We left Newport Monday morning planning to do an overnight heading to Manhasset Bay just on the edge of New York City.  The forecast for the day was southwest winds of 10-15 knots.  About an hour into our trip the winds were hovering around 20 knots gusting higher which had us bashing into big waves and making slow progress.  So time for a new plan...we'll make our way to New London Connecticut about 30 miles ahead and overnight there.  We found a mooring ball close to the entrance and John cooked another of his gourmet meals so all ended well.

It's now Tuesday and the big "plan" is to leave around noon and slowly make our way the 80 miles to Manhasset Bay arriving there first thing Wednesday morning so we had daylight to enter the bay.  As we motored along in a light wind and consulted the weatherman we decided we needed to get there as soon as we could.  So we sped up realizing we would be entering in the dark.  As we motored along we had great lightning storms going on around us so it was quite spectacular.  As seems to be our luck just as we are entering the bay it starts pouring with rain.  We had John up on the bow with the spotlight and in we came among all the moored boats and found a good mooring buoy...3:00 AM in the morning...good night.

We knew Wednesday and Thursday were going to be windy and wet but didn't realize quite how miserable it really was.  We took the water taxi into town, did our laundry, food shopping and found a West Marine.  As you may know I love West Marine and love to wander about looking at things .......well, I have found my addiction is nothing compared to John's.  I think he could spend the whole day there.  I'm sure he did about 20 rotations through the store.  I think he knows more about the store and what they carry than the store clerk!!!

Another gourmet meal on board as the rain pelted down.  Nice and cozy.

I woke up late this morning and found John with tools spread everywhere having a wonderful time repairing all the little things that need to be done on a boat.

Our plans for tomorrow, weather cooperating are to go through a small canal to the East River which borders Manhattan and fuel up before going out on the ocean.  The next segment of our trip takes us down the coast of New Jersey past Atlantic City and on to Norfolk Virginia.  It's about a two hundred mile trip so we can only do it if we have a two or three day good weather window as there are not many places to duck in and hide.

One thing about sailing from point A to point B on a sailboat is that you really can't have a schedule as you just have to take what the weather man sends you.  We are sure learning the truth of that!!