Plymouth-Newport, RI

We had a beautiful cruise starting at sunset. Bow thrusters and 360 degree pods x three allowed the ship to push off the dock and do a 360 in its own length (250 feet) no problem. We’ve seen hundreds of historic forts, but Ft Adams at Newport is by far the largest, most complex and with myriad defense systems. No wonder it never saw action.

We explored downtown (a ACL coach gave us a lift), had a nice walk checking out the waterfront megayachts, and signed up for a ACL cruise of the Inside Passage of British Columbia (no stops due to the Jones Act) and the Inside Passage of Alaska to Glacier Bay next Sept (got a 15% discount).

The winds have picked up tonight with whitecaps in the inner harbor. We would not be comfy on a mooring ball here in these conditions, but they’ve been very rare so far on this cruise. We feel like we have a good grasp on how bad the conditions are (not nearly as bad as we thought) and that we CAN DO THIS in our own boat! On to Planning!

I’m amazed how a 250 ft ship with 2,400 HP burns only 100g/hour, when our 25 foot (!) trailer boat burns 13-30 g/hour with state of the art 2024 outboards!Читать далее