Cuttyhunk!

Well, we had intended to visit Bristol next and then stop at Newport on Sunday but the winds were predicted to gust to 20 kts on Saturday out of the south, a very bad direction for Bristol which is unprotected from that direction. We thought Greenwich Bay would be good but listening to the weather report (morning lies!) it appeared that the winds were really going to pick up over the next few days and if we wanted to sail out of Narragansett Bay without fighting huge seas, we had better do it soon.

With all that strategy in place we headed for Newport with the intention of leaving the next day, still with good weather. However, we discovered that this week is race week at Newport! There were hundreds of boats in town and not a mooring to be had, so much for our “strategy”. So what to do? We headed down the bay and looked at the wind, it was out of the southwest, perfect for sailing to Cuttyhunk – which is what we did, a four hour sail on the same tack!

We were unprepared for what we saw at Cuttyhunk. Not only were all the inside moorings taken, but all the outside moorings were taken too. We had intended to anchor out anyway in the outer harbor since it’s well protected in a southwest wind but there were a lot of anchored boats too ( I counted about 20)! Nevertheless, we found a spot and we’re snug for the night. You’ve got to be flexible when sailing, not bad advice in general.