Curt has received the auto pilot and had found that it seems to be a simple replacement project. He visited Robin with the new unit on Friday on Hamburg Cove. He tells me there is only one minor complication that will easily be solved.
Hamburg Cove is a beautiful place. It is a bay off of the east side of the Connecticut River. On each side, the ground rises rapidly on what appear to be rock formations covered with a thin layer of soil, on which dense forests grow. There are houses in these forests, particularly on the waterfront, because the cove is in the densely-poplulated northeast corridor, Only six or seven miles north of Interstate 95.
I don't know the legal geographic limits of the cove. I know it extends through a narrow passage to another, shallower body of water where the Hamburg Cove Yacht Club is located, along with a classic boatyard. If you want to get to public access to a road, you must dinghy or take your boat through that passage to the boatyard dock.
The first time I entered the cove in Robin, I thought that I was supposed to go to the dock. I think I probably sucked in my breath when Robin squeezed through the passage. The depth meter read close to zero all the way in. But when I got inside and followed the well-marked, twisting channel toward the boatyard, I realized there were no moorings there. Somehow, I managed to get Robin turned around and back out to the main cove without grounding.
There are some rental moorings in the main cove, which is reached from the river by traversing another well-marked channel from which the wise sailboat skipper does not stray. Then there are the private moorings, such as the one Curt has loaned to me.
Near that mooring when I arrived was an exquisite canoe-stern wooden sailboat the pedigree of which I do not know and the name of which I don't remember. There were one or two other special craft on moorings that day.
This much is true: If a hurricane were headed toward me and I wanted to find a secure mooring, I'd head for Hamburg Cove if I were anywhere that I could make it there before the storm hit.
With a falling tide, you can make it to Long Island Sound in much less than an hour, as long s the railroad bridge south of the I-95 bridge is open. On this latest visit to the cove, I had to wait about half an hour before the railroad bridge opened. It was rush hour -- about 6:30 a.m.