167: FULL REVIEW & RATING OF CUTTYHUNK, THIMBLE & BLOCK ISLAND

Hey guys! Hey there! Welcome to Warderick Wells and the Exumas and this big blow that we're having. Boy, we're gonna be here for what, four or five days? Yeah, at least. We need to sit it out until the gusts of 30 to 35 start to slow down a little bit. Tonight's gonna be the worst of it and then tomorrow it should start to dissipate. It's okay, we're in a very protected cove and that's the best part about it and it is absolutely stunning. And you know what the other good part about it is? We've got time to work on videos. Yes, we do and even though we're down to one laptop, first world problems, we're going to see if we can get through this. This video that we're going to talk about today is going to be really unique. It's our continued journey through the Long Island Sound but we're going to focus on three unique islands in three different states and two of these islands we had never heard of before we started cruising. Yeah and just for disclosure's sake, we blew through some of these places because we wanted to allow enough time to see people that we had already pre-scheduled. We wanted to make sure that we saved plenty of time for the crowning jewels which we'll talk about in the next video and we also had to get all the way back down to Deltaville to haul out and get some work done so we could come back down to the Bahamas which is where we're at right now. So we didn't give some of these places a great chance. We're going to admit that but we did some research to fill in with the details that we found out from actually being there. So we're going to use our rating system that we started in our last video for this video. Our scorecard. Our report card. Our report card. We approve the teaching profession. I mean it's just natural right? We're going to look at Thimble Islands in Connecticut, Block Island which is Rhode Island, and then Cuttyhunk which is Massachusetts. So we're going to look at those three and we're going to rate them according to cruiser friendliness, things to do, hang time, and then an overall rating for you. And ask yourself right now have you heard of these three islands? I had heard of Block Island but never the Thimble Islands and Cuttyhunk because they're super small. Block's pretty small but its proximity to a bunch of different places makes it probably more popular. Had you ever even heard of Thimble or Cuttyhunk? I had not heard of Thimble Islands and I had not heard of the Elizabeth Islands which is where Cuttyhunk is but I had been to Block Island before when I lived in New York. And here's the good thing. You're going to learn about these places. They're definitely worth going to for different leaps of time and we will reveal that. But this is all about going new places and learning new things. And we're so thankful as always for our subscribers and our patrons. First of all a huge thank you to our patrons for your generosity and your encouragement. But also thank you to our subscribers and viewers for watching our channel. We really appreciate it and we continue to ask you to like our videos, share them, and subscribe if you're not a subscriber. It really helps us out. So let's get this one going. That's right. Let's do it. We're going to start with the Thimble Islands in Connecticut and a bunch of people told us about the Thimbles. They said these are islands not to be missed. You need to go for a day or two to see them. So we did make a point to get over there. We went over from Port Jefferson. Some people said they reminded them of Sweden and some of the islands in Sweden. Yeah that's right. I mean that appealed to me so we took the chance and we're glad we did. We only spent one night there. We came over and we spent the afternoon just cruising around on our dinghy checking it out. But if we had to do it over again and had a little bit more time we would have spent two nights there. Okay you've seen the movie American Vacation with Chevy Chase and he takes the whole family out to the Grand Canyon. Puts his arm around his wife and goes oh okay and they hop back in the car. Well this wasn't that short but it was close and I think that it deserved more and we'll talk about that later. Sure. For cruiser friendliness we rated this a 6 out of 10 and a lot of that is just based on research. We actually didn't go to the town dock which has a four hour maximum. We didn't see the yacht club. We didn't take advantage of any marine services. We didn't need to provision which in this case is a cab ride away from the dinghy dock so it's not in walking distance. What we did experience though was a little bit of trepidation coming into Granite Islands and the continual warning that if you do not carefully plot your course and watch where you're going you're going to destroy your keel because keels don't do well. Yeah this is like cruising up in Maine. It was the first time that we had come to a place where there wasn't mainly sand where we could run aground if we if we had to and there were no consequences. So the other the other hazard that we had to really be careful about which we were warned was underwater cables and seabed pipelines which they make it very clear if you drop anchor on one and damage it it is your financial responsibility. Man and that's not going to be a small bill either. No. So we anchored in the exact same spot that our friends on NVS thank you Stefan and Dorothy for those coordinates where they anchored and then we just hoped for the best and it was okay. We had good holding and we didn't tear up a cable. They're called the thimble islands because many years ago the islands were completely covered with thimble berries and thimble berries resemble blackberries or red I think they're called red blackberries red raspberries black red they're called black black raspberries. Hey no matter what they're called I'm gonna eat them because I like those Well the thimble berries apparently are a little bit more sour and bigger but they are no longer found on the islands but that's why they're called the thimble berry islands. In terms of things to do we rated it a five out of ten and the reason is it's really fascinating to take your dinghy around all of the rock islands. We really enjoyed that. There is an outer island that has a wildlife refuge on it. There are some restaurants though some of them are not close but other than that it's really just a place to relax. Yeah and truthfully we didn't want to find anything that would keep us there for another night because we didn't have another night. So our overall rating was a six out of ten. We highly recommend that you put this on your list if you're in the Long Island Sound because we just think it's super unique and cute and worth a visit. Glass this is beautiful. Very dewy. You can see the boat is completely covered in dew. Birds everywhere. So peaceful. We're gonna try and take off. It's about 6 30. Exciting times. Caught a fish already. I think it's gonna be a throwback because it looks a little bit small but who knows. Oh pretty. What is it? No way. Another fish coming in. So we caught a mackerel a little while ago and now we have caught a another mackerel but he's a tiny one so we're gonna throw him back. Captain Brown with fish number three of the day. Let's go ahead and move on to Block Island. It was perfect stopping point between Montauk and Newport because it's about halfway. It's in the middle of going everywhere. Well it's like a hub really and if you can tuck in there it's great protection and if you can find a place to anchor. Man it's popular. It's a big anchorage but I'm telling you it's packed with boats, charter boats, local boats. They've got moorings and marinas and everything but we managed to carve out a little real estate. We did. We did and I think the key is is getting there during the week. You wait until the weekends and forget about it. This place is gonna be all carved up and full. The place where everyone anchors or grabs mooring ball is called the Great Salt Pond and there really isn't a lot of space for anchoring. There's anchoring on the outside of the salt pond but then you deal with some sand but the conditions may not be great holding. There's an area that has rock bottom which obviously has terrible holding. So trying to find a place to drop anchor is a bit of a challenge but Block Island has a great really strong cruiser community. It has incredible facilities, a dinghy dock, a grocery store. It has a marina and all of the facilities that you really need as a cruiser. And one thing it has too it has protection and it has protection in an area out in the middle of the sound closer to the Atlantic open ocean where things can get a little dicey. So that's another reason to go there. I think it was pretty blustery kind of like it is here today. Yeah so because of all those things they offer to cruisers we gave this a 9 out of 10. For things to do in Block Island we also rated it a 9 out of 10. There is so much to do there. Well we biked. These things were indispensable for exploring the island. We went on back dirt roads. We went to beaches. We went to lighthouses. We did a circle around the entire island. There's actually a published map that gives you stopping points. It was fantastic and easily done in a day. We stopped at the animal farm where they have unbelievable exotic animals from llamas to kangaroos. There were just really interesting animals at the animal farm. We loved it. And just a lot of historic buildings. The inn is one of the historic hotels on the island with a beautiful view over the sound. And that has wonderful flower gardens as well. We were able to see those. What I loved about it is once you get away from the main town it gets very rural. And it kind of reminds me of what we're going to experience in Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard. Especially Nantucket being a one city town. It did not disappoint. You can just get out there and explore. There aren't a lot of cars. The roads are really good. They're great hills so you get a lot of exercise. They're used to having bikes on the island so the drivers were really slow and very careful which was great. Yeah it has a good bike culture. I think one of our favorite two of our favorite sites were the lighthouses. We went to the southeast lighthouse and then the north lighthouse. And they're just beautiful historic buildings. And the southeast lighthouse actually was going to fall off the Mohegan Cliffs into the sea at one point and they ended up moving it back in the 90s. They raised enough money to pick up that lighthouse. That lighthouse is a big lighthouse. It's not just the lighthouse it's the building as well. They actually picked it up and moved it back off the bluffs a couple hundred feet I think. And so that lighthouse was preserved. Just think how important those lighthouses were back before radar. You definitely don't want to run into Block Island. So we did not get to stay very long in Block Island which again we were on a schedule. I think we were there two nights. We could have stayed probably four or five. Yeah Block Island's a place that's got some hang time and you can definitely stay there for quite a while. We didn't because we're in a hurry but we should have. But we couldn't. So there you go. So we still rated hang time as a nine out of ten and we suggest building in four or five days to be able to stay there. Absolutely. Let's move on now to our three island three state review. Our report card. Obscure islands. Yeah very obscure other than Block. Which makes it so interesting. My gosh this is just yeah. We learned a lot. We did. So we're moving to the Elizabeth Islands which I'd never heard of off the coast of Massachusetts and the island of Cuddehunk. Yeah. Well we thought we'd be out of here a little bit earlier but the raw water that's coming into the engine is coming in a little bit more slowly than normal so we wanted to give that a good check. The telltales look good and so now we're going to try and pick up the anchor. There is a twist in the anchor chain because we did a couple 360s so we're not sure how that's going to work. The bridle came off on its own which is really good. Means the chain must have sorted itself out last night. We're good to go. Beautiful day. Can't complain can you? No. We were recommended to go to Cuddehunk by Brown's friend Jim who lives in Newport. Recommended that we stop there on our way to Martha's Vineyard and it really was the perfect place to stop similar to coming from Montauk to Newport. And I mean it's in the neighborhood right? I think the Elizabethan Islands a lot of them are owned by the Forbes family. It's privately owned under a trust. Cuddehunk has this private aura about it but it's open to the public. In terms of cruiser friendliness it doesn't have a lot to offer. It's a really small island and I think it only has 10 year-round residents on the island. I think maybe 25 houses. Yeah. It's a small quantity. In terms of cruiser friendliness it didn't offer a lot but one thing it did offer was great holding outside in the harbor. The bottom was great and so we were able to stay there in a protected area. They do have a marina. They do have moorings. They don't offer marine facilities really. There's a self-serve pump out which is good. Fuel is iffy. You need to call ahead if you want diesel or gasoline. But the harbor master could not have been a nicer person and we enjoyed interacting with the cruisers. You know one thing they have that's really unique is the nudist beach. Remember that? A nudist beach that doesn't have a beach on a pond. And I think they have like one restaurant. It's a pizza place. Yeah Sopranos Pizza. Remember how the Sopranos sitting out the figurines sitting outside? It's just really cute and maybe we could have stayed there an extra night. The weather was kind of rough and stuff but we had places to go and people to see so we had to leave after one night. So for cruiser friendliness we gave it a 6 out of 10. For things to do we gave it a 4 out of 10. We did cycle the island. It was about 5 miles of roads. Very little acreage and roads to ride on. I think one of the most unique places was lookout hill which housed the bunker that the soldiers used back in world war ii to spot submarines coming in through the waterway. It's a 360 degree view at the top of the mountain. So now it has incredible views. It has a viewing platform for anyone to go up and visit. That was really unique. And maybe I'm being a little judgmental but I'm saying you kind of have to be an introvert to live there and have a lot of books to read because yeah there's not a lot to do but if you're into reading books and leading a chill lifestyle Cuttyhunk's the place for you wouldn't you say? Absolutely. For things to do we rated it a 4 out of 10. For hang time we suggest one night there. 3 out of 10 for hang time reading and you can move on and overall a 4 out of 10. Yeah this is one place we spent one night there and we're glad it was only one night so we moved on. We hope that you enjoyed this review of these three islands and thank you so much if you've gotten this far you are a true star and we want to say thank you to you. Thanks so much for watching. We love you guys and we'll see you next week.