What a delight to share a great few days with our friends Nancy and Ted. Fabulous weather gave us a great sail from Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard to Nantucket where we enjoyed two days walking around town, hanging out on board, and sharing wonderful meals on the island. In celebration of Nancy's 60th, we enjoyed dinner at
Brant Point Grill and the next night at
American Seasons. Both fabulous meals and great companionship.
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| Passed this beautiful schooner on our way |
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| Brant Point Light |
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| Good friends Ted and Nancy |
After another great sail back to Edgartown, we waved goodbye as they headed back to Cape Cod, where their car was parked, on the Falmouth Ferry. With a wind shift to North, the anchorage at the
Chappy Beach Club became uncomfortable, so we immediately headed back to Lake Tashmoo where we knew we would find quiet water. Ah - relief!
Tashmoo is famous for poor internet and cellular access. For those of you needing to get away from it all, especially for a week, this is sweet. For us, who have come to rely on communication with everyone, it's more than a little frustrating. So, as beautiful as Tashmooe is, we headed out the next morning across Vineyard Sound and through Woods Hole.
Woods Hole is a tight waterway between two bodies of land: the southern part of Cape Cod and the northern portion of the Elizabeth Islands (Naushon Island, in particular). Every tide brings a new 10 feet of water through this small passage; and tide changes occur every six hours. Tidal changes create currents. In Woods Hole currents can run as fast as 4 knots. If your boat motors at 6-7 knots you can imagine the challenge going two miles, effectively, at 2 knots; as opposed to 9 or 10 knots if you choose the right time. It's important to know that tides and currents are well documented and available in books, online, and on our GPS/chartplotter. But, for some reason we often hit Woods Hole at the wrong time. This time, we hit it right at slack (no current) and slid through behind the ferries with no effort. We decided to duck into Hadley Harbor on
Naushon Island, located near the west end of Woods Hole behind two smaller islands and protected from the currents. This is an iconic harbor for sailors. We enjoyed a Sunday afternoon on a free mooring and watched boats come and go. It is a beautiful spot.
A sailboat is made comfortable and livable partially through battery power. With our new batteries and our solar panels, we can survive for days at anchor while the solar panels replenish our electric power. We have been doing just that since July 12th when we left the Chesapeake. However, as time goes by, it is often necessary and prudent to plug into shore power to bring the batteries back up to full again. By August 20th, we were feeling the need to do this, so started to seek out a marina. On the Vineyard and in Newport, fees for dockage are pretty high. They charge by the foot, so at $5.00 per foot, it would cost us $200 per night, plus the meter for electric. We began a more extensive search on
Active Captain (a social media site for cruisers that rates and reviews marinas, anchorages, moorings, services, etc). We found a brand new marina in Charlestown (the north end of Boston Harbor) that was $3 a foot and decided Boston was our next destination.
So off we went, North to the top of Buzzard's Bay and through the
Cape Cod Canal. When we popped out the other end, the wind was enough to throw out the jib and motorsail to Plymouth Harbor. We found a quiet, out of the way spot to anchor, bothered only by the little boats out to find dinner.
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| Railroad Bridge at West end of Canal with Bourne Bridge in background |
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| Mural along canal |
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| Motoring underneath the Sagamore Bridge |
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| Plymouth Light |
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| Duxbury Pier Light |
Once the fog lifted the next morning, we headed out of Plymouth and continued North to Boston. Sailing into a city you love is thrilling. To see it from the water is so different and wonderful. We took hundreds of photos. Here are a few. (Click on any photo to make it larger)
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| Rowe's Wharf and the Boston Harbor Hotel |
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| Old and new Prudential buildings and John Hancock Tower |
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| Boston Light |
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| Right in the flight path |
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| Duck Tour boat |
We docked at Charlestown Marina, a beautiful new marina right in the heart of Charlestown and a mile walk from the North End. We accomplished lots of chores while there and rejoiced in full batteries. Laundry, food shopping, barber shop, propane tanks filled, washed boat, all topped off by gastro delight in the North End, two nights running. A classic Italian scene and great meal at
Antico Forno, followed by treats from
Bova Bakery, and a more upscale
Artu with more treats from Bova on night two. We balanced the treats by walking to and from along Harbor Walk and the Charlestown Navy Yard (Old Ironsides). We were able to see parts of the city we had never seen before and enjoyed it all immensely.
Friday, we pulled away from the dock by 7am and motored out of the Boston Harbor. The wind was brisk enough to raise all the sails and we motorsailed East along the coast, passing Salem, Gloucester and Beverly, then around Rockport and Cape Ann with great views of
Thacher Island. We turned North and a bit West and headed straight to Portsmouth, NH. Even in 200 feet of water, we had to dodge the lobster traps. Then, it was past
Isle of Shoals and into the Piscataqua River to grab a mooring ball at the
Portsmouth Yacht Club. The current in the river, as the 10 foot tide goes up and down, is rather brisk and there is a lot of boat traffic in and out of Portsmouth. We were happy to be on a mooring in 25 feet of water with two knots of current racing by the hull (rather than our anchor).
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| A Northern Gannet |
We enjoyed a long walk into town, a visit from Greg's brother Jay and friend Kathryn, a yummy lunch at
Popover's (yes, their popovers are amazing!) and a light dinner at
Gas Light, a favorite haunt. Sunday, we moved over to
Wentworth Marina for a couple days to make it easy for the delivery guys to bring us our newly purchased mattress - Yippee! Wentworth By the Sea Marina is a lovely spot, adjacent to the Wentworth By the Sea Hotel. We had a deposit here for years, even before buying our boat, thinking it might be a good spot to keep the boat in the summer. It's picturesque, the people are great, and the amanities are first class. One great service that we sometimes find at marinas is a loaner car for transients (like us). It was a real treat to learn they had two! We immediately signed up to borrow one and headed off to the food markets and West Marine.
Today, day two here, we were fortunate to have friends Jim and Barbara join us for a lovely lunch at Lattitudes Restaurant overlooking the marina. Lobster salad, fried fish and great local beer - Sea Dog Sunfish!
Since we're at a dock here, we are "plugged in" to electricity and air-conditioning. Plus our new mattress arrived today - wahoo! We ditched the one that is as old as the boat (1995), along with the egg crate foam and memory foam we've added in our attempts to make the old one comfortable. But, our backs no longer agree. We'll let you know how we sleep tonight. :)
Tomorrow, we begin to make our way back South - first Boston again, then on to the Cape, Islands or Newport. 'Til next time -
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