This Must Be The Place

There is No Place Anywhere Near This Place That Looks Anything Like This Place, So This Must Be The Place!

Bristol, Rhode Island

By Capt. Michael L. Martel

Cruisers heading north from the Caribbean in the spring, perhaps with the intention of going to Maine, should make it a point to consider Bristol Harbor and Bristol, Rhode Island, a layover point on their way north, or when cruising the waters between Long Island Sound and lower Cape Cod and the Elizabeth Islands. I’m fortunate to be able to call these waters home, and it is one of the finest cruising grounds between Maine and the Chesapeake. Between the eastern end of Long Island and Montauk, one finds great destinations including Block Island, Newport and Narragansett Bay, the Elizabeth Islands, Buzzard’s Bay, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, and lower Cape Cod.

There are plenty of places to pause for a day or two, and many cruisers often choose charming Newport. But Newport is a very busy and noisy place in the summer, rather expensive, and if you

aren’t in the crowded harbor, you’re exposed to weather and wakes.

The town of Bristol is similar to Newport in many ways, though on a smaller scale. Once a bustling Colonial seaport of privateers and rum distilleries, it’s only another 10 nm or so to the north of Newport, directly up the bay, which on a summer afternoon is an easy downwind romp with the prevailing southwesterly blowing steady and directly behind you.

In the harbor, the holding ground is good (muddy) with average depths of 16 feet in the anchorage area at low water. The anchorage area is south of the crowded mooring field, and if your boat has high freeboard, you’ll find the views of the town, Poppasquash Peninsula, nearby Hog Island and Prudence Island delightful, green, and the perfect accompaniment to sundowner cocktails. You can find Bristol Harbor and approaches easily in nv-charts’ Region 3.1 chart set (www. nv-charts.com), Rhode Island to Nantucket Sound.

Bristol Harbor is well sheltered from the east, north, and west; and directly south, low-lying Hog Island provides some shelter. However, the harbor is vulnerable to the southeast and southwest. The southeast isn’t a problem unless a tropical system comes blowing in, which is rare. But in the summer, the prevailing onshore southwesterlies can make the harbor a choppy place in the afternoon. The southwest breeze or ‘Sea Turne’ as it has been known here for 300 years, pipes up around midday to an average 14 – 16 kts as the day warms, but generally dies flat calm around sunset. It makes the harbor choppy enough that, if you’re in

your inflatable dinghy, you’re probably going to get splashed a bit, but not much worse. At the northwest end of the harbor you’ll find Bristol Marine, a full-service boat yard and marina (but no fuel) that in addition to being able to take care of everything that is boat, rig, and engine-related, also rents Historical view of Old Bristol slips at their dock (limited) and moorings in the mooring field. They also run a launch service. Find them at www. bristolmarine.com. They can easily be hailed on the usual VHF channels. Right next door is the Bristol Yacht Club (www. bristolyc.com) which extends reciprocal privileges to many other small yacht clubs and is a friendly place to have a drink at their wellstocked bar and grab a shower. During the summer, many of their members are off cruising and thus make their moorings available to the Club to accommodate visiting yachts. Hail the BYC dockmaster or steward on VHF 9, 16, or preferably 68 to check for availability. The BYC also runs a launch service. The only issue with the BYC and Bristol Marine is that their facilities are on the opposite side of the harbor from the Bristol waterfront, and it’s a rather long walk (1.5 miles+) around the head of the harbor to get into town. It’s fine if you have a bicycle. However if you are out in the Bristol Harbor anchorage area, your best bet is to use your dinghy to motor right to the waterfront. There are limited dinghy dock accommodations at the Harbormaster’s dock, the Bristol Town Dock, and at Independence Park, all fairly close to one another. Southeast of the mooring area is the Herreshoff

Marine Museum complex and dock. In addition to being a great museum to visit, the Museum also offers dockage (with electricity) and mooring rentals for transients. There’s no launch service; use your dinghy. Visit www.herreshoff. org. The Museum monitors VHF 68.

One of the great things about a stopover in Bristol is that once you’re ashore, you’ve got the best part of the town right on the waterfront, with restaurants, a hotel, and B&Bs along Thames Street, which runs N – S along the water. Several excellent restaurants are within only a few minutes’ walk from your dinghy. These include Quito’s (seafood), Redlefsen’s (European Bistro), The DeWolf Tavern (American Steak and Seafood), Aidan’s (Irish pub), and a few more. One block up from Thames Street is historic Hope Street, with stunning historic architecture, delightful shops of all kinds, plus a couple of banks with ATMs, coffee shops, and the famous Bristol Bagel Works, where literally all of Bristol’s regular folk and sailing people go for bagels and great sandwiches.

We have two large grocery/supermarkets in Bristol, but they are not within walking distance of the waterfront. But if you need to get around, wellknown local musician Mike Carroll operates Bristol Car Service and can get you anywhere you need to go reasonably, www.bristolcarservice.com.

Lastly, there are no fuel docks in Bristol Harbor, but that’s not much of an inconvenience; New England Boatworks, less than 5 nm away (within sight, back toward Newport) at East Passage Yachting Center (www.neboatworks.com) has gas, diesel, and water. Of course, there are plenty of fuel docks in Newport where you can gas up before heading up the bay. Holding tank’s full? The Bristol Harbormaster operates a pump-out boat on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact the Harbormaster on VHF 16 or phone (401) 253-1700. When it’s time to leave, get your anchor up early and try to get underway by sunrise, motoring down the bay to Newport, or alternately, around through Mount Hope Bay and out the Sakonnet for a Buzzard’s Bay/Cape Cod Canal destination. Getting out of Narragansett Bay early, you might have a gentle norther for the early part of the morning, or at least you won’t have to beat into the southwesterly while working your way south.

Remember that Bristol is home to the oldest continuous 4th of July celebration in the nation, complete with a great parade, and the whole town, quite literally, has a two or three-day party. It’s a great time to be here: the harbor is full, everything’s open, there are colorful events including old-fashioned Firemen’s musters and water battles. The harbor is the best place to be when Bristol’s population swells to many thousands of patriotic celebrants, and the harbor is a ring-side seat for a great fireworks display the night before the 4th.

So, if you’re cruising up this way, stop and pay Bristol a visit, have a beer and a stuffed quahog (clam) or two, and relax before heading onward.

The Western

Caribbean on a Cat

By Bill Mosher

After only a two-hour flight from Miami, we arrived at the airport in Honduras. We were chartering a catamaran from Parrot Sailing for this trip. Once we got our luggage we were all off to the Rio Dulce.

We stopped at the Guatemala border where our passports were quickly processed and each person paid a fee of $3.00 U.S. We were extended a friendly welcome by the border officials. One and one half hours later, we arrived at Bruno’s Marina, Bar and Restaurant on the Rio Dulce.

We retired to the bar for a few drinks while our luggage was loaded aboard our catamaran and decided to have dinner at Bruno’s. The cost was a whopping 5 to 8 dollars each for dinner, and beer was less than a dollar.

We were talking with the local expat sailors at the bar and the evening breeze was coming through the palms off the Rio Dulce. There was some reggae and salsa playing and the expats were dancing with the local Spanish girls. Not a bad place to end the day.

Eventually we dinghied to our boat where our cabins were ready. The large hatch above our queen size berth pulled in a cool breeze, we could see the stars clearly and surprisingly, there were no bugs. Eventually we drifted off to the most relaxing sleep we’d had for months.

We were soon underway to visit the Castillo de San Felipe, then down the Rio to bathe in the hot springs that come right out of the rock wall into the river. This is a knee deep area, where we picked our favorite temperature and had a relaxing afternoon in the warm water. After, we boarded our boat and moved to a secluded jungle-enshrouded bay for the night. It was very quiet there, with exception of the parrots and monkeys. There was a bar on top of the hill where we went after dinner and enjoyed more local expat company.

The next day we sailed through the 300-foot-tall gorge and out to the Bay of Honduras. After quick stop in Livingston to check out, we were off to the lower fishing grounds and reefs of Belize.

It was about 10 a.m. and we were sailing on a northwest course in over 180 feet of clear water, dragging four lures, two off each side of our catamaran. We had pulled in a few Spanish mackerel, a couple of king fish, more than a few barracuda, and some tuna. Suddenly the depth sounder came up sharply to 20 feet, then to 12 feet. This was a table top completely surrounded by more than 150 feet of water. We could see the rocks and sea fans below the surface. Then the outboard line screamed off the reel and the pole bent almost double, so we tightened the drag a bit to keep the fish from going in a hole. It was either a big grouper or a big red snapper, and if he got in a hole in the shallow water we would lose him. So we allowed him to take out just enough line to keep him moving across the bottom.

The boat was moving at about three knots to keep undue pressure off the mouth so we didn’t pull the hook out of this big one. We sailed off the shelf into 180 feet of water, slowed the boat to a crawl and horsed the monster in. It was an 18-lb., 40-inch-long mutton snapper. He spit the lure and hook out as we lifted him out of the water with the gaff. We had dinner for several good meals, not counting what we already had on board. We arrived about 3:00 p.m. at our destination, a beautiful cay in the Sapadilla National Park in Belize. We went ashore and enjoyed the pristine, unspoiled beach, then had snapper for dinner, a couple of sundowners, and retired for the night, again with a sea

Why are you reading this? This is just a line to make the page look pretty.

breeze through the hatch and a beautiful star filled night sky.

The next day we snorkeled the reefs. The captain took us to a reef that was close to the surface so we could stand up on a sand bottom and prepare ourselves for snorkeling. Then we could swim into deeper water to visit the reefs that were surface level with deeper sides to them. If we had a gear problem we just returned to the dinghy where we could stand up and deal with it before again going out to the reef. This allowed us to get our confidence and soon we were snorkeling like old pros.

We returned to the boat before the sun was too close to the horizon and got ready for dinner. After showers and a change we put the snapper fillet on the grill for dinner, had a couple of beers and waited for it to smell like it was done. Inside, the ladies had set the dinner table and put side dishes out; a lot of avocado and freshly prepared vegetables. A lot of water was served with the meal which was well received after the long day of snorkeling.

Before we retired to the salon for dinner, with our drinks in hand we all met on the large front

deck of the cat to enjoy the sun as it set into the Mayan mountains to the west. It shined a fire of golden hues on the underside of the clouds between us and the mountains - an unbelievably beautiful sight. We all thought to ourselves, “Ahh!!! Just another day in paradise.”