Friday, July 1, 1994 - Block Island, NY

Dead calm in the morning and foggy. Visibility about half a mile.
We motored for several hours, and then the breeze began stirring and the fog lifted, but there was still a lot of haze. The wind kept getting stronger and stronger. By afternoon, we were sailing nicely without the engine.
We needed a place to stay for the night. I suggested Block Island. Neither of us had ever been there, though we'd heard of it all our lives, so we headed in that direction. Without the GPS, we might never have found it. There was still so much haze that we couldn't see the island when we were two miles from it! But the GPS took us right to the entrance buoy. For once, we arrived at a good time. It was still daylight, so we had no problem entering the channel and finding a good place to anchor.
The harbor on block island is called Great Salt Pond. It's about a mile long and half a mile wide. What a forest of boats! There are well over a thousand boats anchored or moored here, mostly sailboats. Most of them anchor using rode (line) instead of chain. We, of course, use chain. We found a good spot to anchor in fifty feet of water. This is going to be a fun place to explore. We'll spend the whole weekend here.
I went to bed early and was fast asleep when BLAM! -- the whole boat shook. In all this vast harbor, some idiot had dropped anchor directly in front of us, using rode, and then had gone below without checking to be sure their anchor was holding. The anchor dragged, and their boat smashed right into ours. I was afraid it had damaged the prow that Roy had so carefully repaired, but luckily it hit the metal where the bow rollers are. Did more damage to their boat than to ours. I heard Roy yelling, "You're ramming our boat!" The woman said, "OK," in a cheery voice, as if it were nothing, but later Roy told me she did say, "I'm sorry."