Hurricane schmurricane! My dad tells me I shouldn’t tout the hurricane’s disappointing showing because I’ll summon another one on us. Oh well.
Lee and I spent the night on the boat when Earl was supposed to show up last week. We didn’t quite make it out there before it started raining torrentially. The night brought more rain and a bit of wind but not much. Quite a bit of rain came in the main hatch because we’d left it half open (with the dodger up above it) and the boat had gotten stuck with it’s stern to the wind thanks to our anchor line’s tendency to wrap around the keel. Oh well, what’s a bit of water on the floor going to hurt?
The next morning we drove out to Pemequid point with Lee’s parents to check out the waves. They were definitely much bigger than the waves usually are out there. Tons of people showed up to satisfy their curiosity and a few idiots walked down on the rocks where the caution tape warned onlookers not to go.
Yesterday we took Pirat around the corner to Gamage Shipyard, since the yard we originally picked wasn’t answering their phone. Gamage also has a travel lift instead of just a hydraulic trailer, which we figured was a safer bet. Pirat came out of the water, safe and sound, yesterday afternoon. It was really strange seeing our boat hoisted out with the lift like. It looked huge and incredibly fragile at the same time. The yard guys pressure washed it and propped it up on stands. It amazes me that those things can really support the boat! Unfortunately I didn’t bring my camera. I’ll have to get pictures when Pirat goes back in the water. She’ll be all clean and shiny then anyway.
Today Lee extracted the transmission so we can send it to Florida to be repaired. He also took off part of the stern stantions so we can have them altered for an outboard engine mount.
We’re all heading down to Block Island in the next couple days to spend next week there. My birthday will be at the end of our stay and my mom is coming out for the Block Island mini-vacation as well. It should be a good way to bid farewell to summer and celebrate my birthday!
Maine has a strange kind of time-warp going on. It seems like forever since we brought the boat up here with my dad and sailed to Acadia with Doug. The weeks go by slowly but days pass in a flash.
Pirat is happily anchored in front of the house. Lee has been going down his massive list of projects: reconfiguring rope clutches, installing an engine temperature sensor, and removing the hot water heater and pressurized water faucets to name a few. I’ve been banging my head against various walls, including the wall of my post-thesis thesis publication that will never be.
We found a boatyard to haul the boat for new bottom paint and so we can remove the transmission and send it to Florida for repairs (yes, Florida has the most cost-effective transmission repair option we’ve found). The boatyard is here: Bittersweet Landing, around the corner from Bremen. We probably won’t have Pirat hauled till next week, though, since hurricane Earl is coming through tonight. Why not haul the boat before the hurricane like everyone else? Having watched the storms progress closely for the past week, we figure Pirat is safer in our trusted anchorage where we can keep and eye on her than in a boatyard we don’t know well. We are anchored so far up in Muscongus bay that we have a significant amount of shelter from seas and wind. The wind is only forecast to reach 30 knots or so anyway. Lee and I will hunker down and spend the night on the boat tonight (we’ve been sleeping in the house…gasp!). Lee and I are both kind of excited to experience our first hurricane effects on the boat. Lee and his family were on Block Island when hurricane Bob came through in the 90’s so they’ve seen boats washed ashore and all that drama. This shouldn’t be nearly as severe as that storm was but you never really know till it shows up. Maybe we’ll drive out to Pemequid Point to check out the ocean tomorrow morning. I’ll try to take some pictures of the action!
Hurricanes aside, we are gearing up to head south this fall. As usual, the plan has changed. We’re going to sail south in hops along the coast instead of going totally offshore. Severe enough wind and weather has somehow evaded us enough to leave Pirat and crew untested in the kinds of conditions we’d likely face in a Gulf stream-crossing passage. We plan to make some longer passages along the coast, upping the ante from 24-hour sails to multiple days and nights. This way we can skip over areas we’re not interested in (New York/New Jersey, Chesapeake bay) and have time to stop and see people along the way! I know a few friends I’ll want to visit for sure but anyone else who might be in the Southern U.S. this fall or just wants to come visit and go for a sail while we’re still in the country should get in touch!
I was not lying when I told my former boss at the DMNS that I have not finished revising my thesis for publication because I’ve been really busy. True, I’ve been busy doing mostly fun things. Those fun things have given me only snippets of time to work on my paper and update the blog. Now it’s time to get to work!
Starting with our backpacking trip to Katahdin: it was the longest backpacking trip I’ve ever been on and I could not walk properly for several days after we got back. While Maine mountains may not have much in the way of altitude, they make up for it with ruggedness. Lee and I covered lots of steep trails, including our ascent and descent of Katahdin on the last day. We climbed to the summit, followed the knife edge ridge to the second peak, and descended down one very, very, very long ridge. A girls high school volleyball team seeking heart-shaped rocks chased us to the summit and a group of 4 or 5 guys carrying only shed moose antlers chased us down (one guy was shoeless on the sharp rocks).
After Katahdin, I spent a few days working in my paper at Lee’s parents house before we packed up and headed back to Rhode Island to retrieve Pirat. We found the boat safe and sound in it’s mooring at Pirate Cove and quickly got ready to sail North with my dad, who flew out from California for the trip. First, we took Lee’s friend Becky for a sail in the bay. It was a blustery day and a we got in a few hours of quality sailing. On Sunday evening we picked my dad up at the Providence airport and had a delicious Indian dinner (thanks to Becky’s recommendation).
The three of us set sail from Pirate Cove on Monday morning in dense fog and light wind. The weather improved and we had a good downwind sail through Buzzards Bay to the Cape Cod Canal and then a lively upwind leg to Plymouth on the other side. We anchored there for the night and started our 24-hour leg to Maine the next morning. It was a windless day, as expected, so we motor sailed most of the time. There were a few periods of good breeze when we shut down the engine and enjoyed the silence.
Thanks to my dad’s sharp eyes, we saw lots of wildlife. He spotted giant tuna jumping completely out of the water, several whales (probably Pilot and Humpback), a few dolphins, and sharks sunning themselves on the surface. One humongous shark crossed just in front of the boat and then turned to check it out. It was about 10 feet away from us and we could see that it approached 20 feet in length. We looked up it’s fin shape later and decided it was probably a Basking shark.
The night watches were relatively uneventful. I took the first watch (9-12) after the guys assured me that the thunderstorm out ahead of us was really far away and probably wouldn’t be a problem (we took down all the sails, just in case, and because we were motoring directly upwind). My dad took the second watch (12 to 3), and Lee took the third (3-6). I slept a bit better this time with more of a chance to relax.
We tacked up the bay Bremen, ME on Wednesday morning, the wind lightening as we left the ocean. Tacking among the islands was like sailing in a pinball machine. When we dropped anchor in front of Lee’s parents house Lee’s mom picked us up in the skiff and brought us ashore for hot showers.
The next few days brought perfect weather and a chance fr my dad to get to know Lee’s parents a bit. We all sailed out to Monhegan Island on Thursday. Monhegan was a picturesque setting for a hike and we had a great sail out. We stopped in Round Pond for lobster dinners on the way back (oh so, so, wonderfully tasty) and motored back to our home anchorage after dark, watching the meteor shower.
The dads, Lee, and I went to Rockland to check out the boat show and visit Hamilton Marine on Friday. Then, Lee and I drove my dad back to Providence, RI to catch a plane home on Saturday. We had to go back down to get our car, which we’d left in Tiverton, anyway. On the way back North, Lee and I spent the night in a hotel in Lexington, MA and met up with Lee’s brother and kids in NH. And so ended the great journey of two car/boat round trips between ME and RI.
Lee’s friend Doug was waiting for us when we got back to Maine. He and Lee spent a couple days working on Pirat’s engine, which had been leaking transmission fluid, oil, and water at an alarming rate throughout our trip North. They also removed the auto pilot, which had finally succumbed to hydraulic fluid loss from the over-heating incident in the spring. We sent it in for repairs under warranty and figured we’d get by with a third person on the boat instead of the auto pilot.
On Wednesday we left for Acadia National Park, stopping on Isle au Haut (actually part of the park as well) on the first night, and arriving in Northeast harbor, Mount Desert Island on Thursday evening. Isle au Haut was idyllic and peaceful. Both days were glassy calm and fog plagued our passage on the second day. We braved the mosquitoes to BBQ in Duck Harbor on Isle au Haut and took a little hike on the island before leaving the next day.
Northeast harbor proved to be full of moorings, making anchoring impossible, so we paid for a floating dock mooring there for 2 nights. From there we took the free shuttle around the island and hiked quite a few miles through the park. The peaks are very rugged and beautiful. I was impressed by the carriage roads and bridges in the park. We went to the visitors center and Barr Harbor. On our second day we moved the boat to an anchorage, Valley Cove, nearby. We explored another part of the park and went to a lake to go swimming.
On Sunday we headed south by way of Isle au Haut again. This time got a mooring in the developed harbor where the ferry came in. There still wasn’t much there. It would be so strange and isolated to live on an island like that.
Yesterday we sailed back to Lee’s parents house in strong wind a big seas. We had 20-25 knots from behind us starting out so we ended up sailing with just the working jib. It was nice not to have to worry about rounding up with the main in the following sea. Every once in a while a big set of waves, sometimes coming from a random direction, would barrel down on us and send Pirat rolling. It was a long, cold, exhausting day of hand steering. We did raise the reefed main for an upwind leg in the bay at the end. All in all, yesterday was a fabulous day of sailing.
Today Lee and Doug are messing around with the windsurfer in the persistent high winds. Lee tried out one of the smaller sails my uncle sent us and it worked great.
Monster was sick while we were gone and Lee’s mom had to take him to the vet for an overnight stay. It turns out he had a reaction to the vaccines the vet gave him last week and he’s on the mend now. Poor Monster!
Next on the agenda: find a place to have the boat hauled and painted; remove the transmission and send it off for repairs; start planning our sail south (there’s a new plan, which I’ll write about next time); maybe go to Block Island when my mom comes out to visit for my birthday?
Boat status report: auto pilot removed for repair, transmission seals replaced, oil leak fixed, water pump leak fixed (will our bilge finally be fluid free?!)
Current location: Anchored in front of Lee’s parents house in Maine.
Next destination: Acadia National Park, Maine
Crew: Me, Lee, Lee’s friend Doug
I’m so behind (on life, not just the blog!). The sail from RI to ME with my dad went really well. There wasn’t much wind but we had fun and saw lots of sea creature. It was awesome having my dad at Lee’s parents house. I’ll have to elaborate later. Right now it’s time to rest up for a big day of sailing tomorrow!
Lee, Doug and I are planning to take 2 days to sail up there, spend a few days exploring the park, and then sail back to our home base here.
I’ll have plenty of free time to post with a third person on the boat to relieve some of my sailing responsibilities!
I know this isn’t sailing, but our backpacking trip in Baxter State Park deserves to be in the blog too.
It was so gorgeous! Our accommodations were so luxurious! We had a lean-to with an outhouse every night but we were still out in the woods all by ourselves. The forest was so green and wet compared to Colorado.
Katahdin itself was impressive. There was a bit more air than I’m used to having when I’m climbing a mountain but it was very rugged, challenging climbing (we were definitely climbing, not hiking, a lot of the time). I’ll write more about it later. For now, enjoy the pictures.
ahhh, that's a good stretch. The couch is just the right size for the cat. (click for more)
Our cat, Monster, knows how to relax. He is living with Lee’s parents in Maine so we have been enjoying his company since we arrived earlier this month.
Monster and Rascal (the little, gray tabby Lee’s mom got shortly after adopting Monster) prowl around the big yard and surrounding forest, hunting bugs and anything else they can get their paws on. When he’s not making his circuit outside, Monster reclines in his favorite chair. He prefers the leather armchair in the living room to any other surface. When someone else is sitting in it he sulks in the corner behind a bookcase with his face towards the wall.
Monster sleeps in positions I’ve never seen another cat take. He lies on his back, often stretched out full length, with his paws in the air. He is a deep sleeper and I’m sure he’s dreaming about gigantic dragon flies and tasty mice.
Yesterday Lee brought Monster into the separate guest portion of the house where we’ve taken up residence. Monster first paced the room, meowing his typical conversational yowl (mrawmrawmraaaaaawwwww-mraw-mraw-mramramraaaaawwwwww). I swear it sounds like he’s talking and he has the loudest meow I’ve ever heard. Then, after Lee got off the couch, Monster took it over and was finally quiet. Evidently all he wanted was the couch. He stretched out on his back and immediately fell asleep. Not even my nosy picture taking woke him up. What a nut.
Tomorrow Lee and I are driving up to Baxter State Park for a 3 night backpacking trip. We have our campsites all picked out (they make you camp in designated spots and reserve them ahead of time) and we’re really excited to climb Katahdin, the highest mountain in Maine. The weather is supposed to be great so it should be fun!
It’s been a while! I’ve been busy with all kinds of things since we left Block Island. Here are pictures from as far back as our passage out of the Chesapeake.
Lee, Pirat, and I left Block Island for Newport on the 5th, spent a couple days anchored in the same spot where we anchored before leaving Rhode Island two months ago. It was stiflingly hot but we biked to the laundromat (Lee carrying the HUGE bag of laundry) and the grocery store. My bike tire exploded from the heat after I rode to Middletown so I had to take a taxi back. We moved over to Pirate Cove on Wednesday, pulling into the marina to give the boat a quick bath and get fuel before picking up a mooring outside.
Very early on Thursday morning I speed-walked a mile or so to the bus stop and took a bus to Boston so I could catch my plane to Oregon. A friend (congratulations Sarah and Derek!) from graduate school was getting married and I was really looking forward to the trip. My mom decided to take advantage of me being on the West coast to come visit. She met me in Portland and we stayed in a comfy hotel in Vancouver, WA for the weekend.
Traveling by bus, airplane, and car was strange after months on the boat. I felt like and outsider in the airport full of people. The weather – hot but not as hot as back east, and dry – felt even stranger. All of a sudden I had to use lotion again!
My mom and I went to the bridal shower on Thursday night. It was so much fun to be in a big group of women talking about weddings and such things! The next couple days meant more relaxing in the hotel, sales tax-free shopping in Portland, and hanging out with Katie and Caitlin at Fort Vancouver! The wedding was actually held at the fort on Saturday. I met the anthro girls, along with a couple other wedding attendees, there earlier that day for a little tour of the fort. We are such archaeology/anthropology/museum/National park nerds! It was good to catch up with Katie and Caitlin and the day made me realize how much I miss my friends.
Sarah’s wedding was fabulous, of course! The setting (a field new the fort and hanger at the Pearson Air Museum) was perfect. The food – including the numerous, beautiful cakes – was delicious. We girls did plenty of dancing (more than I’ve ever done at a wedding). Thank you so much to Sarah and Derek for sharing their day with us!
My mom and I drove to Seattle on Sunday to look at a house she is interested in buying. She still needs to sell her house in CA but this place was too good looking to pass up. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, it was spoken for (pending inspection) as of the day before we visited. The house was perfect though so I hope things work out for my mom to end up there.
We had dinner with my aunt and uncle back in Portland that night. It’s crazy how circumstances worked out to cram so many fun activities into one trip.
After a long day of traveling on Monday, I was back on the boat with Lee to pack up for our little land holiday in Maine. We decided we needed a break from transient life on the boat. It’s hard, as I’ve said. We work hard all day every day and don’t end up with time to do other, fun activities (like hiking, climbing, swimming, relaxing, interacting with other people, preparing my thesis for publication, etc.). In any case, we tidied up the boat and left it on a mooring at Pirate Cove for a month. Now we’re back at Lee’s parents house in Maine for some down time. We’re trying to make ourselves relatively self-sufficient so we don’t end up like the house guests that never leave. It is gorgeous and so, so much cooler up here. I can work on my thesis revisions and we can regain our strength. I’m also going to work on posting some videos from our sailing adventures. There are some good ones that I’ve just never had the patience to upload.
At the end of the month we’ll sail the boat up here, potentially with my dad as a crew, and then explore more of the Maine coastline by water. The Caribbean is still in the cards for November and I’m getting more and more excited about sailing down there!
It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long since my last post but we’re certainly in a different place.
Our stay in New York lasted another couple of days. Lee and I walked around, did a bit of shopping, saw Toy Story 3, and stumbled onto the Gay Pride parade on our way to West Marine. What a sight! I’m glad we got to watch part of it. The energy was amazing.
Lee and I had lunch with my brother and an old family friend before we left on Tuesday. We set sail in the late afternoon and breezed out of NY harbor. The wind lightened when we got out in the ocean so we pointed the boat up Long Island and motored with the main up that evening. Lee took the first watch, starting at 9, and the wind picked up from the West, as forecast, before midnight. When I took over we were blasting along at 8-9 knots on a beam reach under a bright moon. I helped Lee put in a reef before he went to bed.
I sat in the cockpit, dodging occasional spray and feeling awed by the scene. Eventually I had to change our course to be closer on the wind so we’d actually be heading towards Block Island. Then, of course, the wind picked up and I ended up waking Lee up from his watch a little early so we could put another reef in the main.
Once again, I didn’t sleep at all. I stood another brief watch after sunrise so Lee could catch a little more sleep. That was when I saw our first whale! It was just cruising along, not far from the boat, going the same way we were going. I’m not sure what kind of whale it was. It was very dark colored with a small triangular fin on it’s back.
The wind started to die right after we switched to the solent that morning. We continued on, with less and less wind, eventually pulling in to the Great Salt Pond on Block Island in the afternoon. That was the end of our cruise from Portsmouth, RI to Block Island by way of Chesapeake Bay, as we’ve started thinking of it. The fun-filled fourth of July weekend was just beginning!
The Salt Pond anchorage and mooring field were already crowded. It’s a good thing we got here as early in the week as we did. Boats continued to pour in every day, squeezing into any available space to anchor and making us very nervous with their short scope and apparent ignorance of what would happen if the wind changed or died. There were enormous rafts of little power boats. Sometimes 10 or more boats tied up next to each other. The dock space at the marinas looked about the same. Block Island itself is gorgeous. Everything is green and all the houses are New England-y cute. The beaches are sandy and the town has a fabulous ice cream parlor that Lee says hasn’t changed since he was a kid. We had ice cream there almost every day.
After a thwarted attempt to do laundry (only laundry service was available and it cost $14/load) we ended up walking across the island our first day here. The next day we biked around the island, walked on the spectacular beach below the Mohegan Bluffs, and relaxed on the beach. Those activities dominated the rest of the weekend. Lee rowed us to and from landing spots on shore in the mile-wide anchorage. We are definitely the only people without and outboard on our dinghy. People laughed at us, yelled encouragement, and sometimes asked if we wanted a tow. The whole place was a hive of activity at peak capacity on Saturday. There were dinghies buzzing around all over the place, bikes, pedestrians, and cars clogging the narrow roads, and crowds seeping out of the bars. The fireworks that night were augmented by every boat in the harbor blasting their air horn. It was pretty funny to hear all the different horns. We even tried our lung-powered horn that came with Pirat.
After buying supplies at the Block Island grocery yesterday, we BBQ’d up a feast in blustery conditions last night. There was steak for Lee, homemade veggie burgers, squash, bell pepper, and corn for both of us. Yum! We ate out on our cockpit table and were surprised that no one else within sight was grilling on their boat.
The launch from Aldo’s bakery is weaving among the anchored boats, yelling it’s morning announcement of “Coffee on boat!” I heard about this guy from the Magnusson family so it was cool to see the coffee/muffin boat in action. Having retrieved the bikes from shore, it’s now time to leave for Newport. We plan to anchor there for a couple nights before moving over to Pirate Cove for a while. We feel better showing up in Newport now that Lee has scrubbed Pirat’s bottom. He took advantage of the incredibly clear water here to give the bottom and waterline a much needed cleaning. We don’t look like a river barge any more.
Well, we’re not in Block Island. We are also not in stifling Chesapeake Bay any more. We are not in the middle of the ocean either. Yesterday we picked up a mooring at the 79th St. Boat Basin in the Hudson River off Manhattan. Sailing all the way back to RI offshore didn’t quite go as planned, although nothing actually went wrong. We bailed out along the Jersey coast, an option we’d kept open in case one night of sailing completely wore us out, which it did. At least we proved that we could handle the real ocean with real waves (and some wind, at least) for 2 days and a night. I feel that much more confident that we’re gaining experience and becoming more capable sailors.
I don’t have any pictures uploaded yet. There wasn’t much to take pictures of to be honest. I documented the lack of land in sight and Lee took some pictures of the frightening bug that landed on the boat somewhere along Virginia.
There wasn’t much wind for the first 2/2 of our 2 day, one night passage. We sailed a bit in the beginning but things got so light as we turned North out of the Chesapeake that we ended up motoring most of the day. The wind was dead behind us and so were the waves. It was a long, hot day. We sailed wing on wing for a while in the evening and then the wind died again right before we started our night watches so we took the sails down and started up the engine.
My parents warned me about night watches. “It was excruciating” my mom said of her one experience standing watch at night. My dad said we would be very tired and there would be ships going VERY fast out there to run us over. It wasn’t as bad as either of them made it out to be. I actually thought the night went by rather quickly. The moon was full and the ocean was bright. We tried to do 3 hours on, 3 hours off but got kind of a late start so I was already tired for the first watch. I lasted from about 10 to midnight and then Lee relieved me. He wasn’t sleeping anyway. Our man overboard alarm was keeping us on our toes – going off every once in a while because it lost the signal from our little transmitters. I couldn’t help but think of the boy who cried wolf. We definitely took all the alarms seriously when one of us was on deck at night.
I didn’t sleep at all while I was in the bunk, even though I was really tired. I read my book, listened to my ipod, anxiously watched the horizon and radar for freighters, and eventually watched the sunrise. I definitely didn’t get any sleep though, and Lee wasn’t much better off. Based on our fatigue and the fact that at the rate we were going, we’d be crossing NY harbor’s shipping lanes the next night we decided to reach over to Atlantic City. That was when the sailing got good! We surfed the swells in 12-15 knots of wind and made good time back to land.
After one night of total exhaustion in Atlantic City we headed North again early the next morning, sailing and motoring up the coast to Sandy Hook, NJ. Since my brother and his girlfriend were going to be in NYC that week we figured we might as well stop and visit them (it was a pleasant outcome of our interrupted passage).
Sandy hook afforded excellent shelter for one night but we were really after a mooring at the 79th st. Boat Basin. We braved the tumultuous waters of NY harbor (the roughest we’ve ever seen) yesterday and picked up the only remaining transient mooring here shortly after noon. This is by far the most spectacular place we’ve ever stayed. The mooring field borders Riverside Park and has an incredible view up and down the Hudson River. The current is strong and the shore facilities are grungy but the subway is close by and we feel like we’ve got the best deal on lodging in New York City.
We wandered with Thomas, Christina, and their friend Jon yesterday. They graciously let is take showers in the hotel room before we visited the Tenement Museum (very cool, well worth it), picked up some fabulous gelato next door to the museum, and wandered some more before settling down to dinner at a Thai restaurant. Dinner was delicious, nice an spicy, and there is frozen yogurt on every block here! My cravings for frozen yogurt never end.
I’m not sure what we’re doing today, or when we’re leaving. Hopefully Thomas and Christina can come see the boat today. I could also just explore the city forever.
The plan has always been to sail back to Rhode Island after we reached the bottom of Chesapeake bay. Now we’re definitely ready to go. It is so hot. Any kind of movement or activity is so exhausting that we’ve relished the long days of slow sailing across the bay when all we could do was sit. Actually, we could have sat but instead we messed around with the sails, brought out the MPG, and swatted flies. The bugs have gotten out of hand too. They keep us awake at night itching old bites and trying to prevent new ones.
We’re in Cape Charles, VA right now. This is our second Virginia stop. Reedville, our first, was a quaint old fishing town on the western side of the bay. The menhaden fishing operation and processing plant made the town smell like a pet store (menhaden is used for fish oil and to make things like pet foods). We snuggled into a finger of the creek that put us right in the town’s backyard. Several people greeting us from their boats and invited us to use their docks when we rowed ashore. There really is such a thing as southern hospitality!
We spent out time in Reedville enjoying the air conditioning and history at the Fishing Museum and eating ice cream at Chitterchat’s icc cream and gossip parlor. This was the first place we encountered jellyfish, or stinging “sea nettles” in the water. They were everywhere! Some are as small as a quarter and others are almost fist sized. They’re white, not colorful, and apparently they pack quite a sting. We stayed out of the water, as hard as that was considering we were dripping sweat just sitting still in the boat.
This past week has been a good one for sailing. We had good breeze between our anchorage on the Little Choptank River (where we went after Annapolis). It was a grey but warm day with 15-18 knots of wind and we had a great time sailing upwind with one reef in the main.
Sailing from Solomons to Deal island was a slow, downwind day but we broke out the MPG and made the most of what little wind we had. Solomons to Reedville was an even windier upwind leg than our previous windy day. We had 20+ knots and sizable waves. The boat did a lot of smashing and crashing but nothing went wrong or broke. We put 2 reefs in the main and roller-reefed the jib a bit. Other sailboats were just motoring along the coast so we felt pretty hardcore. Lee and I are getting pretty good at handling Pirat in all kinds of wind. Reefs are no problem. We’re getting faster and faster at tacking and certainly getting lots of practice with the MPG and pole.
Cape Charles is an up-and-coming historic town on the eastern shore. A local golf resort has brought quite a bit of development but the city marina where we’re staying is still grungy. The town feels like it’s trying really hard to appeal to the wealthy retirees in the new development but it hasn’t quite fleshed out yet. I’m sitting in the public library, which is in an old, very small church. The places we got for wifi are always interesting.
Lee and I are tentatively planning to duck out of the bay tomorrow morning for our passage North. We will sail offshore (maybe right around the border between the coastal and offshore waters) all the way to Block Island, RI, if we’re lucky. It’s hard to know what to think about the weather. As long as the wind will be behind us and the waves won’t be too big it should go smoothly. But when is a wave too big and how accurate are the forecasts?
At least I have good news to start me on this leg: the peer reviews of my thesis came back favorable and the DMNS wants to publish it with “major revisions”. Woohoo! I have something academic to do!
Follow us, a wandering family with a sense of adventure.