July 20, 2011 Grindstone Island, NY

Lew had stopped over to review the route I planned to take to Grenadier Island. It worked its way through some narrow passages and he thought we may be better off taking a safer route through the shipping channel. After listening to the forecast, we decided to change our anchorage to a place more protected from a SW wind. High winds are forecast for tonight and especially for tomorrow afternoon, 15-25 knots with gusts to 40 knots. Not my favorite conditions.

We ended up on Grindstone Island, at an anchorage called Rusho Bay. It is really deep into the shore, then shallows quickly. It should be a good place to ride out high SW winds. The trip over was 7.5 miles and took 1 ½ hours. I made a little confused twice with navigation on the way over, which is a concern to me. It’s easy to get confused here, and one cannot get over confident. So far we have only touched the bottom in the mud at the Port Credit entrance channel.

I see weeds on Lew’s anchor chain so I hope the bottom is not too weedy. We are not dragging as I write this. It turns out that this island is in NY, so we reported in to American Customs and Border Patrol, and can get unlimited internet on Verizon now! No more wifi, for a while anyway. The officer did not realize we were American and told us we could only stay 72 hours without going to a video phone. I'm glad we could straighten that out.

Lew went out scouting for fish with his fish finder. He found some out in the main channel about 50 feet down. That's when Gretchen called him to come and re-anchor the boat as she thought the anchor was dragging and they were getting too close to us. I too thought it could be dragging, Lew thought it wasn't, but he re-anchored anyway, and got a big pile of seaweed to deal with on his anchor.

Dinner was on Excalibur. Kerry made a sausage, pepper and white rice dish. Gretchen brought cheese and a green and yellow bean dish. Poor Lew - he does not like white rice or green and yellow beans. Coffee finished the evening. Kerry and I sat out and watched the sunset until the mosquitoes indicated it was bed time.

It's Thursday the 21st now. The weather will be an issue today. It's going to be 96 with a heat index of 105, and winds of 20-25 knots with gusts to 40. Jim and Jola left at 6:00 this morning to join us at Alexandria Bay. It is very breezy already.