Sunday.
We wake to beautiful fog. Even the Newport bridge is gone. We take our time eating breakfast, walking dogs, getting ready. When we walk the dogs we see the beginning of the Fools Rules Regatta, an annual event in Jamestown where people build sailboats on the shore and then sail them down the beach. The construction materials are pretty creative!
We head out of the harbor into peasoup. Lots of boats coming back in, and we decide it's prudent to do the same. We waste some time looking at pretty boats in the Newport Harbor and then try again.
It's very foggy for awhile, but we have the AIS on, and there is some visibility. Finally it begins to lift, but then we are confronted by another conundrum. The marine forecast for Buzzards Bay said waves 2 ft; these are easily closer to 5, or more, rolling swells about 6 seconds apart. They aren't scary, the boat handles them just fine, nobody is getting wet. But boy o boy this is not a good day for anyone prone to seasickness!
I volunteer to make lunch. I've never been seasick, and I think I'll be fine. Wrong! It's warm down below. I open a couple hatches but even so ..... I'm making tuna salad from the tuna we had for dinner last night. I chop up the tuna, go uptop for a break. Chop up celery, another break. Throw on some mustard and mayo, chop a little onion. Give the bowl to Beth and ask her to mix it up. Cut up a tomato. Hand up some chips and bread and get out of there just in time....that's the closest to seasick I've ever been. I now understand the stories I've read where everyone gets sick on a boat.
Back up in the fresh air I stare at the horizon and sip a coke. Gradually my stomach returns to a state more resembling normalcy. Eventually I can even eat a little lunch. Whew!
Lee looks at the marine forecast again. Aha! We were actually in Rhode Island Sound, not Buzzards Bay, and the forecast there IS for seas 3-5 ft and a small craft advisory. We later speculate that if we had known the real forecast we would probably have changed our plans. Ignorance was sort of bliss...I guess.
Once in the shade of the islands, and truly in Buzzards Bay, the seas do moderate. Between the swells and the lack of wind it is after 6 when we finally pull into New Bedford. The dogs get a short walk, we all take showers, eat dinner, and collapse into bed. Sailing through swells like that all day is just exhausting. You don't realize it but you are doing isometric exercises all day, just to stay upright!
Monday.
Pleasant uneventful day. A little wind, no waves. We actually can put up the sails! The current from the canal helps us along too. We pull into Onset at 2:30, much better than yesterday!
I've decided to do my run this evening. We need to leave Onset at 9:30 am tomorrow to be at the beginning of the ebb tide into Cape Cod Bay. This way I don't inconvenience anyone else and I get my third run of the trip in so I'm ahead when its time for our next cruise in September.
This run is the first of 6 weeks of hill repeats. Last year when I did these I hated them and dreaded them every week. This year I'm not looking forward to them but I decide I need to have a different attitude. Yes they hurt, but they are supposed to. A minute and a half of 90% effort, then rest for 4 minutes, repeat. It's not fun, but the end results are great, and a couple of weeks from now my hill climbing abilities will be much improved. Hang in there!
Tuesday.
We are heading out of Onset and into the canal right around 9:30 am. It makes so much difference if we time our passage properly. It only takes a little more than an hour to pass through the canal.
Back in Cape Cod Bay at first we are still pulled along by the ebb. We even raise the sails and try to motor sail. The sun is shining, the wind dies. It's warm enough that I put on my bathing suit top.
Then clouds start to gather, the wind builds and it cools off. By the time we pull into Scituate it looks like rain and I've changed into a sweater. What odd weather! It's quite windy but it never rains and we have a nice evening ashore. We try a new restaurant (for us), The Gallery. Sliders, tacos, small plates and a delicious peppery Pinot Noir. Tomorrow we head back across Massachusetts Bay, back to Salem, and home.
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