Our family of 4 with our dog Windsor and Alla, David, Vlad, and Yury are the current crew on Salty Ginger as of Sunday. Logistically we have some complications with cars, so Sunday was a very busy day, and we didn't leave Boston until dusk. Leaving a busy harbor with which I am barely familiar is a bit hard, but the traffic died down quickly, so that wasn't a problem.
In order to avoid the roll of Boston harbor, and get a bit closer to Provincetown we wanted to anchor between Brewster islands, the easternmost group of islands in Boston harbor. In the light west winds that were forecast for the night, that seemed doable. Of course, the caveat was dropping anchor in an unfamiliar place in complete darkness. We tried to set the anchor, and it was dragging on the seabed. Oh-oh. We tried a different spot, and the anchor caught once we let out a lot of scope. Whew! We will be ok for the night. In the morning the anchor was totally covered in huge seaweed leaves, so no surprise it couldn't set on the first try.
Irina, David, Yury, and Margot took Windsor for a long walk on the island while Alla, Peter, and I were making blueberry pancakes for breakfast. After a relaxed breakfast we left the anchorage even before the dishes were washed as the wind was basically nonexistent.
When we landed in Boston, I was reminded of whale-watching tours from the New England aquarium. A little bit of research uncovered that they go to Stellwagen bank, and moreover their blog said that in the past few days they were going to southwestern and southeastern corners, i.e. quite close to Provincetown. But that still leaves a pretty large area to look for whales... Modern marine safety equipment came to help: the vessels are equipped with AIS, so we can see them in real time! As we were motoring east, Cetacea passed us, and at some point slowed down to 0.2 knots from its cruising speed of 25 knots. Ah-ha! That's where we'll head.
Blue skies and flat sea made it possible and easy to observe the solar eclipse. The calculated track predicted 66% coverage, so we would need help to see it. This time old-fashioned marine technology came to help: sextant! The filters of the instrument are designed to be able to look at the sun to take a shot, and that gave us an opportunity to see the sun getting shadowed by the moon down to a crescent which then started to get bigger.
Before the wind picked up we went swimming, dragged kids on an inflatable ring behind Salty Ginger, had a nice lunch. And the wind felt lovely and quiet.
Cetacea had already left the marked spot and as we were heading straight for it, she was heading for us again. Plus, there were a few vessels very close to the mark. My thinking was that maybe the whales will be along the ridge of the Stellwagen bank, but we have only seen a few seal heads up to then. Within a mile and a half of those vessels we started to see spouts. The whales were there, and the "show" was splendid. Obviously, they didn't care for my theory that they should feed along the bank and clearly they were surfacing at that exact spot the entire day.
Our patience in slowly motoring around without pursuing them paid off. We had a couple of whales come up within maybe 20 feet off the starboard side. Ok, we said, close enough. A few minutes later another couple of whales crossed our bow so close that the spout sprayed everyone who was on the deck! From the wheel I couldn't even tell how close they were to the bow. If that were a vessel, I would have totally freaked out. Not that I wasn't concerned, but I felt relatively confident that these huge smart mammals will not collide with us. Absolutely unforgettable experience for all of us! (Well, Windsor didn't figure out what was going on even if he were running up and down the deck.) All the pictures are on the Canon camera, so I will post them in a few weeks.
The wind kept building, but luckily we could make it into P-town bay on one tack, although we again ended up dropping the anchor when it was already dark. Dingy engine had trouble with electrical connections, so we had to row ashore to walk Windsor. He did his thing, but overall looked more confused than happy. Sitting at anchor behind a sandbar in 10 knot winds was much smoother than the night before. The boys were exhausted and went to bed without dinner. Margot was the only kid who had a proper meal at anchor.
In the morning we saw a bunch of black things sticking up above the water. With unaided eye they looked like abandoned pilings, except that they moved. That was a group of seals. We walked Windsor on the sandbar. This time, with lots of light, he was very happy, ran around like crazy. The seals looked at us with suspicion, but didn't mind our presence too much.
Anchoring in Provincetown does not provide easy access to town. Not only did we have a long dingy ride (the engine was rehabilitated), we had to do it twice. When we were returning from lunch, the wind was consistent with 15 knot prediction, so while David and I were folding the dingy the launch brought the rest of the crew to Salty Ginger to save a second ride (and time, but not money).
Sadly, the 15 knots of wind were coming straight from Sandwich, where we decided to spend the night before taking Cape Cod canal into Buzzards Bay. Not only did that make progress sub-optimal under sail, we have to deal with 2-3 foot chop that has been created by this wind over the past 24 hours. These steep waves with short period force S.G. to slam into them, so everything aboard is complicated, including going to the toilet. The strategies for getting the pants on that we discussed were to brace in the head with the knees to pull up the pants or to wait for two waves to slam and then quickly get the pants on. One of our crew members contemplated coming out of the head with no pants: too hard to get them on!
In order to avoid the roll of Boston harbor, and get a bit closer to Provincetown we wanted to anchor between Brewster islands, the easternmost group of islands in Boston harbor. In the light west winds that were forecast for the night, that seemed doable. Of course, the caveat was dropping anchor in an unfamiliar place in complete darkness. We tried to set the anchor, and it was dragging on the seabed. Oh-oh. We tried a different spot, and the anchor caught once we let out a lot of scope. Whew! We will be ok for the night. In the morning the anchor was totally covered in huge seaweed leaves, so no surprise it couldn't set on the first try.
Irina, David, Yury, and Margot took Windsor for a long walk on the island while Alla, Peter, and I were making blueberry pancakes for breakfast. After a relaxed breakfast we left the anchorage even before the dishes were washed as the wind was basically nonexistent.
When we landed in Boston, I was reminded of whale-watching tours from the New England aquarium. A little bit of research uncovered that they go to Stellwagen bank, and moreover their blog said that in the past few days they were going to southwestern and southeastern corners, i.e. quite close to Provincetown. But that still leaves a pretty large area to look for whales... Modern marine safety equipment came to help: the vessels are equipped with AIS, so we can see them in real time! As we were motoring east, Cetacea passed us, and at some point slowed down to 0.2 knots from its cruising speed of 25 knots. Ah-ha! That's where we'll head.
Blue skies and flat sea made it possible and easy to observe the solar eclipse. The calculated track predicted 66% coverage, so we would need help to see it. This time old-fashioned marine technology came to help: sextant! The filters of the instrument are designed to be able to look at the sun to take a shot, and that gave us an opportunity to see the sun getting shadowed by the moon down to a crescent which then started to get bigger.
Before the wind picked up we went swimming, dragged kids on an inflatable ring behind Salty Ginger, had a nice lunch. And the wind felt lovely and quiet.
Cetacea had already left the marked spot and as we were heading straight for it, she was heading for us again. Plus, there were a few vessels very close to the mark. My thinking was that maybe the whales will be along the ridge of the Stellwagen bank, but we have only seen a few seal heads up to then. Within a mile and a half of those vessels we started to see spouts. The whales were there, and the "show" was splendid. Obviously, they didn't care for my theory that they should feed along the bank and clearly they were surfacing at that exact spot the entire day.
Our patience in slowly motoring around without pursuing them paid off. We had a couple of whales come up within maybe 20 feet off the starboard side. Ok, we said, close enough. A few minutes later another couple of whales crossed our bow so close that the spout sprayed everyone who was on the deck! From the wheel I couldn't even tell how close they were to the bow. If that were a vessel, I would have totally freaked out. Not that I wasn't concerned, but I felt relatively confident that these huge smart mammals will not collide with us. Absolutely unforgettable experience for all of us! (Well, Windsor didn't figure out what was going on even if he were running up and down the deck.) All the pictures are on the Canon camera, so I will post them in a few weeks.
The wind kept building, but luckily we could make it into P-town bay on one tack, although we again ended up dropping the anchor when it was already dark. Dingy engine had trouble with electrical connections, so we had to row ashore to walk Windsor. He did his thing, but overall looked more confused than happy. Sitting at anchor behind a sandbar in 10 knot winds was much smoother than the night before. The boys were exhausted and went to bed without dinner. Margot was the only kid who had a proper meal at anchor.
In the morning we saw a bunch of black things sticking up above the water. With unaided eye they looked like abandoned pilings, except that they moved. That was a group of seals. We walked Windsor on the sandbar. This time, with lots of light, he was very happy, ran around like crazy. The seals looked at us with suspicion, but didn't mind our presence too much.
Anchoring in Provincetown does not provide easy access to town. Not only did we have a long dingy ride (the engine was rehabilitated), we had to do it twice. When we were returning from lunch, the wind was consistent with 15 knot prediction, so while David and I were folding the dingy the launch brought the rest of the crew to Salty Ginger to save a second ride (and time, but not money).
Sadly, the 15 knots of wind were coming straight from Sandwich, where we decided to spend the night before taking Cape Cod canal into Buzzards Bay. Not only did that make progress sub-optimal under sail, we have to deal with 2-3 foot chop that has been created by this wind over the past 24 hours. These steep waves with short period force S.G. to slam into them, so everything aboard is complicated, including going to the toilet. The strategies for getting the pants on that we discussed were to brace in the head with the knees to pull up the pants or to wait for two waves to slam and then quickly get the pants on. One of our crew members contemplated coming out of the head with no pants: too hard to get them on!
No comments:
Post a Comment