Greetings from Block Island!

A beautiful sunset view from our boat last night!

Hi guys! This is Ann and I’m typing this blog entry on the computer. Bob’s been sending those other short messages as text messages from the cell phone but I’ve finally gotten on the computer and can type out my own message which, of course, has much more detail. LOL!! We’ve made it to beautiful Block Island! It was a slow start to the trip with thunderstorms on Sunday so we sat in Lloyd Harbor for an hour or so and ate dinner while we waited for a predicted thunderstorm to come through – but it never did. We then left and headed for Port Jefferson and had thunderstorms behind us the whole way. We were on the mooring just as it really started to rain and we spent our first night of our vacation dealing with the various leaks we have. GRRR!! That was frustrating!

The second day seemed pretty nice so we headed out of Port Jeff and were heading to Fisher’s Island but it was pretty rough and everyone was feeling kind of queezy so I asked Bob (well, not really asked but whined and complained) if we could do something other than deal with this for 8 hours and he turned the boat around and headed us back to Port Jeff. We spent a bit of time there waiting things out and finally left a bit later and the seas were better and we were now heading to Mattituck rather than Fisher’s so it would be a lot less time. Mattituck turned out to be really nice. It’s a long way up the creek but then there’s a beautiful anchorage up at the end that was so quiet and we had a wonderful night’s sleep.

From Mattituck, we headed out first thing (to travel at high tide since there can be lots of shoals in the creek and our draft is 6 feet 8 inches deep) and were in Block Island in just 6 hours, which meant we averaged 8 miles an hour! The current really worked with us in this so we were in Block before 3. Bob was so happy to get here since it’s one of his favorite destinations and we weren’t able to make it here last year because of his broken foot. Town is a mile and a half from where we stay so there was no way to do that on crutches – but now it shouldn’t be too bad for him.

We went to the beach today and had a wonderful time. Robby had fun running in the waves, Joanna loved the waves too but also loved playing in the sand and Lauren and Nicole had a ball on the boogie boards that were loaned to us by another boater. We spent the late afternoon just hanging around the boat and relaxing and now, after dinner and dessert (the rest of the blueberry pie we bought from Aldo’s last night), we’re all settling down for the night. For those of you who don’t know Block Island and what Aldo’s is, Aldo’s seems to own many of the businesses on the island. One of the best ones is a small boat that goes around the harbor a few times a day with the gentleman calling out “Andiamo!! Andiamo!! Andiamo!!!” and selling all sorts of baked goods. We caught him the first afternoon and picked up a fresh loaf of sourdough bread and he convinced us to get the blueberry pie that turned out to be fabulous and worth every penny. In the morning, he has all kinds of danishes, cakes, rolls, fresh coffee and the newspaper, and in the afternoon, he has ice, breads and desserts. Yum!! It can be costly to have him come to the boat but, OH, so worth it!!

The weather has turned absolutely beautiful with temps in the high 70’s to around 80 or so and, because of all of our super-high temps that we’ve had in the last month, the water is quite warm! I can’t believe that we left on Sunday in that terrible heat (94 degrees and super humid) and now it’s been actually chilly at night! What a pleasure, especially since I can’t stand that kind of heat. I just hope it holds out well for us and that we can enjoy this trip fully. J