The painted brick Sandy Point Light tower sits among beach front homes on on the east shore of Prudence Island.
Everything on Prudence comes via ferry from Bristol.
Sunday, 10 August
There’s a perfectly round slice of cantaloupe hanging somehow just above the treeline to the east, the oaks and spreading maples that stand tall along the shore of Dutch Harbor on the west side of Conanicut Island (Jamestown, RI). The engine of a small airplane rumbles through the night air to the east. A couple of chuckles curls across the water from a cockpit to port but otherwise, it’s a quiet night.
This is a much welcomed contrast to the day. A tad tense, it was. Nothing major, mind you. Just not the idyllic sunny day on the water one might imagine, sailing blissfully from one welcoming harbor to another.
No, it wasn’t the lack of wind. Hey, the wind isn’t what you want every day. C’mon!
A slow-moving trawler leaves no wake at all.
And it wasn’t so much the fact that every manner of motorboat—from cruiser to center console to inflatable dinghy—managed to buzz on by at close quarters, sending Steadfast a-rocking and rolling.
No. Normally, not a big deal, s’all good. Just boys being boys, after all.
No. It was that little plumbing issue that made itself known this morning, first thing. You know how much fun plumbing “issues” are at home. They become every bit as interesting and more so when “home” is afloat on twenty-seven feet of fiberglass hull. It’s the “7 Steps.” There’s denial, i.e., “Here, let me try.” Anger is sure to follow, as in, “It was workin’ fine! What the *#%& happened?!” Resignation leads to acceptance, diagnosis, a the plan for reconciliation. This is followed by the ever-evasive quest for parts (a reason to visit Dutch Harbor again, Conanicut Marine chandlery being within walking distance), a back-up plan when some parts can’t be procured. And then, only then, the denouement as it were, the actual repair itself.
The frugal Rhode Island lobstermen’s pot floats abound in Narragansett Bay.
At which point, the idyllic life aboard resumes. Assuming, of course, the parts fit and nothing broke. Oh, and none of the fittings leak.
Yeah, baby. The cruising life. Warm breezes. Breathtaking sunsets. And clogged plumbing. You can’t beat it.
Steadfast out.
Epilogue: pump, hoses and fittings all got back together and the system was operative again by mid-morning Monday. In fact, the pump’s working better than ever in the eleven years Steadfast and crew have been together! Now that’s progress.
At Sea with Steadfast 
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