Aldo's Boat Block Island

[sv Lorelei]

I heard a nasty rumor from a dubiously reliable source that they've stopped running the boat on Great Salt Pond, but have been unable to confirm or deny and we're leaving in a couple days for a week or so and were hoping to hit Block and get our cinnamon roll fix for the summer.

Anyone got the skinny?

[Lulworth]

The Aldos boat was there in New Harbor BI yesterday hollering "Aldo's, Aldos" at 7:00 am! By the way, last weekend was my first visit to BI in 15 years and I must say that that is the most crowded anchorage I have ever had to deal with. The water in the anchorage is deep and the density of randomly positioned boats is large so when a front came through on Sat, Safetow was kept busy hauling boats apart and off the beach. I was spared the embarrasment of dragging but I did have a big power boat decend on me! Total madness.

[Carlsboats]

Sorry about the crowding in Block Island's Great Salt Pond, but as an island resident I can assure you that what you saw was not peak load. Sometimes there are even more visiting boats in the anchoring area. The mooring area doesn't have the same problem -- both the rental and private moorings are mostly filled up all summer, so the crowd is the same day by day. One new thing here is the arrival of megayachts. On Sunday, there were five of them in the anchorage area, and of course they take up a lot of real estate.
And I don't think you can expect the high price of fuel to reduce the fleet much. Some of the powerboat crowd are staying away -- marina operators tell me that -- but if the peak in the Great Salt Pond is 1500 or 1600 boats, there will still be 1000 or 1200 out there on an off-peak weekend. Lots of the boats in the mooring and anchoring areas are sailboats, and they don't worry about fuel prices.
The best I can say is that, while we welcome visitors, we have to admit that our Great Salt Pond is a challenging environment, with brisk winds and limited space for long-scope anchoring. It's no place for people who are not really experienced, or who don't have proper ground tackle. And if we have a storm, yes, there will be boats coming down on each other or dragging onto the beach. Happens all the time.

[Lulworth]

Thanks Carlsboats, what you say is surely true but if last weekend wasn't peak, I wouldn't want to experience BI on a peak weekend. There really seemed to be no more room for anchoring (unless they open the north end as well). Most of the people in the anchorage seemed unphased by the mess that resulted when the t-storm blew through the new harbor anchorage on sat night. In fact, I had one guy in a very large motor yacht drag down on me until he was close enough to offer me a beer. I fear that I may not have declined very graciously (the furthest thing from my mind was drinking beer in a squall while fending off a boat the size of my house but it was a nice gesture, I guess!) Part of the problem (with anchoring in a crowded spot) is that some people put out two anchors or miles of rode while others use one anchor and a much shorter line or chain so when the wind clocks around during a squall, there's no knowing who your going to be on top of.

Block Island is truely beautiful, you are lucky to live there year round. Was your boat a green and white double ender without spars? It seemed familiar (maybe from a picture on this site) but then again so did the Concordia yawl that was moored near by. There was also a red Boldger-like hard chine 30 ft yawl with a red riding sail that I thought was one of the more interesting boats in the harbor but he was clearly a visitor from somewhere. Anyway, thanks for the insiders view of BI.

Cheers, David