Thursday, October 20, 2016

Sailing Buzzard’s Bay and Vineyard Sound - Part IV




Friday July 29th - Edgartown to Onset.

To beat the rain we get up at 3:30 AM. The boat is out of the harbor by 4. It's dark, and its foggy too. The hardest part is getting out of the harbor. Once we are in the channel we see other boats, the lights on shore, the flashing lights of cans and buoys. The rain starts around 8, and by 9 it's raining hard. We go through Woods Hole, a complicated passage, without mishap. We know how to check the currents and tides, and by 10:30 AM we are in Onset Harbor. 

We wait out the rain; it stops around 2 PM, as predicted. We go ashore to do a little laundry, take showers. Later we go to Ella's Wood Oven for dinner. This is the best meal of the trip, cod, lobster, mashed potatoes.




Saturday July 30th - Onset to Sandwich.

In the morning I run 7 miles. Its hot, but I find a shady sandy back road so its a nice run. Its time to say goodbye to Sally and Doug. They've been great sailors, helpful, easygoing, up for whatever. We'd do it with them again, but we really should try to not do it in an election year! Just too stressful for me and Doug, with our wildly differing political opinions.

We take the dinghy to town for a lobster roll for Lee, a hotdog and a stuffed quahog for me. Then off we go to Sandwich through the canal. This time we time it better and fly through in an hour, making over 8 knots with the current.

Back in our slip in Sandwich we go on another walk to the ice cream place and then to the grocery store. We eat supper on the boat and plan our final day.



Sunday July 31st - Sandwich to Salem

The next day we decide we're ready to be home and the wind is cooperative so we sail directly across Massachusetts Bay and get home in about 8 hours. It's almost 50 miles, our longest sail ever. The dogs just sleep and time passes quickly.




I light a yarzteit candle for my mother this morning. Its been two years since she passed away, and its her birthday too. 





Before we embarked upon this trip I had a lot of questions about how I would tolerate two straight weeks on the boat. As it turns out I had a good time. The improvements that Lee has made make it easier for high maintenance me, and the addition of a bimini next year will make it easier to tolerate the heat. We handled passages in the dark, the rain, the wind, we handled long sails, and short brisk ones. We have more places we want to go down south and more confidence that we can do them too. We'll be looking for sailing partners soon, just let us know if you think you might like to try it!



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