July 30, Block Island, RI

Beautiful morning. No fog, clear sky and flat calm seas. We motor about 20 miles to Block Island and enter the Great Salt Pond through the entrance channel (we have to give way to a large ferry that is taking up the whole narrow entrance channel) and continue across the Salt Pond to Payne's where all the boats are "rafted" together at the dock.



This is the first time we have done the "rafting" thing and it seems to work well in that it gets lots of boats to use a small amount of dock space. Upon arrival we decide to hibernate on the boat until later in the afternoon as the outside temperature is in the 80's. The Salt Pond is full of boats and the setting ashore is pretty rustic in the area called New Harbor. The channel to the Salt Pond was cut in 1895 and the settlement facing Salt Pond is called New Harbor.








Old Harbor is the major settlement on Block Island and it faces the open ocean and is where the town was built before the channel was cut in 1895. Old Harbor is a charming place with several large old wooden hotels, shops and restaurants. Large ferry's are active in Old Harbor and bring cars as well as large trucks which provide everything on the island. We spend the afternoon in the Old Harbor area and have a nice dinner on the porch of the wooden National Hotel overlooking the harbor and ferry traffic.




We returned to New Harbor after dinner in time for the local ceremony that celebrates the sunset and the end of the day. It begins with a bagpiper in full Scottish garb who leads everyone to the old tug "The General" at the end of the dock. We are treated to a full ceremony including a sailor playing a fife, another sailor playing a trumpet (taps of course) and several blasts from a cannon, as the American flag was lowered at the end of the day, all much to the approval of the resident boaters and tourists.