Our goal for this day was to reach Shinnecock Bay, a distance of just under 18nm. We figured it wouldn’t take too long to cover this distance so we did not rush off in the morning.
I used this time in the morning to figure out how to use the alcohol stove. I poured in the fuel into the top, opened up the burner and put a light to it. I now had an inferno. What I should have done was to open the burner first so that the fuel would soak into the receptacle below. As a result of my actions, fuel had made it’s way all around the inside of the top of the stove and it was all now aflame. I felt quite glad at this point that I had bought a fire blanket. I got this out and chucked it over the stove. It reduced the flames but did not put them out. The stove got hotter and the blanket began to smolder. When I took it off, the flames whooshed up. I decided I had no choice but to use the fire extinguisher. Being a halon extinguisher, it worked very well. The fire was out. So was a lot of the oxygen on the boat so we had to open all windows and get on deck to breath.
Given that we bought Timeless to learn about living on boats, I learned some important lessons this morning. I’m now a big fan of halon and absolutely know how not to fuel an alcohol stove. I made a mental note to share this knowledge with Helen when she joined us.
In fact, both Bob and I were keeping in touch with our respective homes letting our wives know where we were, where we were heading and basically that we were safe. I reported my experience with the stove to Helen that day. I wonder what she thought.
Just after 11am we set off. Again motoring as the wind was still coming in from the north east and our movement was constrained by the channels we had to navigate.
We soon learned that we had to battle increasing headwinds and an ever present current pushing us the wrong way all the time. Our average speed would be little over 2.5 knots. We also had to deal with poor visibility, blinding and often painful rain and shallow depths. On two occasions we managed to hit bottom. In these cases, the fact that we were now experiencing the tail end of Cindy was a good thing as we had 2-3 foot waves in the waterway. These bobbed us off the sandbars we struck.
Our destination became quite a trial. Our marina was right inside the inlet from the ocean. We had 20 knot winds and over a 2 knot current. All of which conspired to make entering the marina, turning the boat into our slip and tying up a very difficult experience. Seeing all the million dollar plus sports fishing boat backed into their slips, I believed this is what we should do too. Turns out this is not easy at the best of times which is exactly what this wasn’t. We had a hell of a time trying to keep Timeless from tangling herself in the anchors hanging off the bows of the various expensive vessels there. In the end I had to fling a line round a pillar and use it as a pivot to reverse Timeless around through 90 degrees into her slip.
That night we had a very nice meal at the one and only restaurant by the marina. It would be nice because we were effectively in the Hamptons. We both had very nice steaks.
Distance covered day 3 was under 18 nm taking us 6 hours 40 minutes.
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