Posting Maniac

Rainy afternoon, lots of time on my hands.

Today was a fun day in Woods Hole. After a decadently late wake up, I made Ellen her coffee while Moss and I had our hot cocoa. Then we got the boat squared away, drove Mr. Flowerpot (our dinghy) to shore, and met Josh and Naomi at Pie in the Sky, a wonderful and very busy bakery in town.

After our late breakfast we walked to the Titanic museum. Woods Hole is crawling with scientists, and some of them were instrumental in the creation of the deep sea submarines and unmanned vehicles that (among other things) located and dove down to the wreck of the Titanic in the 1980s. 

We also saw a brief video about an unmanned sub/drone that followed great white sharks to learn about their feeding habits. The sharks sneak up on seals, bite off their flippers so they can’t swim away, and then eat the rest of the seal. There was no video for the public of that gory business, but there was a sobering video of a great white attacking the sub.

Moss got to check out a model of the submersible Alvin. Lots of toggle switches in there. I could have stayed all day.

We then all had lunch aboard Cupcake and got to show off our little floating home, always a treat. And a particular treat when the guests are sailors who get it.

After taking Josh and Naomi to shore and saying farewell, we radioed the drawbridge operator to let him know we would need the bridge lifted so Cupcake could exit Eel Pond. The pass is very narrow, tourists with cameras line the sides, and a video of any piloting error would doubtless be posted on YouTube well before any insurance company or towboat could be notified.

Look carefully and you can see the yellow TowBoat waiting in the harbor, ready to rescue careless sailors.

We passed through without mishap and made our way through the Woods Hole passage under diesel power. The current was adverse, but not so strong that we couldn’t power through. The way it tugged that red nun 2A was pretty impressive. Lots of swirly current tossed Cupcake about. Visions of Scylla and Charybdis. 

After our wee odyssey, we had a quick sail to the lovely and peaceful Hadley Harbor where we will likely stay for a few days to enjoy the clean warm water and relaxing spot. It’s raining right now but we are snug and dry inside. Moss just finished some boat school math and is now creating a board game of some sort.

Woods Hole

One of the Cape Cod Canal bridges...Sagamore?

When people talk about wind against current and standing waves, what they are really talking about is rough stuff. We woke up early (again) on Friday to get through the Cape Cod Canal while the current was in our favor. Because no sailing is permitted in the Canal, we motored along in the grey fog. At the Canal sides, about every 100 feet there was a person fishing, miles of guys (didn't see any women fishing) standing on the shore casting and casting and casting. Didn't see anyone catch anything though.

As we exited the canal into Buzzards Bay, the wind was coming out of the southwest at 18 knots or so, right into our face. Because the current was still flowing through the Canal into the Bay, there was a pretty wicked chop. And standing waves.

For the uninitiated, standing waves are good-sized waves that stay pretty much in one spot as the wind pushes them forward and the current pushes back. It was pretty rough going for a while, some seas broke over the bow. A few broke over the dinghy on the bow. That's a lot of water crashing around on our girl Cupcake. (And once again, we left a hatch open. This time it was the forward hatch, under the dinghy. Collected plenty of water inside again. In our bedroom. We may have learned our lesson.)

Once we got past the big waves, we contended with a pretty bouncy ride from the Canal to Woods Hole. Fortunately our angle on the wind let us motorsail so we were able to cover some ground and get out of the mess relatively swiftly. Everyone aboard was very glad to enter the protected channel to Woods Hole where the sea settled right down.

The view from our mooring in Eel Pond, Woods Hole.

We caught the current well through the channel and made it to Woods Hole without any additional drama. Poached a mooring for an hour or so while we got ourselves organized, then went through the tiny little channel to Eel Pond where we are hanging on another obscenely expensive mooring. (Massachusetts, come on, give a sailor a break!)

Yesterday we got in touch with our Freeport friends Josh and Naomi Olins who are long-time Woods Hole summer residents. Josh gave us a quick tour of town, we went in to a Woods Hole Oceanographic lab where we saw some crazy fish in research tanks. Fish with legs, a mess of squid (technical term), urchins, dogfish, all sorts of stuff. No pictures. Why? Because we are still getting the hang of all the cruiser details.

After the lab we went to Josh & Naomi's house where we did some laundry. (Remember the wave? Salty sheets). And then spent a delightful afternoon at the beach. The water in Cape Cod Bay was 58 degrees (in Freeport it was closer to 68). But now it's in the 72 degree range. Fascinating. And we like the trend...warmer.

We were treated to a nice dinner ashore with three generations of Olins and then went to a lecture series held weekly at Woods Hole Oceanographic. This one was interesting for people holding PhDs in chemistry. For the rest of us, it was a competition to see who followed the drift of the talk longest. I fared poorly at maybe 10 minutes. But we all enjoyed hearing an enthusiastic and extremely intelligent expert speak about her research. (Don't ask me about electron transfer or ATP because beyond that, I really didn't even retain any of the terms.)

Then to bed. 

Today we will probably host Josh and Naomi aboard for lunch unless thunderstorms roll in. Then we will head to Hadley Harbor for a few days of relaxation at anchor while we figure out how to manage the next stage of the trip...long day to Montauk or break it up with a stop at Block Island.

Hallelujah! WiFi is HEALED!

Somehow, miraculously, the WiFi is better. For now. Here are some pictures.

Big yacht sneaking into the marina in Sandwich.

Cupcake, ready for business.

Moss working the signal flags at the Canal Museum.

Safety...

is our...

middle name.

One of the vistas you get for $103/night in Sandwich.

Sandwiched

Ellen authorized a late start so today we slept in until 5:30 before departing Scituate. Met a boat last night, they left 45 minutes before we did, so we spent the day pretending we were pirates trying to overtake them and capture their treasure. The boat was named Jade, appropriately. 

This is the treasure ship Jade. (Obviously, I got the wifi working again.)

After a few hours of glorious sailing, we caught them. Cupcake was in her element. Small craft warning, so we reefed the main and went charging through fairly flat seas in winds that probably didn’t get above 20 knots. At one point we saw 8 knots on the gps. Spent a good portion of the morning flying along at 6.1+. 

Downside? Between the humidity (it is in the high 80s here in Sandwich) and the cold water (50s!) moisture is condensing on the inside of the hull in all the dark dank lockers. Oh, we also overfilled both water tanks, it seems. So some of our homemade water found its way...everywhere durning the brisk excursion today. Fortunately we love drying everything we own and repacking it. Also, it’s a good thing Ellen has a ziplock bag fetish and puts just about all our stuff in those plastic wonders.

Anyway, we are at a crazy expensive dock in Sandwich, waiting for the current through the Cape Cod Canal to turn in our favor tomorrow morning. Hope to be in Woods Hole tomorrow mid-day to visit Freeport friends. Then we plan to anchor, finally, and relax while we wait for favorable weather for the trip to Block Island. About 16 years ago we spent some time in Hadley Harbor and are looking forward to stopping in that lovely spot. 

Went to the Cape Cod Canal Visitors Center and learned all about the big project. We have great pictures but I don’t know how to post them from this iPad. For some reason the WiFi on the laptop stopped working. Now I need to get myself a dongle. (Edit: it's working again.)

Cruising tip of the day: an hour by car takes a day by boat. 

Making tracks

We have truly begun our voyage. Covered a lot of ground in the past two days. After a really nice send-off in Maine with Matt, Sloane, and Cutler we awoke before the crack of dawn to get a 5am start on the trip to Isles of Shoals. Poached a mooring at Gosport Harbor. I'll let Ellen and Moss give details about that trip. It was a motorboat ride because the winds were light and the seas were flat.

Went for a swim in the super clean water in Gosport Harbor, took showers in the cockpit, had boat-pizza for dinner. I was asleep by 9pm.

Today we left Isles of Shoals at 5am, headed for Scituate. Again, I'll let Moss and Ellen provide the details. Both days we have seen some pretty special sea life.

I lived in Scituate in 1991 when I was working at my first job as a teacher at Hull High School. I told the launch driver this afternoon that it was one of the worst years of my life. Those kids at Hull were absolutely awful. If any of them are reading this I will be surprised because it would involve reading and it is also unlikely there is internet access in prison.

So we are going to check out the town tonight, have hot showers at the Satuit Boat Club because that is a perk we get with the mooring rental. This harbor is PACKED with boats. And it is crawling with kids sailing 420s for sailing camp. Very busy, very fun.

Last morning ashore

After two weeks of running around fixing things, buying parts, provisioning, visiting with friends and family, wrapping up my last few work obligations, we are now on the cusp of setting sail. Granted, we are only planning on sailing about three miles this afternoon, but it's a start. 

Our friend Matt Kanwit will meet us at The Goslings for the evening. He will have his kids aboard his Pearson and it will be nice to have a last-minute send off from a fellow sailor. It will also be nice to finally get off the mooring. I think we are growing things on our dinghy bottom because the water in the river is...nutrient rich.

The folks at Brewer's South Freeport Marine could not have been more accommodating, friendly, and just plain wonderful during the past two weeks. We have had the boat launched and hauled at Brewer's for years. We have used their services for some big jobs on Cupcake in the past, and we have always been quite pleased. The facilities are clean and modern and convenient: the shower/lounge/laundry facility is fantastic. All the staff, particularly the dockhands, always seem to be having a great time. Everyone walks around with a smile. The people at Brewer's really care about boats and boaters. If you are on your way up the coast of Maine, Brewer's is worth a stop. 

Yesterday we had Avery, a friend of Simon's, come aboard for a little bit of anchoring information and general cruising background. Avery is a senior in high school and is planning her senior project – a solo sail in Casco Bay and several nights alone on an otherwise uninhabited island.

It is exciting to see a person at the beginning of their love affair with sailing.

Several friends and relatives asked me recently about the genesis of my interest in sailing. When I was a kid, I attended a summer camp on Lake George in the Adirondacks. Every session of camp, I took the sailing skill class. And when my friend Ron and I were in camp together, we would go out on the water in a little O'Day Wigeon every chance we got...pretty much every day after lunch and after dinner.

Most kids chose the Sunfish or the Phantoms because they were faster. What I loved about the Wigeons was that, in addition to providing me time to hang out with Ron, they were real sailboats - with seats, a mainsail, tiller, centerboard, and jib. We spend hours learning how to play the inconstant lake breezes. More importantly, I spent hours dreaming of captaining my own vessel to distant shores. Oh my goodness! I get to start living that dream once again. Starting this afternoon.

In other, more mundane news, I put together a cork board for Moss. We've been saving wine corks all year, intending to use them as stoppers for messages in bottles. But last week I cut a piece of plywood for a base and glued the corks to it so Moss can hang pictures in her room.

There's no big trick to making a cork board, it turns out. Just get some corks, some wood, and some wood glue. Piece of cake.

Speaking of piece of cake, we were given a cupcake last night and I had every intention of eating it for breakfast, but we had to get to shore early so I could change the oil in the car before handing it over to Simon for the next three weeks. Didn't get a chance to eat my cupcake. But I did make the biggest mess of an oil change I have managed in years. Haste makes waste I guess.

All that land-dwellery will be a thing of the past in a couple of hours. First I need to wrap up the last loose ends at the office, wait for Ellen and Moss to finish the last provisioning, and then off we go. 

Cruising Tip of the Day: Sailors don't make plans, we have goals. That's why, when a friend of Ellen's called this morning to find out when we would be on Cape Cod this week, we couldn't say for sure. The goal is to get to the Cape in a couple of days, NYC in two weeks, Norfolk in a month, Hilton Head by the second half of October, and Miami by the first part of November, Bahamas by early December, then head back north again by some time in April or May, bound for Baltimore in time for a wedding in June 2019. But if we start breaking it down day by day, the whole plan quickly unravels.

Rookie Mistake

Continuing with yesterday's theme, despite the forecast of heavy rain last night, I left one porthole open. It was the one over the navigation station where we keep all our important papers (insurance documents, passports, charts, the works). More heavy rain today and tonight so I get to see if I learned my lesson or not.

This morning everything in the desk was soaked so I got to deal with that mushy mess instead of eating breakfast or making coffee for Ellen. I decided since I was going to the office today anyway (last day of work for a year!) I might as well take all the damp papers in and let them dry out in the air-conditioned aridity while I drive up to Rockland for court.

I also forgot my reading glasses, so I'm hoping I won't be called upon to read anything important. What are the odds?

Finally, the biggest casualty from the window incident was that our birthday card list got ruined. So anyone who was expecting a birthday card this year is going to be disappointed. If you were on the old list and want to be added to the new list (which we are starting tomorrow, I guess) send me your birthday.

Ellen and Moss decided they were happy to be left aboard Cupcake without a dinghy today. I don't think they are likely to get out of their pajamas...a day of boat school and art projects is planned.

Cruising tip of the day: close the windows when it's raining.

BONUS tip of the day: write in pencil because even if it gets wet, it won't run.

too gloomy

it has been rainy and foggy since sunday i am too gloomy to take pictures or use punctuation or capitalization

Rainy day

I used this rainy Sunday we are having to take care of several pressing issues. Slept late. Made breakfast for everyone. Wired the propane gas detector. Rigged the umbrella.

The wiring was a little daunting before I read the instructions (go figure). But after some reading and thinking, it all made sense. Then I tried to figure out where to tap into the solenoid wires but couldn’t trace where they ran from the solenoid in the stern to the fuse panel in the cabin. 

Then I realized all I needed to do was find the power wire to the solenoid (easy) and isolate the ground from the solenoid (challenging). In a thick bundle coming into the back of the panel, there were at least six identical-looking ground wires, any one of which could have been the wire I sought. Had to figure out which was the one from the solenoid by trial and error. “HEY! Why did the lights just go out? Is that lightning?” “No, it’s just Daddy.”

Now that the wires are all squared away, the sensor works properly: it won’t allow the gas valve (solenoid) to turn on and let gas flow from the tanks to the stove if it detects propane at the sensor, which is installed in the bilge.

I also rigged the hatch umbrella. It’s a simple canvas construction that we can set up over an open hatch. The umbrella (like all umbrellas) keeps the rain off while letting fresh air into the boat. In the past we have had to close all the hatches and ports when it rains. That leads to a muggy, stuffy cabin. No longer! 

(Hatch Umbrella is to Wind Scoop as Foul Weather Gear is to Sunglasses)

Met Simon and the in-laws and brother-in-law Richard for dinner tonight at the Broad Arrow Tavern in Freeport. Now we are all feeling a little overloaded on delicious food. 

Cruising tip of the day: There’s no point in bringing magnets. I got a great little LED light with a bendy gooseneck and a magnetic base. But because everything on a boat is aluminum or stainless steel, there’s nothing to which it will stick. Also, the compass and computer don’t really like magnets. So keep that stuff ashore.

Sunny day fun

Practiced with the wind scoop yesterday. It sends a delightful breeze through the boat. Yesterday was a good day for getting a breeze because I was fixing a leak in the head vent hose. The composting toilet works great and is actually pretty fun to use. But it has a little computer-type fan pulling air through the compost bin (shit box) and exhausting it out the transom. 

I installed the fan on a bulkhead in the aft-lazarette in an attempt at keeping it away from seawater. But installation #1 had some air leaks so that locker filled up with some pretty impressive odor. And then because of the fact that the aft-cabin where Moss keeps her pig-sty is right by the stinky locker, that space was pretty ripe. 

Anyway, I resealed the hose and housing for the fan and all is well. My new favorite product is contact cement. And old rubber truck inner tube. Great for gaskets, easy to cut with scissors, and free.

One of the things we need to re-accustom ourselves to on Cupcake-as-a-cruising-boat is that to get to stuff buried deep in that aft-locker, we need to take out all the crap that was piled on top of it first. With a weekend sailboat, there is less gear and much less need to be ready to fix anything with the materials on hand. It's not such a big deal, but it makes project planning a little more involved.