sailing

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.

We are on our way to Rockland, Maine today. We have seen seals looking at us (poking their heads above water to curiously look at us and then flopping to swim away), small dolphins, and ocean sunfish. At first we thought they were dying fish but after seeing several of them we looked them up. And we were able to take cool photos of this one!

From Norfolk we headed north up the western side of the Chesapeake Bay. The water was completely smooth as we started out. We had in mind to anchor inside of a little channel on the south side of the mouth of the Potomac River, and also get fuel in there. We called the marina because it looked kind of shallow and he confirmed that we wouldn't be able to get fuel there. We had plenty of daylight left so decided to go for another ten miles to the north side of the river. We anchored in the crook of the arm of Point Lookout, protected from east winds.

The next day those east winds had whipped up pretty wild three foot waves. About 20 minutes into it we debated turning around and waiting for better conditions but the bay significantly narrows north of there so we figured it would be better as we progressed. On the radio we overheard the powerboat Erinbrie ahead of us giving weather reports back to Mojo which was behind us, and those reports confirmed that the waves would soon tame down. So then we had nice winds and reasonable conditions and we got all enthusiastic about sailing. We turned off the engine and had our sails set too aggressively, so the boat heeled a lot and we were still pounding waves pretty good. Anna tried to do some stuff below deck and her and Louise were bouncing around down there pretty bad, so we moderated the sails and did some motorsailing. We crossed a fleet of about 40 racing boats heading south; they had started in Annapolis earlier in the day. Some of them were large 50-70' sailboats with 8 guys sitting on the windward rail--quite the sight! Others were just normal sailboats like ours, equipped more for speed than comfort I imagine.

We arrived in Annapolis around 5:00PM on Saturday. Aaron lost his hat in the water doing something with the sails that Anna did not feel was necessary. We were in the harbor but there was still some chop blowing in so Anna was bouncing around on the side of the boat trying to hang on while using two hands to make passes at the hat with the boat hook (long pole thing). Louise pooped on the deck right next to Anna. Tempers flared and threats were made! We circled around to the hat three or four times but weren't able to get it. So it was very difficult to fetch a hat out of relatively calm waters--confirming what we have been told that you definitely don't want to fall off the boat!

Then we went to try and find a mooring ball so that we could have showers and do laundry. Also anchoring spots are pretty sparse there. But all the mooring balls were full of people there for the weekend. So we went over to a different area and ended up anchoring in the middle of a sort of channel. It's not super narrow and people do anchor there regularly but it took us a while to get used to the idea. It ended up being a nice spot and several other boats anchored around us in the four nights that we spent there. One of them was Teri and Britt on SV Sea Otter who had been fortunate enough to get a mooring ball but then moved over to anchor with us. And we have been traveling with them since then as they are trying to get to Boston by July too!

We spent a lot of time in Annapolis hanging out with Anna's friend Will who she worked with in Big Sky. He is from the area and showed us around the downtown area. Also with him we had a nice supper at Pussers (waterfront hotspot) and Aaron and Will got boat shoes at the Sperry store. Will invited us to have dinner with his mom and sister at Reynolds which was a lot of fun, the steak sandwich was fabulous. After dinner he took us to stock up on beer and some stuff at Target. We had a great time hanging out with him on the boat every night! Hopefully Will can sail with us as we go to DC in the fall on our way back South.

We left Annapolis with SV Sea Otter on June 12th and sailed the entire 25 miles to Worton Creek. SV Sea Otter is a heavy boat and a little shorter at the waterline than Prairie Tumbleweed so she averages 4.5 knots compared to our 6.5 knots. So with no rush to put on miles that day we actually did our first day of all sailing (except leaving Annapolis and also we ran the engine for the last 30 minutes so we could have a warm shower) and it was great! Nice calm water and a pretty steady breeze, 6-8 knots at first and building to 12 knots by the end. The next day we did another short trip up to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal and then just a few miles into it to anchor at Chesapeake City.

This turned out to be a nice little touristy sort of town. They have a free dock but it only has room for three boats and was full so we just anchored nearby in the basin. We posted a picture of that a few days ago--the storm clouds over the bridge. That storm did hit pretty hard and we saw wind speeds up to 32 knots. The next day we walked to the Dollar General 1.5 miles away to stock up on a few things including a fly swatter. They flies had started bothering us back in Annapolis but we had forgotten to buy one there. Aaron had gotten pretty good with a dish towel with a wetted end, but it was very satisfying to go to work with a real fly swatter.

We left at about 5:00PM that same day to catch a favorable current in the C&D canal for about 12 miles. Then the weather overnight was very favorable so we proceeded through the night to Lewes, DE. We arrived at 5:30AM, just after sunrise.

We stayed in Lewes for a few nights waiting for good weather to proceed. The only way north for a boat of our size is via the Atlantic Ocean, so no protection from the weather. On the 17th we planned to leave with Sea Otter at 5:00AM to go to Atlantic City about 50 miles away. Since we are faster we planned to leave a little later. They made it out into the ocean and then turned around to come back because the waves were too unpleasant. We had just begun making preparations to leave, so we went back to bed. The next day we were able to make the trip with pleasant two foot seas, building towards 3 feet at the end.

We arrived in Atlantic City and got fuel and water. Sea Otter anchored near the inlet and we decided to chance our way a short distance through a very narrow creek to a more protected anchorage. We made it and it was very peaceful in the basin.

We made it to Boston!!!

As we approached the Boston area we got a good chuckle hearing someone on the radio say harbor pronounced like haw-baw.

A bird is taking a break on the solar panel.

We are anchored near Cuttyhunk Island, ten miles east of Martha's Vineyard.

Early start this morning sailing into the sunrise at the east end of Long Island. 6 knots of wind on the beam (so motor sailing of course) and glassy smooth water. We want to make it 70 miles to Cuttyhunk Island where our friends on SV Sea Otter are preparing to go through the Cape Cod canal tomorrow. Winds should be out of the north so we will cross over to the southern shore of Connecticut and Rhode Island, passing north of Fishers Island (where we had intended to make it to last night).

Yesterday we made it 30 miles east of Port Jefferson before the rain made us give up. We started with perfect conditions and then as we started getting rain and storm alerts we cut 2 miles south to shore to anchor if it got unpleasant. It proceeded to lightly rain for the next hour and the heavy rain spots on radar kept weakening before they got to us. So I decided to go straight across between two points instead of sticking to shore, and naturally that is when the weather started to become interesting. The winds gradually built to 20 knots and the rain became moderate. 45 minutes later we made it to a decent place to anchor on the west side of Horton Point and called it a day. My hands and feet were very wrinkled from being wet for several hours. It became foggy so we we're glad to be already stopped. Then we made pizza and relaxed!

We have been doing good with the currents as they have been 1 knot favorable for the whole morning yesterday and presumably today too.

We passed through our first lock yesterday just south of Norfolk, VA. We only moved about 18" down in the lock. They had this board which confirmed how far we've come (from Miami) and have left to go (to Boston).

As we left Norfolk this morning we heard on the radio that a US Navy submarine was leaving. So we dawdled for about 20 minutes and got to see it cruise out to sea about a half mile away. Also our anchorage was 2 miles from 3 aircraft carriers! Also the US Navy experimental stealth ship Stiletto passed us about 100 yards away at 32 knots! It has been a very exciting morning.

We hope to make it to the mouth of the Potomac River today. We will eventually get an update out about the past week+ before it fades too far from our memories.