Rockport, MA

Rockport, MA
Wednesday, August 14 - Kevin woke me up at 4:30 a.m. to get ready for an estimated 13 hour journey to Rockport, Ma. It was either that or do an overnighter, which I really don’t like. We pulled up anchor at 5:10 a.m. and left Portland and Maine to continue our journey down the east coast. We will miss the beauty and cool weather, but not the lobster pots and fog. Winds were coming off our starboard side between 3 and 5 knots. We pulled out the mainsail and hoped the wind would pick up to be able to pull out the jib. By 7:15 a.m. the wind picked up to 10 knots and we had a nice beam reach off our starboard side. We were able to pull out the jib and motor-sail at 6.4 knots. Throughout the day the wind shifted and at one point we pulled the jib back in, then out again. As we were getting close to Rockport, MA at 3:00 p.m. the wind was 12 knots and we had the jib out and motor-sailed at 7.6 knots. We anchored at 3:30. After dinner Renee and Gary came over for an end of journey celebration. Kevin and Gary had bourbon and cigars and Renee and I shared a nice bottle of Pinot Noir. As we sat in the cockpit we noticed the sailboat anchored next to us kept coming closer and in a short amount of time the bow was about to hit our boat, and the crew had gone into town. I used the boat hook to push the boat away and the guys got in the dinghy to move the boat. We thought it was drifting but they determined that the anchor was set, the problem was that it was rhode only, no chain, and stretched a lot and may have had more chain (rhode) out than us. Eventually the wind pushed it farther away. However, at 3 in the morning Kevin woke me up and said he needed my help as the boat was about to hit us again and he didn’t think anyone was on the boat as he couldn’t see the dinghy. Luckily they were and he was able to stir them up. After conversing he asked if they would bring in their anchor by 10 feet. When we woke up again they had moved the boat closer to shore.

Thursday, August 15 - We went to shore in the morning to a coffee shop for a breakfast sandwich and coffee, I was able to get a cafe ole, yum! Then we went back to get Pepper and we walked around Rockland. It’s bigger than it first appears when you factor in the side streets. It’s a quaint little town next to Gloucester, full of artist shops, clothing boutiques and old homes. There were several restaurants but proportionately not as many as other towns we visited. It’s very family oriented with a nice beach. There are several foot paths that you can take to the beach or lookout points on rocks. We took one that went through woods and came out on rocks overlooking the harbor. We bought tickets for an opera that night at the performance center, thought it would be something different to do. We assumed it was live but it was a film of The Metropolitan Opera on a large screen. The ticket price of $15 should have clued us in that it wasn’t live! But it was fun to watch, it was an adaptation of Cinderella, with a stepfather instead of a stepmother. It was in Italian but had subtitles that were helpful.もっと詳しく