By Rich

This weekend Lisa and I sailed around the southern end of Conanicut Island to take shelter in Dutch Harbor from Saturday night’s gale warning (the forecast was for gusts up to 35 knots from the east and a driving rain). We had a great sail to and from and enjoyed a blissfully calm anchorage Saturday evening. NOAA weather made good on its threats and the wind made quite a ruckus starting around 3 am but thankfully the island did an excellent job of sheltering us. We had a much better ‘ride’ on the mooring than we would have had on our seasonal mooring, which has little protection from strong easterly winds.

Saturday at sunrise one would never had believed what the weather was soon to bring.

We set the main at the mooring and then enjoyed a brief close reach out of the Narragansett Bay before jibing around and reaching back north again up to Dutch Harbor. We noticed almost no one out boating by the time we took our mooring at Dutch after enjoying a terrific sail.

Dutch Harbor is totally charming and very, very quiet. Everything you have read about the tacos at The Shack is true – they are the real deal.

For the balance of the afternoon we huddled under the dodger and at least one of us, who shall remain nameless, indulged first in rum and then scotch in the cockpit while taking in the views.

Below: a hot and delicious meal while listening to rain on the deck above.

Sunday morning the wind shifted back to the North, which is the only direction from which Dutch Harbor offers little protection. We enjoyed another leisurely breakfast then set the main again on the mooring and began a glorious sail home. The 20 knot northerly drove us dead downwind to the southern end of the island.

As we reached the ocean we encountered the significant swell left over from the wild winds.

We doused the pole, jibed, and put two reefs in the main before rolling out a reefed jib and beginning the beat back up north toward home.

So there you have it: this weekend we figured out how to make a weekend’s worth of lemonade out of some serious weather lemons.