5/11/16          Thursday          Pine Island, CT (mouth of Thames River, near New London)

A loooong, beautifully boring day of motoring. We did put up sails but the wind was so light and fluky it slowed us down rather than helped us. We bucked the current for several hours but were helped by the current more often than not. Calm, calm seas. Highest wind was 12 kts. Our boat barely sails with less than 15 kts.

Our buddies left before we got up this morning, knowing that we can travel faster than they. Starting 1 hour behind them we didn’t catch up until we both stopped at Branford River Yacht Club for fuel.

Hobbit House

On the way into the harbor this cute house on our port side has a rock foundation and "eyebrows" over the windows 

hardscaping

This house on our starboard side had amazing land/hard-scaping.

Gary and Jayne were staying there overnight in order to visit Jayne’s friend. They’ll start very early again tomorrow.

We continued so that our jumps these next two days of good weather will, hopefully, get us through the Cape Cod Canal and onto Duxbury, MA from wince our boat came. We want to stop and visit Dwight and his staff. I’m embracing this stop since David relented on the idea of maybe not going to Shelter Island or Mystic Seaport Museum. And it is supposed to rain, maybe storm over the weekend. We’ll have to look at that weather carefully. Not wanting to repeat a Scituate experience from 2 years ago.

Waters were choppy at the mouths of the 2 big rivers - Conn and Thames - but otherwise calm. We pulled into an anchorage at Pine Island hoping to pick one of two reported guest moorings. Couldn't find them, perhaps not yet in the water for "the season." Couldn't get our anchor to hold so "borrowed" a good looking mooring for the night. Great light show at the airport when a plane took off after dark. Runway lit with row of red, row of yellow and row of green lights and a white "chasser" light. Whoa! We must be near big deal civilization. Quick sleep again tonight.