Massachusetts

Tuesday, July 2 - We pulled anchor in New Bedford at 10:00 a.m. after Kevin finished a work related phone call. It was another beautiful day with a bright sky, 73 degrees and calmer than yesterday with wind at 11 knots and no waves. The wind was directly over our bow so we motored until we got through the Cape Cod Canal at 2:30. The canal took us about 45 min and with the current it was pushing us along at 8 knots. From there we entered Cape Cod Bay and pulled out the sails. The wind was 7 knots in the bay so we kept the motor on and in a short amount of time we pulled the sails in as they were not giving us any speed. We anchored in Barnstable Harbor at 4:30ish with beaches on either side. We could only go a little way in because the water in the harbor is not deep enough for our draft. There was only one sailboat moored and it was smaller than ours, all others boats in the harbor and marinas were motor, many rigged for fishing. As it turns out we were very close the street that Michelle and Jim live on! Once anchored we lowered the dinghy and took Pepper to the beach, she was very intrigued by all the new smells and there were more seashells than I’ve ever seen. Later Ryan picked us up at the dinghy dock and we went over to Michelle and Jim’s house for dinner with them and Michaela. Earlier I had called the Barnstable Harbormaster to find a public dinghy dock and though he gave me specific instructions on where to put the dinghy we were a little unsure and put it in the wrong slip. When we returned around 8:45 a man on one of the large motor vessels hailed us over to tell us we took their slip. He was nice about it but understandably not happy. I realized that’s why this woman on another boat was giving us the evil eye as we got on the dinghy. It would not have been as big of a deal if we hadn’t locked the dinghy to the dock.

Wednesday, July 3 - We went back to the dinghy dock in the morning prepared to hear about yesterday’s snafu and sure enough we did! The assistant harbormaster that I spoke with the previous day was there and he said the biggest problem was that we locked it so they couldn’t move it. He showed us exactly where we were to park and we told him we would not lock it this time. We spent the day with Michelle in Osterville. We visited her interior design shop, Summerland, and walked to the beach looking at houses along the way. For lunch we went to Fancy’s, I would call it a boutique deli and grocery store. The sandwiches were excellent and the grocery store was small but had both regular items along with gourmet items, wine, beer, liquor and cigars. Alcohol is more regulated on the east coast than in Texas so it was unusual to see vodka and wine in the same store with groceries . Later in the afternoon we went to a regular grocery store so that we could re-provision on refrigerated items and we all went back to our boat as they wanted to see it. To return to their house for dinner we parked the dinghy on the beach at the end of their street which was probably 15 minutes closer than the dinghy dock. In addition to the dinghy snafu I got a call from the Harbormaster around 2:00 that he “had a report that he could not confirm or deny that our anchor light was not on last night”. We know for sure that it was as that’s how we found our boat at 9:00 p.m. in the pitch dark. We think either it was the other sailboat (on a mooring), or the boat that reported us did not see the light because it’s up 64 feet and they were looking at the water level only, or they just don’t want us there. Either way we probably won’t be going back to that harbor! Nevertheless we had a wonderful time with Michelle, Jim , Michaela and a little time with Ryan.

Thursday, July 4 - Happy 4th of July! It seems we are often sailing on a holiday. We departed Barnstable Harbor at 7:30 a.m. and had both sails out and engine off before 8:30. Winds were 20 knots from the SW and we sailed on a port tack with a good beam reach going 6 knots. We were able to sail 2.5 hours before the wind slowed down and engine turned back on. 2 hours later the winds picked up as we got closer to Boston and we turned the engine off for another 2 hours. By 3:05 we were in Boston Harbor and the boat traffic picked up considerably with power boats, sailboats and ferries. The water grew turbulent and the sky was much cloudier than in the morning on the Cape. We turned the engine on and pulled in the sails. We anchored at 5:41 close to Logan Airport and in front of En El Viento, Gary and Renee’s boat whom we met in Black Point, Exumas. Kevin and Gary kept in contact with the hopes that we could meet up at some point and buddy boat. They came over to our boat that evening for cocktails. That evening we watched a fabulous fireworks display from the back of our boat.

Sail time: 4 hours 41 minutes
Motor-sail: 2 hours 4 minutes
Motor only: 3 hours 25 minutes
Total: 10 hours 10 minutes

Friday, July 5 - A rainstorm came through in the morning, ending around 8 a.m. and it was extremely foggy. We had intended to leave for Salem at 10:00 but the fog kept getting thicker. At 11:45 the fog started to lift and we made the call to leave at noon. Motor was turned on at noon, anchor was up at 12:05 and mainsail pulled out at 12:10. En El Viento was behind us as we buddy boat together. We ended up motoring the whole way, pulling out the jib early on only to bring it back in as the wind was nominal. We pulled in the mainsail at 2:35 as we passed Marblehead and navigated around numerous crap and/or lobster pots.
We went into Salem harbor and anchored at 3:06. It’s a very large harbor with a lot of sailboats on moorings. After settling in we met Gary and Renee and dinghy’ed into town. We were anchored on the far end of the harbor opposite the public dock and the dinghy ride was about 30 minutes with no wake allowed. We walked around town looking at the shops and stopped at Longboards Restaurant for beers and shared a delicious lobster flatbread.

Saturday, July 6 - We got up at 5:30 a.m. and departed at 6:00 to try to be in Portsmouth by 3:00 during slack tide. It rained during the night and fortunately this time I moved a lot of items to keep them dry but the cushions and boat in general was still very wet. There was dense fog and we hoped as the day went on it would lift but it only got thicker. We spent the first 3 hours trying to spot and avoid crab/lobster pots, they are difficult to see in the fog. The wind was on our starboard side initially and moved behind us at we turned more west after passing Gloucester. We moved along with motor and mainsail at 7 knots until 12:20 when Kevin slowed us down so that we didn’t arrive before slack tide. Ae we entered Piscataqua River the fog lifted, we still ended up getting to the marina an hour early and the current was raging. We circled in the river near the marina until just after 2:00 then tied up in our slip on the dock. The marina is in Kittery, ME on the other side of the bridge from Portsmouth. Later in the evening we walked with Pepper across the bridge and walked around Portsmouth. There was a free musical in the park that we were going to watch (Legally Blonde) but unfortunately dogs were not allowed and we opted to have a drink sitting outside. Czytaj więcej