We finally left Nantucket on September 23, after the last remnants of Hurricane Gordon were safely out to sea. In order to get a fair current through Nantucket Sound, we woke early, filled up with water at the town dock as we ate breakfast, then slipped out the channel. We had a relatively short window before poor weather was expected again -- due to Tropical Storm Helene this time -- and wanted to make tracks. That night's forecast was for strong southwesterlies switching to northwesterlies, so we decided to make for well-protected Cuttyhunk Pond.
We put up the sails soon after turning out of the channel and made good time in the brisk wind, passing a Gulfstar which had left ahead of us. After we passed Martha's Vinyard, though, we had to turn southwest into Vinyard Sound, right into the southwesterlies, so down came the sails and on went the motor. (I suppose purists would have tacked back and forth down the sound. Purists would also not have arrived at Cuttyhunk before nightfall. We have met remarkably few purists who are cruising. When we're in gunkholing mode, just wandering around sightseeing, we cheerfully tack upwind if needed. But when we need to cover miles, it's nice to have that internal combustion. Besides, we had several days' worth of dirty dishes piled up and needed to heat water.)
We put the sails back up when we turned through Quicks Hole, and sailed all the way to the Cuttyhunk entrance channel. We were a little disconcerted by the number of other boats heading out the channel -- did they know something we didn't? The channel was extremely narrow, so going in while other boats were coming out was a bit exciting. It was tough finding the balance between forcing the oncoming traffic onto the shoal on the left, or getting driven up onto the jetty to the right.
The guidebook description (not to mention our New England experiences) led us to expect that the entire harbor would be chock-full of moorings, so we were pleasantly surprised to discover lots of anchoring room. No doubt on a midsummer weekend the harbor would be crammed with boats, but on this cold September Saturday there were only a sprinkling of boats at moorings and at anchor. We of course chose to anchor rather than pay $25 for a mooring, but we noticed there was a third alternative. In the western part of the harbor were several rows of pilings, like a marina without docks, and each piling had a tire bumper around it and a sign: "Rental --tie up $20" A few boats were tied to pilings, but it seemed to us to be a weird way to moor.
Cuttyhunk is a pretty island, with a small community near the harbor and a few spread-out houses over mostly empty land. We walked up a road edged with elegant stone walls -- intended as the entryway for a mansion which was never built -- to a platform built over of an old WWII bunker, on top of the highest hill on the island. Despite the low clouds, the view was lovely. We could see Martha's Vinyard and Nantucket to the east, and the other Elizabeth Islands stretching northward toward the Cape Cod Canal. To the south, nothing but water.
A network of paths led to other old concrete bunkers. The paths cut through a thick growth of grasses and bushes, and every time we went around a curve we found a bunny rabbit sitting in the middle of the trail. As we wandered around, we must have scared a couple dozen bunnies, sending them scampering into the grasses as they detected our presence. There seemed to be more rabbits than people on the island. Maybe it should be renamed "Bunnyhunk".
The next morning managed somehow to be both foggy and windy, with the wind coming (of course) from the southwest, the direction we needed to go. We plowed into it anyway, radar on. We are much better at interpreting the radar now than when we first got it, and we were very happy to have it this day as with its help we avoided hitting a fishing boat, a sailboat, and (most importantly) a tugboat pulling a barge on a long tow cable. The radar signature was clear, a medium-size echo and a large echo moving together in the direction of the smaller blip, and once we deciphered the pattern we quickly changed course so as not to smack the barge right in the middle. We came close enough to see the huge dark bulk of the barge, about 3 tenths of a mile off, and were pleased we got no closer view than that.
The fog had dissipated by the time we approached to the Mystic River, which meant we didn't need to keep as sharp a lookout. Unfortunately, we relaxed a little too much. Lobster trap floats were scattered here and there, and I spotted one just an instant too late to do anything about it,. We ran right over it, catching the pot warp (the line connecting the trap and the float) in our prop. I instantly backed off the throttle to neutral when we heard (and felt) it catch; Britt suggested slow reverse, which seemed to do the trick of unwinding the line and throwing it off. When we saw the float pop up behind us, I cautiously put the engine back in forward gear -- nothing made horrible grinding sounds, so we figured we were okay.
We felt somewhat stupid, having gotten caught on a trap down here, when we'd successfully negotiated the much more densely packed lobster pots of Maine. At least nobody had to go for a swim to free us. But over subsequent days of motoring, it seems to us that our speed is about half a knot slower than it ought to be, so there's probably something still hanging off our shaft. We're getting hauled in mid-October back in Deale, MD, so we just need to make it down to the Chesapeake.
We'd hoped to anchor near Mystic Seaport, so we could visit that famous museum complex the next day. (We'd called from Nantucket to inquire about getting a slip at the museum's dock -- when we heard the charge was $3/foot, we quickly decided we'd rather anchor.) The situation turned out to be the reverse of that at Cuttyhunk; although the chart showed several large anchorage areas along the Mystic River, all the water more than 5 feet deep outside the channel was packed with moorings, and all the moorings were packed with boats. We tried to find space at the edge of the mooring field furthest upstream, and only barely managed to keep from grounding. One boat was anchored bow and stern outside the channel on the other side (where the chart showed only 3 feet), and we cautiously drove around to investigate, but there wasn't enough room in deep enough water for us. It was high tide, so we had a little wiggle room while looking, but we needed to find a spot which would have enough water at low. In the end we found a spot in a less-dense mooring field, but it was about 2 miles from the museum. Fortunately, the weather was nice the next day, and the dinghy ride was cold but not wet.
Mystic Seaport was fun to explore, although at this point we already know more about 18th and 19th century shipping than many of the docents, and there wasn't much of interest going on in the boatbuilding shop. Some of the more interesting displays included a ropewalk, showing how rope used to be made, and a ship that turned out to be in such bad shape that the museum personnel decided not to restore it, but instead to use it as a model to show the public how boats are constructed (and how they deteriorate). We enjoyed poking around the classic wooden boats at their docks, especially the Charles Morgan, an old wooden whaler that we've seen several ship models of in other museums.
The next day was entirely worthless. It rained and blew and was miserably cold -- we could see our breath in the cabin -- and since neither of us was willing to even go out in the cockpit, we just stayed right there in the Mystic River. We both wore Polartec from head to toe and drank a lot of warm drinks, and I baked bread, which warmed the cabin up to an almost tolerable temperature for a little while, and we kicked ourselves for still being north of 40° this late in the year.
We got underway again on Wednesday; despite the bright sunshine the air was still bitterly cold, so we wrapped ourselves in layers of Polartec again. Though the wind was as usual on the nose, we had a terrific current, so when it was clear we'd make our planned anchorage before two in the afternoon, we decided to continue a little farther, to Port Jefferson on Long Island. As we plodded westward, we passed the tall ship Rose sailing east. With her big square sails out, flying downwind, she was a stately and beautiful sight.
We finally got to spread our own sails the next day. The wind came around to the north, on the beam as we traveled west. As you might expect from air that came to us after blowing across Canada, it was also a darn cold wind, and we took turns doing cockpit duty and warming up below. Not that it was particularly warm below.
But we're taking steps to fix all that. From Port Jefferson we sailed to Glen Cove, home of Marine Solutions, purveyors of fine Webasto boat heating systems. Yup, we are buying a heater, and with impeccable timing we are buying it just prior to heading south to the nice warm Bahamas. If we had any sense at all we would have bought it before going to Maine.
The heater will solve another problem for us, though. Since we have a wind generator and electrically efficient equipment, we rarely have to run our engine at anchor. But since that's the only way we can heat our water (other than being plugged in at a dock), and our hot water tank cools off after a day or so, we end up having to run the engine more frequently than we need for power generation just to make hot water. We opted to get a diesel-fired hot water heating system, which circulates hot water in front of blowers to heat the boat, and it includes an instant water heater. So whenever we want to do dishes or take a shower, we fire up the furnace (with the blowers switched off if we don't want to heat the boat) and presto, hot water. Way better than having to listen to the engine for an hour just to make enough hot water for 10-minute showers, and it will burn about 1/4 the diesel. (This also means that we will no longer be able to use the excuse "gotta make hot water" to justify motoring rather than sailing!)
Harry at Marine Solutions has been great to us (after all, we are buying all this expensive equipment from him!) and took us out to dinner at a fabulous Italian place where he is clearly not just on first-name terms with the cook but knows him well enough to just tell him, "Cook us something incredible, okay?" After bruschetta, melon with prosciutto, Porterhouse steaks with some kind of greens on top, pastries, espresso, and liqueurs, we were stuffed enough that the next day we didn't even bother with breakfast. Or lunch.
The goods need to get shipped in from Seattle, so while we're waiting we decided to leave the boat anchored in Glen Cove (where Harry will keep an eye on it) and take the train in to New York City. We have been offered use of a condo by friends of cruising friends, so we'll take a little vacation off the boat and do the city. This will be the first time we've spent more than one night in a row off the boat since we moved aboard.
As soon as the heater parts arrive, we'll grab the first weather window we get and head south for the Chesapeake. We will install it there, either before or after our trip back to Colorado. This means that even though we froze our butts last fall, and swore we would start south earlier this year than we did last year, we will end up leaving yet later. At least we will have a nice warm cabin to melt the frost off our noses.