Sailing Buzzards Bay August 2017 - Jamestown to New Bedford, Onset, Scituate and Home

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.

Sailing Buzzards Bay August 2017 - Salem to Plymouth and Through the Canal

Monday.

Well we were going to stop at Scituate, but the weather is threatening so Captain Lee decides we should continue on to Plymouth and stay two nights, waiting to go through the canal until Wednesday. That works out fine but brother Monday's sail just went on forever. The problem with Plymouth is that even after you turn into the approach to the harbor, you still have a couple of miles to go. And even after you turn into the harbor itself, you have to go wayyyy around before you can go behind the sea wall. It just was a very long day. 

The dogs were extremely happy to get off the boat. I don't know how they do it, their bladders are much much stronger than mine. We have a carpet square on a grommet that they theoretically could pee upon but so far they don't cotton to that idea. Mainly they just sleep.

Finally on our mooring and Lee gets to try out his new sun/rainshade. It works great, at least for keeping out rain. We were able to eat out in the cockpit and stay dry. I think it will provide plenty of shade as well, once the sun comes out.

Tuesday.

The clouds are certainly threatening but the small craft advisory has been lifted. We could have probably made it through the canal to Onset today after all. Oh well! I'm able to go for a run since we don't need to rush, along the coast. Beautiful as always. Then I can take a shower at the very nice Plymouth Yacht Club. 

In the afternoon we walk around town, go to the park, explore the old mill. For dinner we go to the nearby Surfside Smokehouse. My goodness, good BBQ in New England! We are duly impressed.

Wednesday. 

We make our way across Cape Cod Bay to the canal. We know how they time it now so that we are going the direction of the tide. That makes us bounce through the canal pretty fast, 7 or 8 knots! The wind has swung around and is coming from the south. This can be bad if it keeps going that way for several days, but this has just started so when we leave the canal there is a little chop but not bad. Before we know it we've turned the corner and we're in Onset Marina, our home for the night. They are full service so we get fuel, water and get pumped out. We should be good to go now for awhile.

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!