Good Morning from Thompson Bay Long Island
We played around with web sites on Friday experimenting with what might work better with slow connections. Both Sailblogs.com and Blogger.com work allow posting via email. Sailblogs is geared more towards boating logs and has a very clean interface. The only drawback is a $50 annual fee to allow email posting. The basic package is free. Blogger appears to be owned by Google and also allows posting by email. It is free, but doesn’t seem to support posting images via email. We only touched the surface of the program. bit were able to post a blog entry using the ham radio. The site is at: http://svIntuition.blogspot.com
Although it wasn’t calm enough to go swimming in the afternoon, we did let the wind blow the dinghy to shore to go for a hike across Stocking Island. Wayne and Jill joined us from Born to Cruise. A well cleared trail led through palmettos over the ridge to the sound side. Noah played in the surf and we found some small, but nice shells. Jill told us about searching for sea beans. These are plant seeds that have floated across the Atlantic from Africa. When polished, they make attractive jewelry.
Saturday morning dawned with a forecast for lessening winds and a small window opened for exploring further. Born to Cruise suggested Thompson Bay on Long Island as a good shelter for the predicted 25-30 kt winds coming on Monday. With 329 boats reported in the morning’s Georgetown boat count, we were ready to head for less crowded anchorages. We prepped the boat and commenced pulling the anchor. Apparently we had been in our spot too long since it took us twenty minutes to break the anchor out of the bottom.
Underway by 1000 we headed down the harbor skirting the reefs marked with floating pvc pipes topped with traffic cones. The boat moved nicely through the water hitting over seven and a half knots. Glad we cleaned the bottom last week. Motoring with the staysail out Fowl Cay cut, the seas were 4-5 feet and fairly closely spaced bouncing us around a bit. The wind cooperated and we deployed the Genoa and headed southeast. Noah got in some good feet dunkin’ on the leeward rail.
At 1239 we crossed the magical line depicting the Tropic of Cancer — we are in the Tropics! The water shallowed to 15 feet, the winds calmed and the seas subsided to only about one foot. We could see big red starfish on the bottom through the crystal clear water. Had a good photo session underway with both crews taking pictures of each other taking pictures. At 1515 “The Pink House” on shore called the approaching boats on the VHF and welcomed us to Long Island offering assurance that there was plenty of room left to anchor in Thompson’s Bay.
Rounding Indian Head, we entered Thompson’s Bay. The rocks around the head look like they may contain some interesting caves. Surprisingly, the water became cloudy and even in seven feet of water we lost sight of the bottom. At 1608 we had 90 feet of chain in the water and were swinging in the calm waters just off Salt Pond, Long Island. We dropped the dinghy and went over to check the anchor through the viewing window with no luck. We couldn’t even see Born to Cruise’s anchor and they were in only five feet. The charts report clay on the bottom, so that may be a contributor to the poor water clarity. It felt good to be in a big harbor with only 24 other boats.
After dinner we motored over to Born to Cruise and enjoyed the spaciousness of their 40′ catamaran salon to play a couple rounds of Quiddler. Noah teamed up with me for the first round and came up with some good words. For the second round Noah went off to read Harry Potter and I didn’t do as well. Beth was the winner of both rounds. The bay was calm as we motored back to Intuition at 9:20 pm, well after “Cruiser’s Midnight”.
The winds picked up as predicted after the real midnight and are blowing about twenty this morning. The bay offers good protection from these NW winds. They are supposed to pick up to 25-30 and shift closer to North this afternoon. The bay should offer even better protection from that direction, so we should be fine. We’re looking forward to exploring the Island over the next few days. The Atlantic side beaches are supposed to be uncrowded with good spots for snorkeling and shelling.