August in Newport

After dropping Bodhi and a car at Sail Newport this morning, Dan and I looped back to Portsmouth to restore the Puffster to her sailing conditions, reinstalling the canvas for the bimini we had taken off and attending to other storm preparations we'd made in anticipation of Isaiah's visit. We loaded up the boat with provisions, raised the main with a double reef, rolled out a scrap (maybe 30-percent) of jib and beat upwind in 18-19 knots of breeze criss-crossing the whitecapped bay, bobbing along in our well balanced boat while the wind whipped through before moderating to about 15 knots.

Along the way, a 100-foot motor yacht called Endless Fun notified mariners on Channel 16 that they had lost steering and engine power. When the Coast Guard inquired about the vessel's location, the mariner identified its location as "south of the Rhode Island Bridge," which led me to wonder why after 15 years in Rhode Island I had not come across this structure, that is, until Dan indicated that perhaps this... not fully competent individual (my words, not his)... did not know the name of the Newport Bridge -- a thought that was affirmed by the captain's assertion that he was in "Rhode Island Harbor."This reminded me of a true story my late and great uncle Tony Butler and my late great aunt Nancy once shared. When he was a boy, unhappy at his prestigious boarding school, his parents' response was "He's a fine boy in every way. What's wrong with that school?" And when Nancy shared her unhappiness at her similar school, the response was "What's wrong with you? That's a terrific school." I think it's fair to say that Dan's and my conditioning also informed our responses to mention of the "Rhode Island bridge" -- the turning inward of why don't I know of that? versus the turning outward of "maybe that guy is clueless."

As we approached Newport, we spotted a capsized 420 in a sailing class; a foiling moth that sped by us in a blur with just its blades slicing through the water, and five Lasers sailing downwind along the shore of Fort Adams, a fleet including Bodhi.

For dinner we had salmon sandwiches with chili lime mayo and green beans from our garden. For dessert, chocolate chip zucchini bread made from home along with, for the senior set, decaf coffee with a splash of Bailey's.

Tomorrow I will be returning home to Barrington for a day of work and then zooming back to the boat in the evening. With the chance of thundershowers in the forecast for tomorrow, we may return o Portsmouth a in the morning rather than returning in the evening after Laser lessons are wrapped up for the week.

oxo Pufflings