We departed from Westbrook, CT at 0645 hours just before sunrise and the winds were basically non-existent… the forecast was for 10-15 knots winds out of the NW increasing to 15-20 knots… seas 2-3 feet… figured it would not be too bad as the trip would in a westerly direction all day and we could stay closer to CT southern shoreline and more in the lee of the NW winds… sadly but not surprisingly the forecast was wrong… the winds started to pick up and by 0730 we had 15 knot winds out of the west… directly on our bow and the current was flooding… which had it moving in the opposite direction of the wind… this makes for some short and steep waves… very rough ride!

The ride was rough but at least we had the current with us giving us a slight boost… but this soon was lost as the winds picked up to a steady 25 knots by 0900 hours and what boost we were getting was taken away by the wave action… we soon were moving at between 4.5 and 5.5 knots… at times I saw the speed below 4 knots and we were pounding in the waves… decided to try and ease the ride and we began to tack back and forth across our desired path… this helped somewhat eliminating the hard pounding but the waves were still 4-6 feet with some large rouges every few minutes… the spray was flying over the top of the pilothouse… that makes it flying over 20 feet in the air… the pilothouse windows were being continually hit with the spray as if someone had a fire hose pointed at them… and we only had another 8-9 hours to go…. :)

As the afternoon hours came upon us we wer now getting gusts to over 30 knots… only good thing was that the current had switched from flood to ebb making the current and wind in the same direction… the waves remained at 4-6 but they were now not as steep and close together and the ride got a little better… and as we moved to the west we were also moving closer and closer to the west end of Long Island Sound and some bit of a break in the wind and waves… by about 1700 hours things had actually smoothed down to a very tolerable ride… but we now had a full ebb current against us so we were still only making 5 knots… :(

The thing that I will never get over wondering “why” is… we passed a lot of small recreational fishing boats… they were bouncing up and down like small corks… why do these people put themselves through this just to “fish”…

At approximately 1830 hours we were safely docked at the North Minneford Yacht Club on City Island, NY. We had traveled for 11 hours and 45 minutes covering 66.18 nautical miles averaging 5.63 knots.

Trip totals to date:

Distance: 135.74 nautical miles
Hours: 22 hours 41 minures
Avg Spd: 5.98 knots

We left this morning at 0723 hours on our return trip to Florida from Rhode Island. This leg of the tip was pretty uneventful… we had 10-15 knot winds out of the SW which really did not have any effect on us until we turned to the west at Point Judith… then we had a little chop… 1-2 waves that did nothing more than let us know we were on a boat…. Up until then it had been flat calm. We had the current running with us also up until this point and that also changed. We now had a strong current on out bow that lasted until just past Fisher Island where the curret changed to push us along… sometimes we were doing over 9 knots… it was great to have this push from the current.

We are running a little slower on this trip south to try and conserve some fuel… diesel at almost $4.00 a gallon is a great motivation to slow things down. Our normal crusingin speed is 7 - 7.5 knots… we have slowed that to 6.5 knots this trip dropping the RPM down to 2200 compared to 2750… should save on the fuel… we’ll see as the trip progresses.

We arrived to Westbrook, CT and were met by Susan’s brother George and a long time family friend John Kroner at the Brewers Pilots Point Marina. They helped us with the lines and we were safely docked at approximately 1819 hours.

We traveled 69.56 nautical miles in 10.56 hours for an average speed of 6.36 knots.

We departed from Fishers Island at 0900 and continued on what would be the last day of our journey from Florida to Rhode Island... it was another gloomy day and we did not see the sun all day… we had current running with us all day which helps make a gloomy day a little better… the only down side of the day was that the wind picked up a little from the SE and made the ride a little bumpy but nothing that was unpleasant. BUT IT WAS COLD!!! Low 50’s when we left and it did not get much warmer all day… what was surprising to me was the number of people out on the water… we must of seen 50 plus boats during the trip… they all appeared to be fishing… sitting bundled up holding their rod and reels… way too cold for fishing in my opinion.

The day was uneventful and we arrived to Warwick at 1500 and docked at Brewer Greenwich Bay Marina located in the NW corner of Greenwich Bay… N41°41.087', W071°26.816'. We will be here about two weeks as we prep the boat for our summer on Block Island.

Today we traveled for 6 hours covering 47 nautical miles averaging 7.8 knots. This was the last day of our trip from Florida to Rhode Island… we traveled 27 days covering 1433.66 nautical miles (1650 miles) for an average of 53.1 nautical miles (61 miles) per day.