Long Island Sound, part 1

We had a great run from Buzzards Bay to Fishers Island. Aside from the big pod of porpoises the ride to Fishers was uneventful. The seas were calm, we had a fair tide until the last hour or so, there wasn’t much traffic to worry about, and it is so much fun to captain a tugboat to new places on the ocean!

Fishers Island sunrise.

Two long days covering ground is a lot, and after we anchored at Fishers we didn’t have the energy to launch the dinghy or the kayaks. Just went to bed and enjoyed a pretty calm night. Woke up early and did it all over again to run about half-way down Long Island Sound to Port Jefferson. The day got warm enough for me to put on shorts and a t-shirt for the first time in a while. The water on the Sound was exceptionally flat, so we opened hatches and portholes for fresh air underway.

Glassy Long Island Sound.

After leaving Fishers Island we had a foul tide for about an hour, but once the current turned enjoyed an ever increasing boost all the way to Port Jefferson. The route was about 12 miles shorter than what we did either of the previous two days, so we reduced throttle as low as we could to still arrive by 2:30. It is a joy having the flexibility to take our time when the opportunity presents. Cyclops is by no means a quick boat, but she is big and steady enough to give us options.

Port Jefferson had several signs like this one scattered around town. We don’t remember seeing any signs with words like “Welcome” printed on them.

Port Jefferson. You can’t see the enormous ferries or their enormous wakes. The ferries run every half hour or so until nine at night. Hold onto your hat!

After Port Jefferson of the options we exercised was jumping another 20 miles towards NYC for a stop at Northport. There are a couple of reasons for just moving a couple of hours down the Sound. Port Jefferson is not a particularly easy place to land a dinghy. There’s no town landing and none of the marinas or yacht clubs have dinghy docks. Well, the one place that did have a dinghy dock wanted $23/hour and to hold onto our driver’s license until we returned. No.

Also, our anchor light stopped working, which is a relatively easy thing to fix, but is going to be aesthetically traumatic for me. I’ve rigged a temporary light but it is in no way an acceptable long-term solution. We hoped in vain that Northport might have some marine stores with replacement lights. It had no marine stores. Alas.

I stuck the dinghy’s night light on the motor mount to make up for the beautiful but broken light at the top of the mast. Stay tuned.

The current light (really it’s a “dark”) is mounted on a stainless steel pole I had custom welded and powdercoated. Lots of thought, planning, and effort went into what looks to me like a tidy, elegant, efficient way to display the required 360 degree light at night. The light itself has a photocell so it turned on at dusk and off at dawn. And it used practically no power because it is an LED bulb. But it doesn’t work and the company lists the replacement part as unavailable.

It is surprisingly difficult to find another LED dusk-to-dawn anchor light that doesn’t cost $180 or more. I emailed the company that made the light asking if perhaps they had just one more sitting in a desk somewhere, but I’ve not heard back.

That leaves me with a fun puzzle: replace the non-working light with one as soon as possible but also leave room in the selection/design to have it be dusk-to-dawn in the future when I figure out what bulb fits, who makes a photocell version of that bulb, and get it shipped to us wherever we happen to be. I also need to make the new light fixture work with the pole that’s already on the boat, and it needs to look and be well-executed. It’s a lot, but when it can be pulled off, this kind of problem-solving is tremendously satisfying. If I get it all sorted by Halloween it’ll be a big accomplishment. Stay tuned.

Seas were so calm that I had time to polish. Here’s the clock key.

…and here are the rejuvenated shiny bits on the wheel.

We’ve gone beyond coverage in the first of our chart books. Not sure when we will need this one again!

Running from the cold up in New England

As I write this post, the rising sun is coming through the cabin window and warming my back. This event is big news because it has been a long time since we had sunny dry weather aboard.

Over a week ago we made the decision to get to the Constitution Marina in Boston earlier than initially planned because of weather. It turned out to be a prudent choice. The big storm that battered the East Coast with high winds and heavy rain stuck around longer than expected, so we delayed our journey south until yesterday. That meant nearly a week and a half in the marina.

Boston was tons of fun. We walked and explored and looked at art and ate delicious food. We got to see our friend Alex for dinner. Our Cousin Betty came to Charlestown and hung out with us the other day. And Matt & Dasha babysat Friday for the weekend while we were at the wedding in Vermont. Then we got to have a nice dinner with them before we headed out. What a nice bunch of people!

Ellen and Eileen testing out hats pre-wedding.

Speaking of nice people, the wedding was excellent. It was a bonus opportunity to see family once more before leaving the northeast. And it was particularly wonderful enjoying the company of our fantastic children. We wandered around Burlington where the weather was magnificent and the air was perfumed with the odor of city skunk wherever we went.

Friday evening saw us at a cocktail party at the Community Sailing Center in Burlington. It’s an impressive facility right on the shores of Lake Champlain. What a gorgeous evening! What a beautiful lake! We can’t wait to check it out next summer when we make our way up the Hudson River, the Erie Canal, the St. Lawrence River, the Chamblay Canal, to Lake Champlain. But that’s a long journey and is not today’s story.

Burlington has some pretty neat street-art.

Today’s story is one of calm seas and light winds. Yesterday’s story was one of slightly boisterous seas that rolled the boat and roiled the cat’s stomach. Things settled down as we made our way to Cape Cod Bay and headed for the Cape Cod Canal. We caught the tide through the canal and got a wonderful four knot boost. Zoomed through the canal and pushed on to Mattapoiset, Massachusetts in Buzzard’s Bay. The anchorage was flat calm. Like a mill pond. What a great night’s sleep!

Sagamore Bridge

Right now we are fighting a 1.5 knot foul tide as we exit Buzzard’s Bay on our journey to Fishers Island, New York at the eastern end of Long Island Sound. The weather promises to be favorable for the next two days, so we want to cover some ground while the opportunity presents.

Look at our wonderful offspring!

Hard to believe they sprang from forth the fatal loins of these two foes.

Mama tried to raise me better but her pleading I denied. That leaves only me to blame ‘cause Mama tried.

We got to the wedding early to ensure we had good seats.

We put Boston in the rear view mirror on a grey day.

This shot was taken by the light of the full moon. What a magnificent willow! The hydrangea isn’t too shabby either.

Saw this very Vermont coat rack made from cool old spiles. Look it up, it’s your word of the day.

Toilet talk

The day started with maintenance. Because Matt and Dasha will be cat-sitting this weekend while Ellen and I head to Vermont for a wedding, we figured it made sense to do a toilet repair before they stay on the boat. The nor-easter will be enough for them to think about.

Our toilet is a Vac-U-Flush unit. Basically the toilet is connected to a vacuum pump that sucks the shit out of the bowl and sends it to the holding tank in the keel. The pump creates a vacuum that does the sucking. But the ball valve seal in the toilet had a slow leak into the pump that caused the pump to cycle in an effort to maintain the vacuum.

Here’s the bathroom with the toilet bowl and the old seals removed. The new ones are waiting on the counter.

There are some tasks better suited for a dock than the kitchen.

Reassembly.

Done. Works perfectly.

Anyway, we took the toilet apart (wasn’t really that nasty), cleaned everything that could be cleaned, and put it together with new parts. Works perfectly. Hooray! We also scheduled a pump out from the pump out boat. That should happen tomorrow.

After the head was squared away we went for a walk across town to the Institute of Contemporary Art. Had a good time walking along the Greenway, saw our first ever public sunscreen dispenser, had an excellent long walk. (Yesterday we went for a run in the morning and then logged more than 15,000 steps. Today we took it easy and just did another 15,000.)

Unicorn rides!

Today’s theme was ART. (To be fair, it’s the theme most days. That and FUN.) Found this labyrinth on the Greenway…both art and fun.

Here’s a bit of trivia for you: we’ve seen more rabbits since arriving in Boston this week than we saw over the past 26 years living in Freeport. No bunnies to be found in our neighborhood – probably because there are too many foxes, cats, mink, and raptors around. But just walking back to the boat from dinner last evening we saw around five. And then this big one today.

The last few pictures are urban eye candy for your enjoyment.

Cleat hitch

This one’s going to be a little niche. If you are someone who doesn’t care about doing things properly, doesn’t care to have things ship-shape, doesn’t have an interest in learning a simple and useful skill then you can skip to the last photo showing Cyclops after Ellen and I waxed the front half and half the back half.

I’ve put together a photo essay of a fraction of the improperly tied cleats at this marina. A boat is not an inexpensive purchase, it baffles me that owners can’t or won’t take five minutes to learn the knot that safely secures it to the dock. Also, a correctly tied cleat hitch just looks right.

This is how it’s supposed to look.

It takes a host of beauty products to keep Cyclops looking her best.

Beantown!

Well. The weather was fixing to get pretty rowdy this week so we decided to clear out of Manchester by the Sea on Sunday morning to avoid a rougher-than-necessary ride to Boston.

But before that happened, our buddy Matthew took the train up from Dedham and came to visit us on Saturday. He was our first overnight guest! We hung around Manchester, installed a new kitchen faucet, walked to Singing Beach, ate some ice cream, made pizza dough, made pizza, danced on the roof when the wedding band at the yacht club played. Good stuff!

The harbor at Manchester by the Sea is so crowded, some boats put laundry baskets over their propellors so they don’t damage their neighbors if they get too close at slack tide. Also, wow is it lovely here.

And before Matthew got to Manchester, Ellen and I spent a night moored at Misery Island and then a night anchored outside the Manchester by the Sea harbor. On Misery we circumnavigated the island, investigated the ruins on the island left behind after a resort there failed 100 years ago. After the resort, the property was home to about 45 summer residences that were destroyed in a brush fire. Now it is conservation land owned by a trust and open to the public. I tried going for a run on the trails Friday morning but called it quits after about a mile and a half because I didn’t want to break my ankle and get eaten by the herd of deer on the island before anyone noticed I hadn’t returned to the boat.

In addition to being a picture of lovely Ellen, this one is a treat because it lets you read the word crenellations in a sentence today.

We are really lichen this adventure so far.

Looks like a New England cousin of Stonehenge, but it’s actually the base of the old water tower on the island.

Sunday morning we dropped the mooring and headed to Boston. It was a short run of about 21 miles. What we learned is that Cyclops has a lot of bottles that clink and rattle in a bouncy sea state. It was a bouncy sea state. Just ask Friday…she barfed and then dozed unhappily the rest of the trip. Once we got inside the harbor islands things settled a bit and we could concentrate on all the commercial vessels, law enforcement vessels, pleasure vessels, and exciting views.

Waste treatment plant looks like giant eggs and acorns.

It was entertaining to watch Matthew try to identify the buildings in his city. He’s lived and worked in Boston since the 1980s but was all turned around approaching by water.

The Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge reminds us of the Penobscot Narrows Bridge in Maine. That illustrates what country mice we are.

We are at the Constitution Marina, you can see the masts of the USS Constitution behind the building in the background. This place is slathered with history. This morning Ellen and I went on our run along the waterfront past the Constitution to the Naval Yard, then we finished up at the Bunker Hill Monument. And on the way home we played chess at a park near the site of the first English settlement here in 1629. The tables had boards built in, and there were tupperware boxes with chessmen. Fantastic!

This Boston is a hopping, colorful town.

The biggest fright of the day is that when we called the Constitution Marina to ask for our slip assignment, they gave us the chilling news that they wanted us to back into our slip. BACK INTO OUR SLIP! That’s something I’ve been saying we should learn to do since 2022, but I’ve been putting it off. Because it is really really hard. The boat walks to starboard in reverse. That feature, coupled with the bow thruster, makes docking forward pretty easy. But in reverse? Yikes.

Well, I had a crackerjack crew aboard and went at it slowly and carefully. Slow like a pro, as the kids say. The fairway leading to the slip was narrow, the boats had their anchors and bowsprits pointing at us, ready to gouge the hull. Cyclops does not like a crosswind, (who does?) and I didn’t know how to keep the stern parallel to the narrow slip as I approached. Then I learned I can get the girl to pivot with the bow thruster. It’s counter-intuitive to push the bow to starboard in an effort to pivot the stern to port, but after three tries I figured it out and got the job done without incident. In fact, the dock master told us we looked pretty salty.

There are locks and drawbridges galore around here. Drawbridges to get the trains to North Station, locks to get boats in and out of the Mystic River. And pedestrian paths along the water – everyone in Charlestown is young and out jogging. We don’t know when they go to work! The place is also crawling with preschools and preschoolers. So much energy! We know what everyone is doing when they are not out jogging.

Boats. Water. Machinery. Yowza, this place is great.

This is for the stick and ball people. The Bruins are a local sport team. TD Garden used to be called Boston Garden and it is where sporting competitions are frequently held. More importantly, it’s where we saw the Grateful Dead at the end of last century.

Because we are tourists and life-long learners, we walked a bit of the Freedom Trail. The Copp’s Hill Burying Ground has been a final resting place for nearly 400 years. And is beautiful. And is chock-full of stories.

When I was in law school I realized that the library wasn’t full of dull legal text (ok, of course it was) but that every one of the hundreds of cases in those thousands of books told the story of some kind of human interaction. A cemetery is the same thing – every grave marks an entire universe of a person’s life.

There’s a Star Market not far from the marina, so we picked up some provisions. This display selling pinecones also made us feel like country mice. Who buys pine cones? People who don’t live near pine trees, I suppose. (To be fair, these are vanilla or possibly cinnamon scented pine cones, not the run of the mill pine scented pine cones with which we are most familiar.)

Manchester by the Sea

Gloucester was a fun town and we thoroughly enjoyed out visit. Yesterday we added to the excitement by defrosting the refrigerator! That activity requires us to remove everything from the fridge and patiently wait for the ice that formed on the cold plate to melt. We definitely do not try to move things along by using a metal knife, even if it is a butter knife. Right Ellen?

We went for a long walk along the waterfront yesterday and came across this sweet little beach. No swimming for us, but it definitely adds to the town’s appeal.

…So does a teddy bear tea party in the street.

This morning after a leisurely start we slowly motored about eight miles down to Manchester by the Sea. We are so close to Boston the skyline is starting to loom large on the horizon, but we’ve got a week before we need to be there so we are taking baby steps down the coast.

Plein air painting class.

Manchester by the Sea is a gorgeous harbor. The anchorage is extremely well protected and extremely crowded. Perhaps the most astonishing thing about this place is that by asking politely at the yacht club, visiting yachts get complimentary moorings. (A donation to the club’s Christmas fund is recommended.)

We are among so many beautiful boats, packed cheek-by-jowl. There’s another Nordic Tug 37 moored nearby, the first we’ve seen on our travels this season.

Also, can we talk about the spectacular blue sky?

Ellen and I walked to town after we got the boat squared away and ate lunch. Then we took the dinghy to town so we could get some groceries. There’s a nice town dock about 50 yards from a terrific grocery store. Couldn’t be easier.

Now we are relaxing aboard, listening to the chuckle of water on the hull and the tink tink of halyards on masts.

Working harbor

We went for a run this morning. It was lovely going past the famous Gloucester Fisherman’s Memorial and then loads of flowerbeds full of dahlias.

The memorial honors Gloucester mariners lost at sea over the centuries. There are thousands of names. And nine new ones since we were last here in 2019.

The wind is up today and has shifted 180 degrees from when we arrived. So as it stretched out the anchor chain we were treated to the excitement of the anchor alarm sounding. Don’t worry, we are holding fast.

Look at the big girl who came rumbling past while we were eating lunch.

Gloucester fishing boats are the real deal.

And this is how things looked in the still, foggy evening.

Project day

It’s a rainy Sunday here in Gloucester so Ellen and I are getting things done. First we installed the accumulator for the fresh water system. An accumulator is a pressure tank that lets the sinks, showers, and toilet all run off stored pressure instead of requiring the pump to cycle every time we crack a faucet. Went in easy as can be…that PEX is a dream to use. And this plumbing project didn’t end with me drilling superfluous holes anywhere in the boat. Also, no leaks.

Pipe tape to prevent leaks.

Ready to install.

Glamor shot.

Done.

Next up, I changed the primary engine fuel filter. It was filtering fine but I have no idea how long it has been doing its thing and figured it was worth swapping it out. No pictures, but imagine a drippy mess of diesel fuel all over the side of the engine room and you have the idea. It’s all together and not leaking. Done.

After that I installed vice 2.0 on the underside of a storage space lid in the guest room. The big boy I crowed about a few days ago was just too cumbersome to work around so we left it in Freeport. On our previous boat (Cupcake, a wonderful old girl) I installed a vice under a lid and it worked great.

Measure once, cut twice.

The guy at the hardware store was hovering in a most irksome manner when I bought the hardware to attach the vice. And because of his hoveration I felt rushed and didn’t check to ensure all the bolts were the same length. One ended up being 1/4” too short. Ugh. I made it work, but in the future Mr. Hardware Store Guy, just leave me alone I know what to do.

Click me.

I’m hopeful we won’t even need a vice any time soon. In any event, another job done.

Finally, Ellen is hard at work preparing the finials for the wedding chuppah we are tasked with creating for Zachary and Kat’s wedding at the end of the month. (Raise your hand if you had to look up at least one of the words in that last sentence.)

It’s 4pm and still raining. But we are hungry for fried food, so we will be putting our foulies on and braving the damp to head to shore. We think our new friends on Luru may join us as well.

Gloucester

Had a lovely smooth ride to Gloucester this morning. Anchored in the Inner Harbor, had the pump-out boat come to empty the holding tank. We attempted to empty the tank ourselves when we were more than three miles from shore (as the rules permit) but our pump wouldn’t pump. So after the tank was emptied we dug into the discharge pump (yuck) and replaced the duck valves. That did the trick. No pictures for you, but if you imagine watery cold diarrhea you get the idea.

Thatcher Island lighthouses. They are aligned on a north/south axis so mariners can check their compasses.

Instead here’s Gloucester for you. Such a great coastal New England town. We walked around on shore for a bit and then took a tour of the harbor in the dinghy.

The adventure begins!

Today was a big one. We stayed at a marina in Portland last night so we could be close to the realtor’s office for the house closing. This morning we walked to the closing, signed a bunch of papers that we should have read more carefully than we did, and walked back to the boat feeling light and euphoric.

Last night a bunch of friends came down to the marina to say goodbye. We had a super nice time and appreciate all the kindness and love everyone showed us. We will miss you too.

Oh no! Ellen used her French press as a vase for the roses Iris brought. What about the coffee?

After the closing we slipped the lines and headed to Isles of Shoals, an island group just off the New Hampshire coast. We are anchored behind the breakwater for Gosport Harbor with the island blocking the diminishing west wind, and with the wide open Atlantic Ocean to our back.

Ok, so it’s not the best picture but this is Isles of Shoals.

The ride down here was uneventful, and that’s a good thing. Leaving Portland and Maine for the next two years is a big step but excitement and exploration and adventure await to the south and we are so excited to be on our way.

Happy Ellen.

A big Morgan ketch Luru came in and anchored behind us. They have two parents, two kids, and THREE DOGS on board. After they took the dogs to shore, the mom and kids (and THREE DOGS) stopped by to say hello because they saw our home port is Freeport. They are also from Freeport, starting a year long trip to the Bahamas. If we weren’t doing the same thing we would be crazy jealous (aside from the THREE DOGS).

Tonight’s neighbors.