A Week of Encores
- sondrawinter
- Aug 17
- 4 min read
Thursday, August 7 through Thursday, August 14
53 nautical miles (NM) / 61 statute miles
We began our westward trek towards New York when we left Marthas Vineyard and headed back to Cuttyhunk where we met someone who has sailed on Utopia before we owned her. We also revisited Newport where the post office service is way better than the UPS store, and then Block Island this week where we had pizza delivered to the boat.
Cuttyhunk, MA
Thursday, August 7 – Sunday August 10
Cannot say it enough, we adore Cuttyhunk Island and its laid-back atmosphere. On our second trip here, we spent our visit pretty much doing what we did last time: walking the trails and roads, sitting at a beach, and eating at Sopranos.
Thanks to Baxter attracting a lot of attention, we met a few other cruisers during our stay here. He has been a great icebreaker.
Utopia has also led us to meet other cruisers. On our first visit to Cuttyhunk, a couple stopped by who own on a 47’ Caliber. Then on this return visit, we met someone who has sailed on Utopia! Bill and Amy used to own a Calber sailboat and were friends with Frank and Diane, the prior owners of Utopia. Bill flew out to Aruba to help Frank sail Utopia to Columbia. With Frank and Diane’s extensive sailing while on Utopia, I half expected someone to recognize Utopia from their former travels, but to meet someone who did a big passage on her was really special.
Newport, RI
Sunday, August 10 – Tuesday, August 12
27 NM
We left Cuttyhunk in mild winds but were gifted with just enough wind to move us along at 5 knots for three hours on our return to Newport. As we approached Newport there were many people out for a pretty Sunday sail.
AIS & VHF
After cruising in areas where a lot of people have AIS transponders, it is interesting to be back in an area with mostly local traffic, thus no need for an AIS transponder. We have noticed that probably only about a third of boats are transmitting around here. So, instead of calling out a boat by its name on the VHF, we need to attempt to describe the boat, for instance “White sport fishing boat on Block Island Sound near Endeavor Shoals, this is Utopia”. Sometimes you will just hear a vague call like “white sailboat, this is the white sailboat on your port bow”. This will cause us to look around and wonder if we are the sailboat being hailed.
Stand-On & Give-way Vessels
In general, it appears that people up here, whether on sail or power boats, have a strong knowledge of the rules. This makes boating much more enjoyable. It’s been a long time since we were under sail power alone with so many other sailboats around. I am very glad for my boat racing experience during my early sailing days to have engrained “right-of-way” rules to be more instinctual. Our ASA courses also helped me remember the rules, in addition, I will occasionally review the rules just to stay refreshed. A few miles outside of Newport, there was a sailboat was heading straight towards us. Since we were on a port tack, and the other sailboat on a starboard tack, I am required to “give-way”, meaning to get out of their way, since the starboard-tack sailboat is the “stand-on” vessel, also known as the boat with right-of-way. I took a chance that I could cross its bow without effecting its trajectory, and boy was it close. The other boat never flinched and held course. Although I think it was a close passing, but I suspect that they are probably used to even tighter crossings. I admit that they were on AIS and neither one of us bothered to hail each other.
Returning to Newport was neat after spending a week here previously, so it had a very familiar feel. This time we found a spot to drop the anchor between two mooring fields. Our time here was primarily filled with errands. So after a productive two-night stay, we weighed anchor to return to Block Island after picking up our last package from the post office.
We had three packages sent to the UPS Store, and one to the Post Office. One may be surprised to hear, but we had rude, expensive and poor service at the UPS store, and efficient, fast and friendly service at the post office. A bonus was that the post office was in a beautiful old building.
Block Island, RI
Tuesday, August 12 – Thursday August 14
26 NM
We met back up with Quest II in Block Island Tuesday afternoon, after accidentally sailing through a torpedo zone. We heard a military exercise taking place on Sunday, but the radio was quiet on our trip to Block Island. I am still not so sure if we were allowed to cross that zone. Perhaps I should do some research on “restricted zones” sometime.
On this return trip to Block Island, we revisited the farmers market and went a new-to-us beach with the extended crew of Quest II (they had family visiting). After Quest returned to the Newport area, we spent our time wandering the island and doing chores onboard Utopia. Oh, we met another sailing vessel named Utopia. This other Utopia is a Cabo Rico 45, and they have a cute terrier onboard. Like us, the boat came with the name Utopia upon purchase.
Our last night here we treated ourselves to boatside dinner from Aldo’s after jumping into the water and swimming around the boat.
We originally planned to stay longer here and do some hiking, which requires renting bikes to access the many trails on the island. However, the winds are looking great to move west again. This time we will sail to the state of New York!
Post 25-33
Read more about our furthest points reached to the north and east in last week’s post by following the link below under “Related Posts”
We finally posted a video about our stop in Solomons, MD and it is available here:
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