Let's Go Hide in Narragansett Bay

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A few days back, the forecasters were promising us a beautiful Labor Day Weekend. Now they are promising deteriorating weather with lightning, thunder, strong winds and heavy rain. Ah well! The best laid plans ... :-)

We have the choice of hanging out in Westport indefinitely or making a run for it. We choose to run. Once we are inside Narragansett Bay, we will be protected from all but the worst weather and will have a wide choice of harbors and marinas.

It is ten miles from the mouth of the Westport River to the mouth of the Sakonnet River, which we plan to use as our entrance to Narragansett Bay. We know it is going to be ugly. There are just two bits of not-so-bad news. It is not actually raining. And the tide will be helping us as we head up the Sakonnet River.

We are big fans of Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” (and his other food shows). When Tony is really enjoying himself and feeling particularly laid back, he will say “This Definitely Does Not Suck!”. We have been saying this a lot during the past few weeks. But today, for the first two hours, it definitely sucks. But at least it does not rain.

After two hours, we make the turn round the Sakonnet Lighthouse into the mouth of the Sakonnet River, leaving the big waves behind us. We run once again up this beautiful river under very light rain-showers. Amazingly, this is the first time on this voyage that we have been sailing in rain. Of course, we do go and hide from the rain whenever we can manage it!

We head past Brewers Sakonnet Marina at the head of the river, across Mount Hope Bay, through Bristol Narrows and into the Kickamuit River.

This is a genuine river but has the shape of an oval pool, roughly one mile across. The whole pool is pretty shallow and you can anchor wherever takes your fancy. In the evening, a lone water skier circles the bay but we have selected a spot that is far enough away for us to enjoy watching him without being rocked by his wake.

In the night, as promised, we get a two hour spectacular thunderstorm with both sheet and forked lightning. But in this enclosed bay, we feel totally secure on our anchor.

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