Resuming the Westbound Trek, #25-35
- sondrawinter
- Aug 31
- 5 min read
Updated: Sep 7
Friday, August 22 through Thursday, August 28
62 nautical miles (NM) / 72 statute miles
Places Visited
New London, CT
Fishers Island, NY
Port Jefferson, NY
With beautiful weather following Hurricane Erin, we visited a submarine, a friend, and a quiet little island, watched sailing races, practiced docking to a moving target, and explored the Village of Port Jefferson on the big island.
New London, CT
Friday, August 22
Forecasts for Long Island Sound indicated that big seas would remain until mid-day Friday, so we decided to stay at the Burrs Marina Mooring Ball until Saturday morning. This extra day enabled us to enjoy the area and to visit with a friend on Friday since weather conditions were rather unpleasant on Wednesday and Thursday.
Following a morning doing laundry and a last-minute run to the grocery store, we drove our borrowed car over to the Submarine Force Library & Museum. There is a retired nuclear submarine (USS Nautilus) open for touring around in. Nautilus was in service from 1954 through 1980. She was built there on the Thames River and was the first commissioned nuclear-powered ship in the US Navy. In 1958 she crossed the North Pole. Five years after being decommissioned she was towed back to Connecticut.
Photos of Nautilus & her screws
The remainder of the afternoon was spent with a friend, Zeke, that we met on our Appalachian Trail hike last year. She and her husband encouraged us to reach out to them when we are in the Long Island Sound area. Since Hurricane Erin has Utopia making and unexpected detour to Connecticut, it turned out to be really special that Zeke and Steve lived only 20 minutes away. Their generously loaning a car to us was much appreciated too. In the evening, she drove all of us in her car back to New London where we enjoyed dinner at On the Waterside overlooking our mooring field.
New London to Fishers Island
Saturday, August 23
6.2 NM
With south winds predicted, it was time to leave our mooring ball to find some protection from the wind’s new direction, and Fishers Island had a nice spot for anchoring along their north shore. Utopia was slipped from the mooring ball around 8:30 a.m., and at 10:00 a.m. the anchor was settled in West Harbor of Fishers Island.
Fishers Island, NY
Saturday, August 23
Fishers Island Yacht Club allows dinghies to use their dock so we were able to visit the island by taking a walk into “town”. On our way back to the dinghy dock we talked to a yacht club member who was getting ready for the 2:00 p.m. summer race series. It turns out that the windward mark was close to Utopia, providing us cockpit entrainment in the afternoon. West Harbor was a nice single-night anchorage with lots birds flying around in a rather quiet setting situated for a great sunset view. We soaked in the low-key location knowing that from here on out we would most likely be in more urban settings.
FIYC, Windward race mark, Baxter on bird patrol
Fishers Island to Port Jefferson
Sunday, August 24
55 NM
After reviewing tides and currents for the area, we realized an early start would give us more positive current throughout the long day of travel. Therefore, the engine came on before 6:00 a.m. and we headed west, paralleling The Race and the north shore of Long Island.
By 8:00 a.m. the wind had picked up enough for us to shut off the engine. With the exception of one hour mid-day, the engine stayed off until it was time to turn into Port Jefferson just after 3:00 p.m., making for a wonderful sailing day. Currents were with us the majority of the day, and not being slowed down too much after they switched against us. The south winds with our west-south-west direction allowed us to sail on a port tack, close-hauled to close-reaching all day long.
With the engine on and sails dropped, we turned into the busy inlet of Port Jefferson to drop anchor shortly after 4:00 p.m., just west of the busy channel. It was a treat to end a long day after being on sail power alone. If we had done that trip with the engine on all day, we would felt much more fatigued at the end of the day.
Village of Port Jefferson, NY
Monday, August 25- Thursday, August 28
1.4 NM
Our anchorage was far from town, and most of the town docks charged fees for landing a dinghy, so we moved to a yacht club mooring ball close to town which also included access to a dinghy dock.
We stopped at the town's free pump out barge between the anchorage and the mooring ball. The barge is attached to a mooring ball so the barge swings with the wind. At first, I thought this would be a bonus to make it easier to dock into the wind. However, the barge was small, made of concrete and had metal handrails all the way around it. This arrangement made me a little nervous and we missed the dock on the first attempt with the help of the wind moving the barge away from Utopia. On our second attempt Jimmy tossed a line beneath the handrails to catch a cleat, allowing us to slowly drift to the barge. It turns out the pump was hand actuated and didn’t pull material from the tank very fast. Our holding tank has somewhere between a 70 and 110 gallon capacity, but we typically pump it when it has around 30 gallons, so once Jimmy was worn out after pumping a small percentage out of the tank we decided we could wait for the local pump out boat to come by our mooring ball later in the week (online sources said it only runs Friday through Sunday).
Port Jefferson is surrounded by high hills and some cliffs, creating a bowl around the harbor. The Village of Port Jefferson is served by ferry crossings from Connecticut all day long. Going for walks outside of the downtown area have provided us some great hill workouts, something we do not seen much of our cruising grounds to date.
The closest grocery store is about 2.5 miles from the port. As an opportunity for exercise we walked inland to see the grocery store and took the county bus back to the marina area. Uncle Giuseppe's is small grocery store chain with an incredible selection of Italian products. It was a fun side trip for us. The bus station was across the street, cost $2.25 per person to get back to the marina and ran on schedule.
Beach walk at Pirates Cove | Watching the ferry offload | Visiting a local brewery
We’ve been here for an extended period as we wait for another reunion with Quest II who is expected to arrive this afternoon (Thursday). The down time has been good for getting in the long walks, working and general housekeeping. Next week we hope to be sharing our joint experiences with the crew of Quest II.
Our most recent video is about sailing to Block Island from the Chesapeake:
Post # 25-35
Love your posts! I fall behind on reading sometimes, but they are always a joy when I get around to them! Please keep it up!