Newport with Family and Friends, Post 25-31

Newport, RI (Wednesday, July 23 to Thursday July 31)

0 nautical miles (NM) / 0 statute miles

This turned out to be a no-move week which means we get to know the town and put down light roots. 

Paying the Harbormaster for Mooring Ball

After we picked up the mooring ball Wednesday afternoon, and tidying the boat we went on our typical reconnaissance walk around the city to get our bearings.  Newport has multiple dingy docks and we picked the Newport Maritime Center as our first land fall. 

The Newport Maritime Center is a spot for sailors and cruisers to do laundry, take a shower and chat with other sailors.  It’s also in the center of the action of Newport so it’s a great spot to take a walk.

Newport has been a center for sailing since the Americas Cup race has been here multiple times in the past.  With that, there is a deep history of sailing and cruising. Also, as news to me, Newport is actually on an island (Aquidneck Island).

City of Newport Maritime Center

The downtown area was a remarkably busy place with a lot of tourists, even for a Wednesday afternoon. We walked through town then along a multi-use trail to Newport Marine Supply where we picked up supplies to install a flag halyard on the boat. Once we got back to the boat, we relaxed a bit and watched the parade of boats right adjacent to our mooring field and then had dinner on the boat. This has to be the busiest boat traffic area I have ever seen. 

Catching up with Hugh and Sylvia

Thursday was a day of chores and catching up with friends.  We started off doing some needed laundry at the Maritime Center in the morning and then after lunch on the boat we went to the Stop & Save to reprovision groceries.  It was pretty windy, so we had a very wet and choppy ride back to Utopia across the bay.  The highlight of the day was dinner with our friends Hugh and Sylvia.  We met these guys in the Berry Islands, Bahamas back in January.  They sail a Caliber 40 sailboat also and we had a great time catching up with them.

Family Time!

My sister Madelyn and brother-in-law Kevin arrived in Newport on Friday morning.  I was so happy to see them and give them a little glimpse of how we live full-time cruising.  My sister is highly active, and we started the morning doing the famous Newport Cliff Walk.  This is a trail along the eastern shore of Aquidneck Island and traverses many private properties and gives views of historic mansions and steep cliffs.  We did the entire walk which was about 3.3 miles and then we walked some more around town and through the neighborhood after lunch. It was a challenge keeping up with my sister but we did it!  Mid afternoon we escaped to their hotel for a few hours to wait out some rain and then proceeded to have dinner at an Irish pub.  Due to the wind, we did not make it out to the boat on the first day (we did not want to get them too wet on the first day). 

Having fun with my sister

On Saturday we rented some bikes and the four of us did a whirlwind tour of Newport in the morning, then after lunch we dinghied out to Utopia.  It was great having family on the boat, and we had a wonderful afternoon hanging out in the cockpit.  My sister is very inquisitive, and she had so many great questions about our lifestyle.  I think in another life she might have been a sailor. 

After our visit to Utopia, we proceeded to dinner (delicious meal at Pasta Beach) and then said our goodbyes afterwards since they needed to get up early for a flight on Sunday.  It was a great visit and am hopeful they will come again when we get down to the Bahamas or Caribbean next season. 

Boat Chores

Sunday and Monday (and a large part of Tuesday) was focused on boat projects with a little bit of entertainment tossed into the mix.  One of the things that broke on our passage from Chesapeake to Block Island was our rigid boom vang.  The boom vang (a Selden “Rodkicker”) helps with sail trim, and a rigid vang has the bonus of keeping the boom up when the sail is not raised.  There is a gas strut inside the rodkicker had apparently failed so I ordered a new one to be delivered to Newport on Monday.  To get the installation started, I wanted to go ahead and remove the old gas strut.  Long story short it did not come out and was apparently seized inside the housing.  I tried everything I could to get it to dislodge but could not get it done.  I needed to ruminate on this a bit, so we decided to go watch the new Superman movie after we made some water and did some more laundry.  I’ll tackle this on Monday.

Boat work on the mooring ball

On Monday I called many riggers in the area that might help me to extract the gas strut out of the rodkicker.  It was hard to get people to return calls for such a small potatoes job.  I had an epiphany, so I went to the UPS store to pick up the new gas strut and then went to Ace Hardware to pick up a thin metal rod.  Instead of trying to pull the strut out I put the rod into the other side of the rodkicker and hammered (push instead of pull) it out.  It came right out but the end cap to the old strut was broken.  I was devastated for a moment but then I realized there was a brand-new end cap still inside of the shipping package.  With that in hand I quickly installed the new strut, and we were back in business!

I also started the process of marking the length of our anchor chain since we are on a mooring ball and the chain is not being used when tied to a ball, and finished it on Tuesday. Now we will know how much chain we let out.

Other small projects on Tuesday were: going up the mast to install a flag halyard and defrosting the fridge.  We then went on a walk around Fort Adams and had dinner back on the boat.

Friend Reunion

Wednesday’s highlight was our buddy boat Quest 2 caught up with us again after we went ahead a couple of weeks back so we could be in Newport for my sister’s visit.  After we went to town in the morning to do some chores, we heard them coming into the harbor on the VHF.  They picked up a mooring ball right across the channel from us.  We now plan to travel to the same general area for the foreseeable future. It’s good to see Cam and Denise again! 

We had every intention of leaving on Thursday to travel east to Cuttyhunk, MA.  Unfortunately, there is a weather system coming late Thursday and the weather will be poor, and the wind will be high. What sealed this decision was that I called the Cuttyhunk Harbor Master to see what the chances were of our getting a mooring ball in their very protected interior harbor.  He indicated that due to upcoming festivities on the weekend and because of the incoming weather, picking up a vacant mooring ball on Thursday would be highly unlikely.  He also said anchoring in the outer harbor with the expected wind direction would be ill advised. 

So, we decided to stay put for a few more days (probably until Sunday morning). With that, we went on a little dinghy adventure with Cam and Denise and then had lunch. Afterwards we went back to our respective boats to hunker down for the weather.

Fun with Sondra, Denise and Cam

Hopefully in next week's post we will have left Newport, but you never know....

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Post 25-30

A link to last week's post is below, under "Related Posts"

Scenes from our ICW cruise into Norfolk are now available in this video: