"Girl"noculars and "Boy"noculars

When we arrived in Jamestown at the Clark’s Boat Yard mooring in a driving rain, we thought we saw a yellowish lobster trap buoy about 30 ft from our boat. Then, it was gone. Where did it go? We reported the sighting to the owner and the harbormaster. We all arranged for a diver to come out to the boat and inspect. Yep, there it was on the bottom, but with no painter line. We must have cut it with our spurs on the shafts—designed for such events. Or, what we saw was already afloat and cruising by at that moment. Sam, the diver, ripped open the cage so no crustacean would get caught and starve to death. He also did an inspection of our hull and all was good (paint, no barnacles) with the exception of a shaft zinc anode that was loose. So, we had him replace it. (These zincs are placed on metal parts of the boat that are under water to protect those metal parts from electrolysis.)

We were in good company in Newport. This cruise liner was there and left the day before us. We are continually amazed at the size.

Yesterday, we cruised from Jamestown RI in Narragansett Bay to Montauk NY on the eastern tip of Long Island. We had a very nice cruise and due to the currents and winds, we averaged 7.1 knots using only 1500 RPM. We timed the notorious currents around the tip of Montauk well and arrived with little or none. We anchored in Montauk Lake in 12 ft of calm water. Needless to say, we got some good “ZZZZ’s” last night. We dingied to town and walked around among all the restaurants and shops. We spent most of our time there at Gossmans, a compound of restaurants and shops and a fresh fish market. Norm tried to make contact with a friend of our friend Roy Adler (from Annapolis), but could not get an answer on the VHF radio. Very unusual since this guy has a Sea Tow franchise up here. However, it is very “dead” up here now that the season is over. While the restaurants and resorts still seem to be open, we saw very little auto and people traffic. We had the whole town to ourselves.
We also got a tour of the Montauk Coast Guard Station – very cool – went on two boats - a small red one we see often on the water and one of the all-aluminum self-righting cutters The cutter is designed to right itself if by chance it rolls over. Occupants sit on seats that are mounted on air springs so they’re not jarred by the waves (hey- we could use that!) and they are strapped in like they’re in a fighter plane.Yesterday’s cruise was the first opportunity to use our new binoculars. They are fabulous – the automatic focus feature is ultra convenient. The ‘girl’noculars are now distinguished from the ‘boy’noculars by orange polka-dot ribbons attached to either side – very pretty.