On the move again

We spent 3 nights in lovely Essex CT, moored in front of Essex Yacht Club. After Monday's iPhone debacle, Tuesday was spent with my sister-in-law Connie. After lunch aboard Spray we went to the ATT store in nearby Old Saybrook and did a deal where I now have a 3G Aircard for my laptop computer,and a basic flip-phone for calls. Connie had to run to L.I. to visit her mother but my sister Marsha and her husband Dennis drove down for supper at the Black Seal in Essex (thanks guys!).

Wednesday started rainy and ended very windy, so cruising was postponed. Instead some boat chores, a few long walks around Essex (how can a 1 qt dog like Riggs pee out 2 qts of markers?), and finished with Connie picking us up for a hot shower and laundry, then a great Italian meal at Cafe Allegre in Madison (Grazie Connie).

Wednesday's big wind lasted all night and into this morning, so Riggs and I decided to delay departure until mid-day to allow things to calm down in L.I. Sound. The morning was productive in that I finally installed a depthfinder in the lower (salon) helm station. I tried something tricky which was to splice both upper and lower depthfinder cables to the same sonar transducer, with an on-off-on power switch that ensures that only one depthfinder is powered at a given time. Amazingly, it works pretty slick.

The bad side of waiting until mid-day to leave Essex is that we had to fight 1-2 knots of incoming current as we went down the CT river, and then had to fight a knot of east-flowing tidal current as we headed west in L.I. Sound. Spray is slow enough already. The good side of waiting is that the waves from the big winds of Wednesday had a chance to subside somewhat. It was a bit rough but the waves were on our nose and we only went about 15 miles to our present anchorage in Joshua Cove, just west of Guilford, CT. We're protected from the (dimishing) NW wind but there is still some 1 ft. rollers from the SW that are gonna make this a rolly night. Spray is the only boat in this large anchorage and we're surrounded by beautiful homes.

Tomorrow we'll get an early start, crossing the Sound with a destination of Northport Harbor, the body of water I grew-up on (well not actually grew-up but you get the idea).