Trip to Three Mile Harbor

We began the day in Block under grey skies with occasional rain. We
slipped our mooring at 6:30 and made our way out of the salt pond. The
winds were from the NE, so we needed to sail a course almost directly
downwind. We set just the jib and made good speed with a 15 knot
breeze behind us. The seas were a little rolly due to a mild swell.
The tide was favorable, giving us a one knot push most of the morning.
The breeze held up and we made around 6.5 knots all the way to
Gardiner's Island. There we gybed over to port and headed due south.
We expected the wind to die down and the waves to flatten in the lee
of Gardiner's, but in fact the winds built, the waves got bigger, and
we received a downpour that reduced our visibility to a quarter mile.
When we were 2 miles from the entrance to Three Mile Harbor the winds
hit 25 knots, so we decided to take in the jib entirely. In the action
of taking in the sail, the lazy sheet got away from us, and in all the
flogging it tangled with the working sheet. Fortunately, we were still
able to get the sail furled. We made the harbor entrance a half hour
later, and found a very peaceful anchorage. I untangled the jib sheets
and everything is well with the boat and crew.

The next problem we faced was to find a place to land the dinghy.
There is no public dock here, and the local marina wanted $125/night
to tie up the little boat! This really is the Hamptons, and they don't
want to encourage people like us to come here. We called on our
friends Cynthia and Clyde to see if they had any local connections,
and it turns out that Cynthia had a friend with a boat and they called
their marina (which is just a bit further into the harbor) and they
gave permission for us to tie up there. We had a nice dinner with our
friends, and now I am back on the boat, running the generator, while
Suzan stays on shore for the night. We plan to organize tomorrow so
that I won't have to come back to the boat so late, and then we can
both stay on shore..