As more and more boats came into Block Island for Race Week, we headed north. The wind was on our back and we had the most lovely run, first by spinnaker and then wing on wing. It all made up for the lousy need to motor the first part of our trip.
We had never been north of Newport by boat, but decided to try Bristol for a couple of reasons: Trip has family in the area and we also had friends from Boston coming to visit. Bristol turned out to be the perfect spot. They have a maritime center right on the waterfront with free wifi, clean showers, and cheap laundry. The Harbormaster was incredibly informative. A nice little town with lots of historic buildings, parks, restaurants, shops – a great spot to walk around and enjoy time ashore. Trip’s family: Mark, Minda and Britt met us in town for dinner at a local pub and it was a blast to catch up with them over an early dinner. Britt was kind enough to lend us her car to run local errands and re-provision.
One day we decided to head down to the waterfront Herreshoff museum – home to designs and boats of one of the US’ most famous sailboat designers. This is the kind of place that sailors can wander through and study details for hours on end.
When we were done with the museum we decided we had enough time to try out the 14 mile paved path from Bristol to East Providence. We had brought a folding bike and rolling blades ashore, or so I thought. To my chagrin, and a tad embarrassment (when two local fishermen witnessed this), I pulled ski boots out of the bag rather than my rollerblades (coincidentally made by the same manufacturer and looked the same from the top of the bag when I packed). Trip wound up going biking by himself, while I sulked off to the maritime center and made myself feel better watching cheesy reality TV on the free wifi.
It turns out Trip had a problem with the bike, as it wouldn’t smoothly switch gears. I had had this problem last summer and he thought he had fixed it but no such luck. To make matters worse, when we got back to the boat the batteries (despite full sun for solar and wind for the wind gen) indicated that they were not charging properly. Don’t forget our broken fridge that constantly needed more ice as the temperatures climbed. Trip attacked the bike first, and got the gears fixed while I hid the ski boots in a dark hole to be found and put away in the fall. Next he synched up the battery display and cleared up the battery charging issue. Finally, he got a hold of a marine fridge technician and made arrangements for us to bring the boat in for inspection the following week. Suddenly things didn’t seem so bad.
There aren’t alot of restaurants in Bristol, but the ones that we visited had really good food. Top of our list was the Hope Diner. Belly up to the counter and sit and wait patiently for home made chorizo hash and eggs. I wound up sitting next to a local fisherman who filled me in on the local industry. Bristol is more of an oyster farm as they seed the beds right in the harbor (and they are fanatical about boats not dumping waste overboard – free pumpout docks and boats available everywhere). However, there are a couple of commericial fishing boats in the harbor and it is still a viable career (probably since it’s not all huge industrial boats like you see in most harbors).
The wind kept fluctuating between none and too much, so we didn’t do any day sails while in Bristol, but we did get Britt one afternoon and Mark and Minda another out for cocktails onboard.
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