(Image courtesy of Sailfeed)

After a truly fantastic weekend visting our friends Jan and Abe Dane (and their three kids, dog, and parakeet) and being shown a very cool side of Providence, RI — hip German restaurants, delicious farmer’s market, home-smoked brisket, WaterFire, 1920s-era wooden duckpin bowling in an old textile mill, great view of the blood super-moon, and Jan’s own Stock Culinary Goods shop — we set off for Block Island. Our only previous visit there was also with Jan and Abe, back in the ’90s (before kids). It was Valentine’s Day weekend and snow was blowing horizontally down the beaches.

This time, at the tail end of September, there wasn’t any snow, but much of New Shoreham, the main town on the island, had already shuttered for the winter. Wednesday afternoon there was a break in the torrential rains, and we were able to make it ashore for a nice walk into town. We found an ice cream/pastry/coffee shop and a very good bookstore (we’re all reading at a furious pace these days, so new books are very welcome). We had a great time in Rhode Island — and all of southern New England: Seeing my college roommate Jeff in Boston, Plymouth Plantation and The Mayflower, transiting the Cape Cod Canal, Hadley Harbor and Cuttyhunk Pond in the Elizabeth Islands. We would love to come back during the “on” season to return to all of these and to visit Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.

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I swear that’s not a click-bait headline (okay, maybe a little), or that I’m doing a post on the current presidential campaign (brief glimpses of which have made us glad to be off-the-grid). These are instead some of the fantastic place names that New Englanders seem to have a real knack for.

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At Buckle Harbor, we went for a swim — in wetsuits, as the sea temperature was only 57°. We had anchored near low tide in only 6.5′ of water, so I decided to dive the anchor:

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Hey Internet,

In addition to our fine ship EXIT, we have other craft aboard too. First is our AB dinghy, which we love:

Aluminum-hulled AB Inflatables Lammina 9.5 seems like a perfect match for EXIT.

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