the channel was very shallow so we opted to depart today about 2 hours after low tide to give a little more leeway in the channel. We departed at 0920 hours and the depth sounder worked the entire way out of the channel… hate when it says 5.0 and starts flashing… meaning it is less than 5 feet deep… we draw 4 foot 8 inches so it’s a little nerve racking when this happens.

Forecast for the say was for SE winds 5-10 knots with seas less than 1 foot… it was fairly accurate today and we had a very pleasant cruise. We also had a great boost to our speed from the flood current today… 8 knots for quite a while. Saw a lot more boats moving about today than we have the last 3 days combined. A few commercial ships moving in and out of New Haven, CT… saw Ferries coming and going from CT to NY at Port Jefferson and dozens of people out fishing in all size boats. It was a great day… sunny and much warmer than it has been.

Forecast for tonight and Friday is for higher winds and rain as a front moves across the area… so we decided to pull in to Oyster Bay, NY to wait as the front passes over. We have anchored here in the past a few times and it is well sheltered from wind in all directions… it will be a good place to stay for tonight and Friday.

We anchored at approximately 1640 hours at N40°52.850’, W073°32.314’. We are just off of a boat ramp that makes a great spot to go ashore and walk Beecha. It is adjacent to a public park and beach.

We traveled today for 7 hours and 20 minutes covering 49.24 nautical miles averaging 6.72 knots.

We had and uneventful evening at Pilots Point Marina... there was a little noise coming from the barge we had to squeeze by when we arrived. The barge crew worked dredging all night long... but with the cold weather windows were closed and we were far enough away that the noise was not disturbing.

We departed at approximately 0630 hours and had to squeeze by the barge blocking the channel... the crew was still working and they hailed us and offered to moved the barge so we could pass... told them we came past yesterday and unless they had moved things since then we would be able to make it... the tide was slightly higher than when we arrived so we had more room to pass... deeper and wider.

We were soon out into Long Island Sound and heading south... well I call it south but actually going west.... south is our ultimate direction. We saw several boats also heading "south" and they appeared to be cruisers like us heading to warmer weather for the winter. Forecast for today was NW winds 5-10 knots with seas less than 1 foot... not far for us to travel though as we were headed for Guildford, CT so we could visit a very dear friend of ours.... Don Gillette who lives in Guildford, CT now.

We arrived to the Guildford Yacht Club at approximately 0830 hours and docked... N41º16.206', W072º40.714'.

We traveled for 2 hours covering 11.34 nautical miles averaging 5.67 knots.

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.