Sag Harbor 40°59.74’N, 072°17.37’W

The weekend held a fun sail with Patrick Nihan and Vikky. A forecast thunderstorm (and clearly visible on the weather radar) led to a delayed departure from Newport. Ultimately, we left at around 1pm and sailed and motor sailed in overcast, gusty conditions with a choppy sea to Block Island. The storm had passed once we were anchored in Great Salt Pond and we had a wild and shifting vista as the clouds and storm blew into the distance, and one of the better tandoori chickens I have cooked on the barbie!

Although Saturday was a rough day, by Sunday we had a nice NE 10-15 knt reaching breeze. Sunny weather, and a fast sail until abeam of Montauk Light, and this despite that we were fighting the current -- in fact all of Long Island Sound draining into the Atlantic ocean through an area known, quite appropriately, as The Race. My new crew seemed to have settled in by the end! (see photo of Vikky asleep on the bow motoring into Sag Harbor).

Pat and Vikky were great on the boat: intuitive and helpful, and very quick to learn the boat's many idiosyncrasies, although I'm a bit scared of Pat's rum & ginger ale concoction that he describes as 'spicy' but that I would describe as 'concentrate'!

We stopped at Ceder Point light for a swim. The water nearly 20C now, way above the 16C we saw at the start of the season, and incredibly, nearly 2C above the temp in Newport, only 52nm away in a direct line. Lovely! I had a dive on the hull: it looks okay, a bit of weed and a few barnacles on the prop - I gave them a brush, but they'll get a full work over next week.