Providence --> Newport --> New Bedford (ball)

July 7

Staying another day in Providence we dinghied all the way into downtown, tying up to a wall that was the town dock. Using our scooters we made rounds at a flea market, did another escape room, then found a brewery to play Hanabi and had some beer.

Here's an embarrassing admission: We just accomplished an excellent escape, and had a great chat with the game's designer. We set the top record for the month in that room, and while the month was young, they were certain our number would stand all month. We missed the all-round best by 3 minutes. Having decided where we wanted a lunch we made our way back across the river. I took a look at our dinghies (and, man, I wished I'd taken a picture), the exclaimed, "We need to get to the dinghies!" Because both of them were dangling from the lines. Yep! The tide went out, nearly 2 feet, and those nicely snug lines now were binding our vessels nearly in mid-air. So, yeah. None of us (and there were four who boat as a lifestyle) took that into account. 

Remember that... it's gonna come back as a side note on the next day.

Best time of the month. Miss all time by 3 minutes.

Thought this was funny, and seen on our dinghy ride into Providence.
Pirate skeletons are boarding this house boat.

Gondola on the Providence River.

July 8

The weather was going to get ugly later in the week, so Monday and Tuesday are the only decent days to travel. Highwind's crew made a long day of it, and sped to New Bedford from Providence. We weren't against that but we had to stop in Jamestown to pick up a package (Amazon isn't as reliable as it was, and they delivered something I'd cancelled, so I felt pretty obligated to get it out of their hair). We decided to spend another night in Newport.

We started engines around 8 am, then headed for the dock to pump out and fill up on water. And that's when we realized we couldn't turn off our engines.

Usually, that screen...

...looks like this.

A long while ago Russ removed our hard switched an put in electronic ones. They've worked fine for years... until some update. In the small time we traveled from our ball to the dock the buttons vanished from the screen. We kept the engines running while we did the 2 tasks, then got underway. Russ spent the couple of hours trying to find some reason for the problem, but nothing was obvious. We restarted electronics, we played with settings, nada. 

Came time to get on a ball at Newport... and viola! They appeared.

Russ, bypassing the fuel filter on the dinghy

Putting that mystery on the back burner we lowered the dinghy and got ready to ride over the Jamestown. We'd just gotten out of the mooring field when the motor stopped. Just stopped. Checked fuel, checked lines, but it wasn't until Russ checked the fuel filter did he see the casing was cracked. Which let in air. Which kills the motor.  With me applying pressure by holding the line we got the motor going and headed back to inQuest. There Russ bypassed the fuel filter. And off we went to get my package.

Why did it crack? Remember that dangling on the wall incident? One of the ropes ran under the fuel line and must have applied enough pressure that the housing cracked. What's shocking is that the failure didn't occur on the ride back to the boats. Would have been handy then, as we'd have had a buddy boater to help with a tow, if needed.

Needless to say, between mystery buttons disappearing and dingy issues we didn't want to go into Newport. Hopefully, we'll hit it on the way back.

July 9

I was quite happy to see the electronic buttons bright and ready to go when it was time to get underway. The winds would come up this afternoon, so we wanted to get the 4-hour ride done before then. The buttons were the first hurdle to get the day going.

The second was the fog.

All day we had about 1/4 of a mile visibility. Not bad. We could see prop traps well enough before they were an issue. But we couldn't see a large research vessel pass by us as we left the channel. We knew they were there, we even chatted on the radio. But unsettling not to put eyes on something you know is quite close.

Foggy morning. Ran the fog horn all day long.

By the time we got through the hurricane gates into the New Bedford harbor the fog has lifted. As promised, the winds kicked up a few hours later.

Odds are we'll be here a while.