Leaving Block Island (and the USA)

 Our last sight of US land for a while

06/13/02

    This is the day!  I had a great night’s sleep, sleeping over 12 hours.  It was a bit cold, and it was necessary for me to get out the sleeping bag.  I got up at 0630, before anyone else, and read the New York Times Science Section for a while.  This was our last newspaper for quite a while.  Everyone else was up by 0700, and we had coffee and raisin bran for breakfast.  About 0800, we called Champlin’s Fuel Dock on the VHF to make sure they were open, then got ready to head over there to fill up on diesel fuel and fresh water, and use the head on shore (we avoid pooping on the boat when we are in the harbor).  We took on about 70 gallons of diesel and 200 gallons of water.  When we were pulling away from the dock, the fender board got stuck between the boat somehow and was pulled with such force that one of the lines broke.  This showed me what a heavy boat FIONA is.  When the fuel dock attendant asked me where we were off to, I replied matter-of-factly “Canary Islands”.  He seemed stunned at this, and didn’t know quite what to say.

    The rest of this day went without significant incident.  We started out with a  10 knot north wind, and were steering for just south of the Nantucket Shoals (formerly Nantucket Lightship) buoy.  After lunch we practiced reefing the main.  Later on, the wind changed to easterly and finally died altogether.  We started the engine at 1930.  As we were in the shipping lane, we needed to be very attentive to our surroundings.  We spotted several ships, both visually and on radar, but none passed close enough to be of concern.