Aaron's blog

On Sunday we left Isles of Shoals and made it to Gloucester. We sailed 15 or 20 miles to Rockport where we wanted to stay (haven't been there yet). But when we tried to anchor, the sound of the pointy tip of the anchor dragging across granite was clearly transmitted up the chain. We tried five different spots but all we found was rock, which was frustrating because others had reported good holding mud in that area. We radioed the harbormaster for advice and to maybe just stay on a mooring ball but he was busy "looking for someone" and they had a boat out in the harbor with six divers in the water. We never heard back from him so we motorsailed around the peninsula and stayed in Gloucester.

We were able to find a spot to anchor in Gloucester's inner harbor where there is room for 6-8 on anchor. Then we rushed to shore to try to watch the second half of the Vikings game. It was not nationally televised so we were not successful. On the way back to the boat we stopped to chat with Steve from the boat Thursday's Child. We met them in Stuart, FL and had seen them about six weeks ago at the SSCA gam in Rockland, ME. He had been up to Nova Scotia while we explored Maine.

The next day we stayed put as the winds were not favorable for moving on. Louise got a walk, we had Domino's for supper, and Anna got a key lime pie. As we were walking around town we saw a large film crew near the waterfront filming for a movie called Coda.

On Tuesday we sailed to Provincetown, MA out on the tip of Cape Cod. The wind was a solid 15 knots just off of the stern so we made pretty good time, averaging 6.5 knots. As we left the protection of the Gloucester peninsula the waves built up to 3' and fairly close together so we were rolling back and forth the whole way. Aaron went to shore to walk around for an hour.

Today we woke up and figured that the waves would become unreasonable as we approached the entrance to the Cape Cod Canal--20+ knots of wind. So we stayed and will go tomorrow when we should get close to Martha's Vineyard. We plan to spend a couple days there. Now we (all three) are heading to shore for a walk.

Today we weren't planning to leave Gosport Harbor at the Isles of Shoals because of forecasted four foot waves. But when we looked outside around 8:00am all the other boats were gone. And our end of the harbor was getting some wave action so we needed to move further into the harbor anyways.

We decided to see what the conditions were like out there. They were just on the good side of unreasonable and we probably could have tacked our way upwind to Rockport by late afternoon. But we looked at the dark clouds on the horizon and matching forecast for light rain, and then turned around. On the way back the heightened conditions and frustrations of not making any progress for the day led to lively "team dynamics".

We grabbed a mooring ball closer in and had lunch. Our mooring ball floated quite a ways back as our boat hung on it, so that the next mooring ball (unoccupied) was at times almost touching the stern. Later someone was daring enough to snag it and now we are all hanging out with good spacing.

We took the dinghy to Star Island where we walked the trails around the island to look at the sights as the drizzle started. We had very good ice cream and then went back to the boat to nap and read while it rained a bit longer. Now we are about to make pizza and are looking forward to a sunny day tomorrow!

The hurricane has passed us. We had winds up to 20 knots today and a little bit of rain. So basically we have had worse thunderstorms several times...very fortunate.

We have been in The Basin for a few days now and in addition to having great protection, it is very scenic. There are some trails nearby that Aaron explored for a few hours yesterday. He saw a variety of beautiful biomes: great big pine trees with pristine pine needle carpets, lush fern groves, grassy meadows, and of course great hunks of granite everywhere.

The mosquitoes are thick here and come out early! Time to go for a short walk with Louise and then think about leaving tomorrow. No wind is forecast so maybe we would only go the ten or so miles to Portland. We will see!

We spent the past month or so exploring Maine and in particular Mount Desert Island, home of Acadia National Park. More details on that to come!

Today we left Rockland to head towards Portland. The daily highs are in the mid 60s so time to head south! But of course there are hurricanes to worry about, even way up north here.

Dorian is likely to pass near the coast of Maine--the latest prediction shows that we are in the band representing a 20-30% chance of winds over 39mph. Near Portland there is a lot of interesting geography making for good places to hide in storms. So we plan to hang around there for the next week. Today we only made it to Burnt Island as we had a late start (autopilot was having issues) and then some rain was approaching. Tomorrow we will check out the most renowned "hurricane hole" in the area, The Basin. That will be a 36 mile trip with weak winds all day and strong waves in the morning so we will sleep in (as usual).

If Dorian becomes predicted to severely impact the area then we would be looking into things like leaving the boat for a few days and possibly hauling it out of the water. Also it would be a ton of work removing sails, removing solar panels, and finding some place to put the dinghy.