Stepping off

Friday morning was practically windless and sunny, so we swam and took it slow. I decided to use the spinnaker pole to set up a jump rope. To make it easier to retrieve the swinging fender I attached a retrieval line. Big mistake! When I swung out to test the setup, my right arm got caught in the line and I ended up with a rope burn and a huge bruise under my right armpit. Ouch! Using the boat hook to get the line back was much safer, so luckily I was the only one who got hurt and everyone had lots of fun.

When we left Sandy Bay the water was almost mirror like. A motor boat came to retrieve a few sailing dinghies with kids - those kids were not moving at all.

As we reached Thatcher island we spotted another sunfish. Vlad was on the floaty enjoying the sun and the water and requested goggles. We did a few circles around the fish and Vlad got so close he could have touched it! 

A light breeze filled in from the southeast, so the sails were unrolled and we were sailing at a gentle 4-5 knots. Easy and smooth.

The day was warm, so we were not in a hurry to pull into Boston harbor with all the associated heat and traffic. While we were sailing around the islands in the harbor the crew started questioning the need to go into the harbor. Why can't we anchor out here?! Forecast was calling for light southeasterly to south winds, so why not. I checked the blog entry from 4 years ago to double-check where we were anchoring and we went back to the same mostly protected place between Brewster islands. So there we were, 5 miles away from Boston and yet the only neighbors were birds.

For dinner we had pasta, eggplant that had been sailing with us for a couple of weeks and other remaining vegetables. Simple and yet very tasty!

Boat hand off

My friends Sasha and Alex agreed to take Salty Ginger from Boston and sail her back to Rhode Island for winter storage. That meant a complete boat hand over with packing, cleaning, doing laundry, picking up cars from Plymouth; in short a busy day. Also, it was hot.

Alla took the kids for a walk while David and Irina went to Plymouth to get cars. That gave me time to start draining the water tank that still had lots of carbon particles. I set up a hose to siphon water out of the tank, but the rolling waves from passing boats kept disrupting the water flow. In the end Sasha and I got the tank almost dry and mostly particle free. However, once we started to fill it up a few more got washed out. Definitely an end in sight to this nightmare, but probably not safe yet to remove the rag "prefilter".

By the time we finished the hand over and all the tasks it was 3:30, so after a quick shower we left Boston to spend the evening with Irina's brother's family. Quite a stressful day, but the memories of a wonderful vacation will stay with us much longer!

Culinary delights

Since we planned for a short passage from Gosport harbor we had a slow morning making crepes for breakfast. Peter decided that while adults were busy he can fish and very quickly a mackerel was on his hook. He and Irina fished a bit more and pulled out another mackerel.

Then Peter saw a lobster boat and begged to hail it. The boat went away before we could make a decision getting Peter into a sulky mood which improved once he ate. After breakfast we saw another lobster boat, so I jumped into the dinghy and started to row towards it. Then another boat driven by a cute young lad started heading my way, and the lad agreed to sell us 4 lobsters for $25. Lunch menu decided!

The water was refreshing, but the sun was in full force so overall it was quite warm and we went for a long swim to shore. Peter got cold by the time he got to the shore, so I swam back to get the dinghy and brought him back to Salty Ginger.

The onboard gas range doesn't output a lot of power, so while lobsters were cooking, David, Irina and Peter continued fishing and soon we had 6 mackerels in the fridge. Irina marinated 3 of them and we kept the other 3 for grilling.

To our amazement the teenagers refused to even try lobsters, so we ended up having 4 lobsters for the 5 of us. Only 2 lobsters fit in our largest pot, so while we were eating the first 2, the second 2 lobsters got cooked and we dug into them right away. Very filling and yet not heavy. Perfect for sailing!

I asked the neighbor what he thought about anchoring in Folley Cove and he didn't think it would be a good idea. Instead, his recommendation was to go a bit further and drop the anchor near Rockport in Sandy Bay. We checked out Folley Cove and agreed that it was suboptimal. The western side looked fairly wild, but the eastern side, which we would be looking at from our stern, had a few huge houses.

The aestheics in Sandy Bay was sort of better, but it was sprinkled with lobster traps making it a bit challenging to find an anchorage spot. In the end we dropped the hook in 50 feet of water, and since all other boats opted for being much closer to shore, all the neighbors were far away.

Two course dinner included grilled mackerel followed by lamb ribs. For the teenagers' taste the fish had two many bones (ok, we got them some flesh without bones) and the ribs too much fat. So picky!

A great aspect of spending time on the water in the middle of summer heat is much lower temperature. Yesterday on land the conditions were 32-34C "feels like 37-39C" but on the water it was very comfortable. We're set for another hot day which we plan to spend on and in the water. 

Today we need to get to Boston since my vacation is coming to an end. I haven't thought about work in 4 weeks and mentally feel completely detatched from the daily routine and the hustle of civilization. I know that we will be greeted by lots of air and water traffic as we'll be pulling into Boston harbor, and while I can't say I'm looking forward to it I think I am ready to get back to Zurich.

Newburyport and the Isles of Shoals

Off to Newburyport

Yesterday morning everyone was a bit tired. On the one hand the rocking and rolling lulls one to bed, on the other hand it's still a bit tiresome to be constantly rolled. The morning was windy, cloudy and chilly, so after a simple breakfast we left the mooring and headed to Newburyport where the municipal marina already had a mooring reserved for us.

The wind felt strong, but it seemed that we couldn't head into it well at all. Maybe there was current, maybe I was to tired to set all the sails right. At some point after I and a couple more adults took naps, the wind was turned off, so we finished the passage on the motor.

Thatcher island off the stern

Bundled up and heading into the wind

Peter taking us towards the channel

Much warmer! But care is needed to keep in the channel and not run aground.

Newburyport, founded in the middle of 18th century, is a small town with 17 thousand inhabitants. Maybe due to covid, maybe because it was a Tuesday, the number of people in the town was not that large. We walked around, saw a few shops and restaurants and let our kids burn some energy on a playground. After that we started looking for a place to get provisions, but alas, the convenience store in the middle of the town had nothing appetizing. The small fridge labeled "milk and coffee additives" looked particularly unattractive for either milk or "coffee additives".

There were 2 options: a butchery about a mile away and Market Basket supermarket about 2 miles away. Peter has been craving red meat, so Irina, Peter and I walked to the butchery while Alla, David and their kids went to Market Basket. It turned out that the butchery was much more than a butchery. Only half of the store was meat, and the rest had decent milk, cereals, fruit and vegetables. (Having spent 3 years living in Switzerland I don't expect a butcher to carry such a variety!) We let Alla and David know that they don't have to walk the rest of the way, and got all the food we need for the rest of the trip.

Even though we had lots of food aboard, nobody wanted to cook, so we ate at the Poynt. Food was fine, but the water tasted funny, and we can definitely cook better!

The nice thing about our mooring was that it was all of 30 meters from the dinghy dock. Therefore we didn't even put on the engine, and just rowed ashore. Since adults had a drink, we designated Vlad as our rower. He's doing rowing at the high school anyway!

Elbow grease

Irina does not know that much about sailing, at least not yet, but she does like to sail on a clean boat. So, as soon as we got a green light to use the water at the dock, we moved Salty Ginger to a source of fresh water and scrubbed the boat every way we could: deck, cockpit, seats, scruff marks on the sides. Peter even polished some stainless that looked scruffy. I pulled out oxalic acid and cleaned off dirt marks from under the wheel axes.

Dinghy folded, seats washed, and we were in the cleanest boat since 3 years ago!

Smooth passage

The Isles of Shoals were a tentative destination 4 years ago, but we didn't make it. They are only 13 miles away from the channel and in addition to nice wind we had sun and lots of warmth! Finally it feels like summer sailing!

We tried to set the spinnaker, but the wind direction was not conducive to flying it, so we set the mini-spinni again and were sailing 5 to 7.5 knots over smooth sea. What a treat!

We called the Portsmouth yacht club in the morning to inquire about the moorings, and they told us the same information that I picked up from activecaptain.com: there are moorings maintained by the club, they can be reserved by club members, and it's ok for non-members to use them if no members show up, as would be expected on a weekday. Indeed, there were a few moorings available. We picked up a white one for no other reason that we passed by a blue one with a motor boat who said the color doesn't matter.

The water is clean, with the sun it even felt warm, so some people jumped in the water while we were setting up the dinghy and taking the code-0 sail down.

Island walk

Some people rowed, some people swam ashore and we took a walk on the Smuttynose island. Passing by a little cemetery and then a grave for Spanish sailors who shipwrecked in the early nineteenth century we got into the thicket where mosquitoes were happy to see us and the gulls quite the opposite.

Once we reached the northern extremety of the island we decided that feeding mosquitoes was not that attractive and opted for the walk along the rocks along the waterline. Having once walked an island in the Long Island Sound where we collected a few bags of garbage in 20 minutes, the shoreline was relatively clean. Nevertheless, we did find some plastic, a number of lobster trap floats, and the biggest find: a huge buoy that was blown away. Vlad dragged it along the shore and then swam with it to Salty Ginger, so now we have to figure out how to stow a huge object for the next few days.

Most cruisers' remarks said something along the lines of "will gladly come back". We definitely fall into that camp as well!

Irina and Peter are now making pretzels, and David lit up the grill for the meat that we bought yesterday. Dinner time!

The Two Towers

Anchoring in the Provincetown harbor requires dropping the anchor in about 50 feet of water far away from the town moorings. The sandbar gives excellent protection from practically all winds so long as one has enough chain or rode. We let out 250 feet and were rock solid through the night.

As David and I were having coffee in the cockpit the view of the harbor was taken away by the fog that moved in from the Gulf of Maine and placed us into a bubble with a 100 meters of visibility. In a little while the fog lifted and we were underway. Alla and David were cooking breakfast while we were slowly gliding with the wind to round the sandbar and head north. The sea lions were still in the same place looking at us and at a guy on the beach who was taking pictures and selfies.

Chasing whales

At the northern tip of the sandbar we were lucky to see a back of a whale. It was shy and quickly went to do its whale things in an unknown direction. We took that as a good sign and soon were overtaken by the whale watching boats. Once they slowed down to less than a knot, I placed a couple of waypoints to see if the whales would continue to frolic in the same place. Obviously, us doing 5-7 knots is quite different from 30 knots that these boats do on the way to the whale grounds.

And then we were totally engulfed by fog. Luckily the lobster pots disappeared, so steering wasn't as nerve wracking as it would be otherwise. Nevertheless, it was a bit concerning to hear motor sounds and not seeing the source of the sound. A motor boat suddenly appeared out of the fog and passed us safely, then a sailboat which was blending into the fog and was barely distinguishable at first.

As the fog lifted we reached the waypoints but didn't see any signs of whales. We kept going north and finally saw a back of a whale as we were crossing the Boston shipping lane. It didn't stay with us long.

As we started to cook pasta for lunch, Irina and David who were still looking around from the foredeck sighted a whale breaching. And again, and again. Headsail down, motor on. Boats are not supposed to approach the whales by less than 100 yards, so I kept the distance as the whale would dive and then resurface to do backflips, wave the flippers and put on a little private show. There were no other boats in sight.

Thatcher island

The head wind picked up but wasn't overpowering the code-0, and most importantly we could point straight for Thatcher island. Peter wanted to fly the Russian navy flag so we were flying in full glory to our destination for the night.

Cook's view from the galley

The 40 mile passage to the island is quite long, so we spent time playing word games. The temperature dropped, so the crew bundled up a bit. Vlad sat on the bow for a while enjoying getting sprayed by the waves that Salty Ginger was cutting at 6-7 knots. Fast ride!

Getting onto the island is a bit challenging: there is no dock, but instead an angled set of boards which are ok for kayak landing. We picked up the guest mooring at low tide, so the boards were all exposed and super slippery.

It didn't make sense to mount the engine on the dinghy. It's not clear where the rocks are and replacing the pin in the propeller is not something I wanted to do again (once per season should be enough).

Vlad wasn't feeling well and stayed aboard, but the rest of the crew were happy to stretch their legs on terra firma.

Last time on the island, Alice and I were attacked by a mother gull and couldn't walk around the entire island. I'm glad I asked about it. The friendly keepers immediately said, "Oh, yeah, take a stick!" and pointed us at a bunch of sticks in a bucket. "The geese are even worse than the gulls. You can smack them if they get too aggressive, but don't hit the gulls, they'll back away from whack-a-gull."

North tower as seen from the top of the south tower

Irina in front of the Fresnel lens in the south tower

Keepers houses (also a small museum) and Salty Ginger on the mooring.

View south towards Boston

Bird poop everywhere gives a distinct, but not totally unpleasant smell to the entire island

This time around no birds attacked us. The big gull chicks were not that happy to see us, but would walk off the path before the mother would display her motherly rage.

When we came back to Salty Ginger it was clear that the choice of the overnight stay is far from ideal. The northerly winds were sending waves and rocking and rolling the boat. So, after dinner we organized the beds and crashed for the night.

Sunfishing

An important development of yesterday's morning was attaching VHF antenna to the top of the mast. When we got it out of the box Irina said, "I want to attach it", but quickly changed her mind when she found out it would require hanging at the top of the mast. David and Peter winched me up the mast where I discovered a bare coaxial cable with no connector. Great, I don't have one to crimp on. After an hour of working on the old cable (a good candidate for replacement) I attached the outer cable to the housing with the nut that holds the antenna in place and the inner cable was folded 4x, inserted as a pin and "secured" with duct tape.

To my amazement this worked! The main benefit of having a working antenna is that the AIS can now see other boats from 20 miles away!

As we pulled out of Plymouth harbor there wasn't much wind, so we took that as an opportunity to pull people on the floaty and swim.

When we were done with swimming there was some wind, so we set the sails and were pointing straight at Provincetown. Whale watching boats were all going far north, so it was clear we didn't have a chance to reach the same watching places.

And then David spotted a fin in the water. Sunfish! We rolled in the fishing line and tried to go closer to the fish. First it seemed that it swam away, but then the fin appeared very close to the boat. I hove to, and as we were drifting the fish got curious and ended up approaching the boat from the stern and entertaining us for 10 or 15 minutes.

Underwater photography with a phone is quite challenging because the screen doesn't work, but one picture turned out kind of ok.

As we approached the Provincetown sandbar we saw birds diving for fish, but our attempts to catch a fish yielded no results.

To everyone's delight as were motoring into the harbor, we saw a group of sea lions hanging out in the water close to the beach. What a treat!

There was one silly mistake that we made: we forgot that we were still trolling the lure behind the boat. Of course, the line got caught in the propeller and we had to cut it. A minor setback to an otherwise delightful day.

Following in Pilgrims' wake: Plymouth

The last 2 days were so filled with getting things done and getting crew on and off Salty Ginger. Mark, Leo and my parents had to return back home. Irina arrived half hour before they left. Alla, David, Vlad and Yury came to Plymouth a few hours later, so right now the new crew (and provisions) are back in Cape Cod bay having left Plymouth harbor, and I have time to write what happened in the last 2 days.

Friday morning we planned to have an early departure, but between breakfast and getting fuel and pumping out the holding tank we didn't depart Provincetown till 10:30. The wind was SW so we had to go on the "wrong" tack until we had enough room to tack to port tack and go north following the whale watching boat. Unfortunately, without VHF antenna AIS was not working, so we had no clue how far north they headed, but then we saw another whale watching boat just to the north of the Provincetown sandbar. When we got there the birds were diving after fish and then a whale back appeared about 50 meters away from us! After about half hour of sailing around the birds we saw the back of a whale a few more times, but clearly the animals were shy and we were short on time.

Wind picked up, so we could sail quite nicely. We decided to check out the spot where we saw whales 4 years ago, but on Friday their feeding ground was in a different location, so we rolled the code-0 in and unrolled the genoa to get on a close hauled course towards Plymouth.

Plymouth harbour is huge and well protected, but rather shallow. At one point I thought I could go straight over chartered 12-15 foot shoal, but the depth meter showed 2 feet under the keel, so I quickly got back into the channel. After a rather sill unsuccessful attempt to find our mooring we got escorted to our mooring ball past the replica of Mayflower.

In the morning I made crepes and after breakfast we went into town to drop off laundry, rent a one-way car to NYC, but most importantly visit the ship replica!

While we were cooking dinner we noticed an unusual visitor who landed at the top of our mast. My bird knowledge is not that extensive, but looked like an osprey. Many people bring good quality cameras, but instead I used binoculars and Vlad pressed the camera button.

In the morning I saw more feathered friends who for some reason were swimming back and forth under the transom of Salty Ginger.

One of the natural phenomena that one must take into account in these waters are tides. Not all dinghy owners take them into account.