Stony Creek, CT - 3rd Visit

With Tropical Storm Henri approaching in 2-3 days we decided to cross Long Island Sound and begin heading west away from its expected path on Friday, August 20. After taking Archie in for one last lovely walk on Shelter Island, we pulled up anchor at 10:30.

Somewhat surprisingly, a children’s sailing class was out taking advantage of the brisk winds on the water. 

It was a beautiful clear day with perfect temperatures in the low 80’s.  Unfortunately, the tide was against us the whole way slowing our average speed from 7 knots to 5 and it took us an extra hour to arrive in the Thimble Islands at 4:30.  At times it became a little bumpy, enough that Archie lost his breakfast halfway through the cruise.

We had been discussing where we wanted to go to wait out the storm. Henri was due to hit eastern Long Island and New London (the exact two  locations we just came from) and the whole southeastern coast of Connecticut was under a watch.  So we decided to spend the day getting to the Thimble Islands and then proceed to City Island the following day which would take us away from the storm’s primary impact area.  Originally we thought we might stay in Stamford, CT for a night but we didn’t want to take a chance traveling to City Island on the following day since the weather would be deteriorating by then and we needed time to ready the boat for the storm.

After a long day on the water we arrived safely in the Thimble Islands and dropped anchor close to the mooring ball that we usually use.  It’s a little more complicated to tie up to it so we decided to skip that step as we would be leaving early the next day.  We quickly took the dinghy into little Stony Creek where people were busily pulling their boats out of the water in anticipation of the storm.

Upon our return to Zendo Jonny made arrangements for us to stay at two different yacht clubs in City Island so we could have a choice as to which would be the best location to ride out the storm.  He also spent a considerable amount of time trying to fix our freezer door which keeps falling off its hinge! He finally managed to fix it but it wasn’t easy.

I made pork tenderloin for dinner so that we would have enough for leftovers the following day.  We expected that we’d be too busy getting the boat ready for the storm that is due to hit on Sunday to cook dinner.  The rest of the evening was spent communicating our plans to worried friends and family.