Annapolis

Before we left the anchorage this morning I took a picture of this house with lighthouse that is on the small island that we are in front of. Funny, Canada is dropping supporting many lighthouses, but here is this guy who has is own – maybe he could pay for a few of ours :)

There are quite a few well off houses that have there own lift for their powerboats for winterization/maintenance etc, but this is the first time I have seen a personal lift for sailboats which weigh a lot more.

We had a lazy morning, did some reading and didn’t depart until 11:00. The anchor was very hard to lift and I was starting to think it was caught on something big, but when it eventually came up it was full of soft mud so it just well buried. We motored the short distance to Annapolis and I managed to avoid playing chicken with any more 600’ ships………  
Here is a picture of a bridge that crosses the Chesapeake Bay, as you see it must have started of as one bridge but they added a second part. 

We took a mooring for a couple of days at the city docks as the anchorages are somewhat restricted and we wanted to be close to some facilities. Annapolis is a cool old town, it has tons of shops, catering mostly to tourists of course. Here are some pictures of one of the streets. There is a tall ship in town (16^th century Spanish Galleon) called the “El Galeon Andalucia” where you can pay money to go aboard, hmm, I would more likely pay someone to go ashore right now….

Also shown is a statue of Alex Haley reading to kids, which is here to commemorate the arrival of Kunta Kinte which was featured in his book “Roots”.

Tomorrow we plan to do some more exploring around town, pick up groceries, fill up with water and go to a couple of marine stores (my favorite part :)).

Sillery Bay

We had a relaxing night last night as it was very calm and quiet, that is until “Blue Max” (our dinghy that we are towing) decided a few times to run into the back of the boat which causes us to gets our attention! If there is a bit of wind and the current is not real strong this does not happen, but when it does, about the only thing I can do is put fenders on the boat and tie the dinghy tight to the mother ship at the front and back. Speaking of “Blue Max”, Heather is not crazy about it, as it is not as stable as an inflatable dinghy. A lot of people say that we will want to switch for an inflatable down south, but I am determined to try it first after spending a winter building the thing! BTW it tows really well, and in weather that I probably shouldn’t have towed it, such as when we were leaving Cape May. As per Heather’s expression it went vertical over a wave and she didn’t think it would land upright, but Blue Max is no ordinary dingy J

After some razzing I decided to shave the beard, Greg and I started the day we left NS, he gave up on it within 3 weeks, I managed for almost 6 weeks but there was too much gray in it…….

We bought a haircutting kit before leaving so that Heather can do my hair. Our first endeavor was not the best. We decided to cut it on the foredeck with me sitting on the dinghy with the thought that the hair would be blown overboard. Well all I can say is 4 weeks later, there is still hair on the deck, it is like magnet and doesn’t wash off as you would think it would. So this time we took out the cushions in the cockpit, put a seat across, then swept up the hair afterwards – a much better solution!

Here is a picture of some range markers that we saw today, one thing about the US navigation system is they make the equipment well. They are used for giving you the proper bearing to follow into channel, but with everyone using chartplotters, smartphones etc, their days will be limited. As you can tell the birds will be disappointed when they go.

See how big and close this ship is to us? This is because I made the bad decision to go across the channel in front of him! I failed to check his speed via AIS (which was 14 knots) and I thought I would have lots of room with the engine on full but it was waaaay to close and will give them a much wider berth from now on! Needless to say Heather was not happy with my decision……..

We left Gunpowder river at 11:00 then arrived in Sillery Bay about 4:00 after both motoring and sailing. We found an anchorage not far from Greg and Debbie. The place was full of power boaters but fortunately most of them were only there for the day and left after a few hours.

Gunpowder River

Well I’m going call this blog the “Too’s”. We left Still Pond at 10:00 to too many

boats everywhere, too many little flies that bite, too little wind so we motored most of the way, way too many crab traps (slightly less than Maine), too much chatter on the VHF radio, too hot (I know I shouldn’t complain, no comments required J) and lastly too little wind!

Anyways after my slight rant I’ll say that we arrived in a beautiful spot on the Gun Powder River, it is quiet here and we are by ourselves. We should be in Annapolis in two days, we will stay there for a bit before heading off.

This was one of many ships (maybe coming from Baltimore?) that we saw on the river today.

Still Pond

This morning before leaving Chesapeake City, Heather and I walked up to a wonderful café for breakfast that we had eaten at on our first day in town, I had the Eggs  Benedict “Chesapeake” which came with crab! It was great. Heather had Eggs Florantine, which was also delicious.

Leaving the dock was a bit hairy as we either were dragging over ground a bit or within inches of it. Apparently this harbour silts up often and easily, but the tide was on the rise however if we did get stuck.

We had a great sail into a big bay called “Still Pond” which was about a 20 nm run. There are only a few cottages and buoys around. The water is ok as I managed to go for a quick dip.

Chesapeake City

Waking up this morning we were greeted by a wonderful red sunrise, hmm “red sky in the morning sailors take warning”……. A quick check of the bad weather seemed to imply that it was coming a little earlier than expected so not wanting to be caught out in strong winds with the shallow waters of the Delaware river we decided to speed things up and leave a ½ hr earlier. We could not get in touch with Greg and Debbie to let them know of our leaving earlier until just before weighing anchor but they weren’t far behind. As it was, we had a fabulous time and managed to sail the entire 16 nm without a tack at 6-7+ knots.

We passed Salem nuclear power plant before going into the C&D canal. As you can see, there is quite a crack in it, I’m sure I also saw Homer peering out one of the windows J

 Here is a picture of the entrance to the canal and the first bridge to pass under. There are no speed limits on this canal (unlike the Cape Cod canal) so there can be any manner of boats passing you. When we looked behind us we saw this bemammoth ship coming toward us to pass, egad how would he fit! As it turned out there was plenty of room and the strange part was, that he threw out virtually no wake, unlike the small motor boat that was following him doing the same speed – go figure.

We stopped at a free (yes free!!!) overnight dock at Chesapeake City, which is run by the town. It was a bit hairy coming in as the current and strong winds were pushing us away from the entrance and we got to within 6” of touching bottom. We made it to the dock ok after a second turn as I wasn’t happy with our positioning. We were just getting settled when Greg and Debbie started to make the entrance turn but the wind and current carried them well past so they found another dock down river to temporarily tie up to. They tried again a few minutes later and were successful and are tied up behind us.

The harbourmaster has allowed us to stay an extra day at docks, as tomorrow is still very windy and rainy. The nearest grocery store is across the main bridge over the canal and about 3 miles away so he said he would drive us there, what a blessing!

Heather and Debbie went with him as he only had a Prius and it would not fit all of us.

The town is very quaint with lots to do and see in a very small area, including a canal museum that we will visit tomorrow.  There is a big fibre store that we went into (Kathy you would love this place) and Heather has made arrangements to go to a

3 hr crochet class that the owner will teach – it will be a one on one class.

This evening we ran into a fellow Canadian that is on a Hunter 45 and heading south, we all brought our suppers over to his boat and had a wonderful meal and get together.

Cohansey River

We left Cape May at 0800 hrs to a nice 15 knot wind and not too much of a swell. To get around Cape May point requires quite a few miles of travel away from our intended destination, as there are many shoals around. Of course the wind died within an hour contrary to the forecast, which said 10-15 knots til early afternoon. I guess they go to the same school as our Canadian meteorologists J

The tide was against us for most of the trip and the Delaware River is quite shallow with many shoals around. There is a deep channel but the large ships use that and it can be quite busy so we stayed well to the east and worked our way through the shallow spots. It was a 40 nm run to Cohansey River, which is really only one of a few spots that we can stop at on the Delaware. We are starting to see a few boats that are obviously heading south, especially when you see bikes and kayaks tied on.

We have started seeing the dreaded traps in the water again, but instead of lobster it is crab or oyster egads!

Our anchorage is not very protected but we are expecting light winds tonight, course they may be wrong…….

Tomorrow we will go down and into the C & D canal (Chesapeake and Delaware) and hopefully stay in that area for a day as some bad weather and high winds are forecast for Thursday.

Cape May

We were glad to leave the bad anchorage of Atlantic City and to get further south to Cape May NJ which is about 37nm away. The swell turned out better than forecast which was a relief after the previous day. Unfortunately the winds were also light, so we had to motor the entire time. We arrived in Cape May at 3:00 and found an anchorage. We were hoping to get a proper shower but there are no facilities here which will allow you to take a shower for a few dollars unless you take one of their docks for the night ($2-3 dollars a foot a night), gotta love American free enterprise L

The only US Coast Guard training base is here, the recruits are running all over the place and there has been lots of commands plus PA’s going off at all times. The guide books forgot to mention this J and the only spot to anchor in this harbour is right in front of the base! I imagine we will hear them early in the morning……

We will stay for an extra day due to weather and to relax, will be glad to be done with the New Jersey coast.

The next day it was very windy but we managed to dinghy to shore to do our laundry, walk around for a bit and had a great lunch at the Lobster House (pic enclosed).

This evening we were treated to a wonderful sunset.

Atlantic City

Well the wind wasn’t the best for leaving Barnegat Harbour yesterday but was far better that the day before. While I was raising anchor the windlass decided to stop working so I had to manually crank it up, the problem is in the wired remote control, a couple of wires had broke. When I installed the system 9 years ago I had put a remote switch in the cockpit of which I had never used. Of course neither one of us thought of it that morning!  Anyways I took the control apart and resoldered the wires and coated the inside area with 5200 (yes George, 5200 J) to help keep the wires from pulling out as the strain relief is terrible. If it doesn’t work there is a West Marine store around and I will get another.

When we got to the inlet there were lots of swells and current, plus making it more difficult was the sheer number of fishing boats of every size inside the channel. We left at 07:30 but apparently that wasn’t early enough to beat them! After a hard slog out of the harbour we were out into 15-20 knots of wind with large 4-6 ft swells, which made for an long 35nm to Atlantic City. At least we were able to sail the distance and arrived at 3 PM and found an anchorage. Unfortunately the anchorage was crazy rolly with the tides fighting the wind. To top it off, it was very humid so combined with this, made for un uncomfortable night. After the weather beating we took Greg and I thought it best to take the girls out to supper, we found a nice bar/grill that was perfect. After supper we walked the docks where there were lots of people catching “Bluefish” then cleaning and frying them up right there. We also ran into a fellow that had this truck with the 4 extra alternators to run his CB radio which he claims will put out 6000 watts, this is well above the legal  limit – guess that’s why  he is mobile! He was talking to someone from Texas when we were there.  The lights from Atlantic City are very bright as you can see.

Staying Put

“Flexibility is the key to airpower” is true for the Airforce as well as many things in life such as sailing. The winds came up (25 knots) really quick last night at 3 AM (of course) which found me out checking out the lines and putting out another 20 ft of chain and snubber (the rope part that attaches to the chain to take forces off of the windless and smoothen the force to the anchor – (for the non sailors in the group…)). I had swinging room so it got me to a full 7:1 scope at high tide, still I stayed awake for a while to watch things and really did not go back to sleep.

Three issues with going out today with the winds up to 25 knots, one, getting the anchor up in high winds even with a windlass is nasty and dangerous work on the foredeck as the bow of the boat wants to dance around like John Travolta. Two, the seas are up to 5 ft and we really are not in any hurry to go. Three and most important is the exit from this harbour is ugly and known for steep waves due to wind/current/tide fighting each other, plus Atlantic City is not an easy entrance so weather is important. The Lord has provided a great location here and I will use the time to change the fuel filters as they have not been done since last spring and the vacuum is up to 3.5” of mercury.

Not everybody minds the strong winds though, there were a few of these para gliders kicking around this morning, this was the only shot I got of them though.

around this morning, this was the only shot I got of them though.

Barnegat Bay

Our night in Sandy Hook was a bit of a rolly one, there is a ferry that runs to the shore and a US Coast Guard location nearby that probably caused us some discomfort. We were up early and left by 7:00 as it was long way (48 NM) to Barnegat Bay. There are very few sailboat friendly spots to stop at for the night on the New Jersey coast. In fact all you see coming down is a continuous beach with houses and apartments clustered on the shore. We also have to time the run into the inlet ref currents, winds and tides as the approach can be nasty. The approach and harbour is not well marked on any of the charts I have but after I called a few marinas here, I was assured that a lot of buoys have been added and it would not be an issue. We motored all day (8 hrs) in light winds to make our timings and arrived at 3:00. The approach was well marked but looked scary a few times with having to be much closer to breakwaters and docks than would normally seem right, but we arrived into a spot that was good for anchoring. We will shoot for Atlantic City tomorrow but may have to pay for a doc

as there is limited room inside.
Here are two pictures of the bay that we are in.

Sandy Hook

We were to leave to go thru New York yesterday but it rained quite hard most of the morning so we decided to delay until today. The day off allowed me to get some maintenance items done on the boat.

Today was a perfect day, we had to leave at the right time so that we would have favorable currents as there can be quite the chop in spots due to several rivers coming together. The Navonics program that is on the Ipad and Iphone make it a breeze to see the amount of current and where in the river it is, so it allows you to plan accordingly. There were quite a few bridges to go under today, the first was intimating but after a while you don’t even thing about it. There is however a lot of garbage and debris floating around, plus the East river smells really bad....... The river is marked well and plenty deep so navigation was not an issue plus it being midweek meant there were very few pleasure boaters, only the odd barge. Just before the East river (that we were on) meets the Hudson, the engine started making a load “clacking” noise! First thing I thought was I had run out of oil! A quick check of pressure and temperature gauges seemed to say that was ok. Looking at the exhaust however revealed no water, thus the noise. I figured either the alternator belt had broken, raw water pump gone or my first guess the impellor had broken some vanes. I quickly shut down the engine to keep it from overheating and steered us to a concrete pier, which was close to us as we had to get off of the busy river. Heather quickly got the fenders and lines ready. I had to start the engine once again for a short time to push us toward the pier, fortunately a construction worker was around to grab a line. I was able to get on the pulpit and jump up to the pier to get the other line wrapped around some scaffolding that was there, as there was no cleats or bollards to tie to L. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for a security guard to come over to see what we were doing there. A quick check of the engine revealed that none of my guesses about the engine were correct. I started it again and after a few seconds everything sounded fine and water was coming back out of the exhaust. It dawned on me that it must have been a piece of plastic or other garbage which had blocked the water inlet and had been held there by suction until the engine had been shut down. We were about ½ km from 7 or 8 helicopters which were lifting off and landing giving tours of the harbour, along with the multitude of ferries and sight seeing boats, this made it a very hectic and noisy spot to trouble shoot the engine. In any case we departed and headed toward the main part of the harbour where the statue of Liberty is. It was neat to see and larger than I had thought it would be. We then continued under our last bridge and went 10 more miles until we arrived in Sandy Hook NJ to anchor for the night. As you may recall this area was devastated by hurricane Sandy in 2012. It's been a great trip with a month and 500 NM covered but we are sure glad this day is over!!!

New York

New York New York

We had a nice quiet night in Norwalk Islands. When we arrived the area was very busy with speedboats, sailboats and fishing boats everywhere but thankfully by suppertime everybody headed home and we had the place to ourselves. We were roughly 25 miles from New York City and it was really neat to be able to see the skyline in the distance.

Winds were light today so we ended up motoring the entire way - not our favourite past time! Richard did attempt the sails at one point but it was very short lived. Very few boats on the water today, not surprising for a September monday. There were however quite a few fishing boats dragging for oysters.

We arrived in City Island around 1pm and stopped for fuel and water before finding an anchorage for the night. We ended up anchoring just behind Rat Island, the boat traffic is very minimal but we will feel like we are back at work as we are on the approach path for La Guardia Airport!

It didn’t take us long to get the boat settled away as we were anxious to get some shore time in before dark! Greg and Debbie arrived and we all headed for town in their dinghy. City Island is only about a mile and a half long and a few blocks wide so it is easy to get around. Everybody seemed really friendly, at least we think they were friendly as it was hard to understand allot of them with the accents:) We poked around a few shops, picked up a few groceries and we all had great turkey suppers at a quaint little restaurant before heading back to the boats.

The day wouldn’t be complete without Richard doing at least some sort of troubleshooting/maintenance, so tonight he was busy doing a little work on one of the fuel filters on the engine. Tomorrow we will be passing the Statue of Liberty!

Norwalk Islands

We had a good anchorage last night as New Haven has three large breakwaters across the entrance (I cannot imagine the work that goes into making these large masses of land) so it really keeps the rolling down. In the middle of the night (of course) the wind started blowing hard so I was up a few times in the night to check things out and to make sure the anchor was not dragging. We are now well into Long Island Sound and the increase in power and sailboats is apparent. It is busy enough that seeing another boat is no big deal and nobody waves to you like back in Nova Scotia. The power boats also are more of an issue as they seen to have no problem with passing close to you at any speed!

We arrived in Norwalk Islands around 2:00 but had to search around to find suitable anchorages as the area has quite a few oyster traps plus the area is very shallow in spots but we seem to have found a good anchorage. New York is about 25NM away from here and you can see the buildings of the city in this picture. Tomorrow our plan is to go to City Island just at the beginning of East River for our run down through New York.

New Haven

We had an excellent sail the 40 or so miles to New Haven. Winds were straight behind at 15 -20 knots, so the jib out was all that was needed for a good turn of speed. The day was cloudy and was actually cold which was the first time we have felt this since leaving Canada, guess we better keep on going south but the problem is we have been mostly going west and will continue to do so til past NYC. It rained fairly hard the last hour or so but we have had great weather so no complaints.

New Haven is known for the first hamburger, first pizza in the US, Frisbee was started here, and silly putty was created here plus many other inventions.

New London

We had a great sail for about half of the way to New London from Point Judith, after that it was motoring time. There were many spectacular houses that line the shore, here is a picture of a few of them. As we were arriving a large nuclear powered submarine was leaving being escorted by 3 small fully armed Navy boats, as you can see by the picture. The light house shown is on the entrance to the harbour. New London is known as the home of the first nuclear powered sub built back in the fifty’s and there is a repair facility here now. We found a spot to anchor outside of a marina’s mooring field. Also for a small fee they allow you to use their showers and laundry facilities, which we were happy about and this was needed!

The Newport boat show was starting the following day (Thursday) so Heather and I decided to take a break for a few days and rent a car to go to the show. Our “Enterprise” ride came the next morning to bring us to get the car and before you knew it we were on our way to Newport, which took about an hour. The show was a lot of fun, we got to go on a lot of the boats and ended up having a few favorites. I was so busy that I forgot to take any pictures except for the one shown on the way in. The 54’ Oyster sailboat was very nice, but for 3.5 million dollars it should be!!!

We picked up a chart book for the Bahamas plus a folding seat for the helm as there is no back support in that location so this should help. Heather wanted to see “Mystic” so we took the scenic shore route back to New London.

The following day Greg and Debbie joined us for shopping at craft stores, doing groceries plus going to Defender Marine. Defender Marine is a big warehouse with all the marine supplies you can think of, it’s sort of like crack for an addict  J

Bought some things that will make life easier for us, when you are basically setting up your home each night after sailing you tend to find ways to try to be more efficient and to save time, some of these items we bought will do just that.

Our small dinghy outboard had been in the shop twice this year, but it still will not run proper, leaks fuel all over the boat when it is moved and seems always to need more fuel – I was ready to toss it in the ocean……Anyways we picked up a 2.5 hp propane powered outboard that runs clean, won’t leak and starts. It uses either the small camping propane size cylinders or an external tank. We purchased a five lb tank and I will carry some 1 lb bottles in the dinghy as spares. I managed to sell the old one and the gas can to the marina that we are anchored in front of – yeah.

After all our shopping we went directly to Enterprise and they drove us back to the marina with all our food and other supplies, this saved us from returning the car in the morning before leaving.

There is also a nuclear power plant here as you can see by the picture.

Point Judith

Our intent today was to do a long sail to Fishers island but the wind and waves had other ideas! We are now not protected in Buzzards Bay and are open to the full fetch of the Atlantic, esp an east wind that has been blowing for a few days. The wind was mostly behind us and over 20 knots, that was not the problem though, the waves were quite high (> 7 or 8') which made for concentrated steering to keep the stern into a wave. Tiring and not required, so after 3 hours we decided to go into Point Judith inner harbour. It is quite shallow in spots coming in (we got as low as 2.2' under the keel) and it was a very strong current as the tide was  going out so could we only manage 1.8 knots at times. There are nice anchorages behind some islands in less than 7 ft of water. After we got anchored someone came over and asked us to move as we were in a cultivated oyster farm. There are some buoys in the water (as most places down here) but it did not indicate anything special,  nor do the charts, so up the anchor went and we moved about 50 meters. Tomorrow the wind and wave height look about the same so we are not sure what are plans are. Some pictures of coming into the harbour.

Sakonnet Harbour

We seem to be leaving early in the mornings for our next destination because the distances involved to the next harbour can be a fairly long way. As we get further south and into the ICW that should change. Anyways today was a change and we left at 9 AM this morning after getting a full supply of water (love showers instead of bird baths…). We had winds from behind us all the way to our location and managed to sail on a full run with head sail to one side and main to the other. Our location is Sakonnet Harbour, Rhode Island, it was about 25NM so we arrived at 1:30 and picked up a mooring ball as there is absolutely no room to anchor. This seems to be a reoccurring problem as most of the good anchoring spots have been taken over by mooring fields, hopefully the situation will get better as we go south. Mooring balls are so convenient but of course cost money!   

There are lots of fisherman lining the banks of the harbours we are going in, they all say they are fishing for “Scup” which I had never heard of but it seems very plentiful and apparently are tasty. Here is a picture of the small harbour we are in along with some of the fisherman.

Mattapoisett Harbour

We left Provincetown at 7 AM as we were heading for the Cape Cod canal which was over 20 NM away. The currents in the canal are very strong and in small boats that we have it must be timed to be going in the right direction to help you through it. You are supposed to be through in no more than 2.5 hrs (not sure what they would do if you took longer....) The tides were in our favour until 2:15 thus our early departure. We motor sailed for the first 2 hrs, then the wind came up to about 20 knots to make for a quick sail, we were in the canal by 11:15. With the currents we were doing up to 10 knots over ground with out even pushing the engine! 10 knots is supposed to be the upper speed limit but we had plenty of big power boaters doing lots more than that, plus throwing a heck of a wake in the process. It did not take long to get through the main part when we arrived into Buzzards Bay. The winds on this side of the canal were half what they were from the other side. In this section it is well protected from the Atlantic and the waters and air both feel warmer – it actually feels like we are now getting some place…..

We had a great sail for the next hour or so and anchored in Mattapoisett Harbour for the night.

For those that forgot or missed it (you know who you are….) there is an interactive map available to show our progress, it is

https://share.delorme.com/RichardFoy

Provincetown

We left Gloucester at 7am on Friday morning knowing we would have a long day of sailing ahead of us with 40nm to Provincetown. The day started off with a great sail, winds were 10-15kts from the southwest, we were making good speed for the first three hours. Then it died. The next 3 hours were motoring, oh how we hate motoring! The last couple hours the wind was right on our nose at 25kts… we were banging into it, it was like a washing machine that isn’t balanced! We finally shut the engine off and put up a triple reefed main and a bit of genoa to get a little relief from the banging! It was a wild ride into the harbour with what seemed like every type of vessel known vying to reach the harbour before us – which they did… We had been so glad to finally be away from all the lobster pots in Maine but much to our dismay just as we are juggling waves, winds and other boats we start to get glimpes of the dreaded pots again…  We were looking forward to the relief of getting into the calmer water behind the breakwater yet the land all around this area is so low that there was no calmer waters to be seen. At that point we were ready to bite the bullet and grab a mooring ball for the shear simplicity of it even though we are die hard anchoring people. Mooring balls in Provincetown top the charts at $55 a night …which even though we were dead tired we quickly made up our minds to drop an anchor!

It constantly amazes us how busy and congested all the harbours in the US are and how everybody is out to make a buck with mooring balls – they are everywhere filling up every good anchoring spot. After what seemed like forever motoring around in the crazy winds and waves we finally dropped anchor in what looked like an ok spot. Richard just finished setting it when a guy in a dingy who had been watching us the whole time came over to tell us we couldn’t stay there as it was a coast guard right of way… so nice of him to wait til we had it set to let us knowL After a little more motoring we finally found a good spot and settled in. It is times like this that we really appreciate our shower on board! The remainder of our evening was spent on our boat ensuring that our holding was good and I was lulled to sleep by the ever rolling boat… Richard on the other hand set the anchor alarm and spent most of the night checking it or going topside to see what position we were in. I can always count on him to keep us safeJ

In our years of sailing we have found anchoring can be a very stressful time, we are usually going into places that we are unfamiliar with looking for a good spot to stay, Murpheys law dictates that this is the time that the winds are going to pick up as well. Our routine is normally that I go up front to drop while Richard steers.  The 37 feet from the bow to stern of the boat seems a lot longer when the stress is high and we are try to communicate! We have tried many different methods over the years including hand signals, yelling and finally headsets. Headsets were the winner, it took us awhile to find good set but we now feel like we are happy with our present ones, so much so that we call them our marriage savers and have recommended them to a lot of couples that we have witnessed having “vibrant conversations” while anchoring!  

Saturday morning greeted us with more winds and waves but we were determined to see Provincetown and stay an extra day! After breakfast we jumped in the dingy… ok Richard jumped and I carefully made my way into it in crazy winds and waves and we made our way into the town dingy dock. Now some of you will know that a few years ago Richard spent the better part of the winter in the barn making our nesting dinghy (after much research on the matter of nesting dinghies..) He did a wonderful job on it but I must say that it has been a topic of conversation between us as to whether or not it is as stable as an inflatable or as dry. Anyways when we arrived at the dock I was absolutely amazed how dry we both wereJ

Provincetown is an interesting town, I was expecting quaint cape cod but the down town was anything but! It was crazy crowded, people and stores and stuff everywhere! We had noticed that everywhere we looked there were gay pride flags, it seems that the town prides itself on being a happily tolerant community and it is very evident that it has succeeded in bringing in its targeted audience as most people seen were of that persuasion.

We did manage to find a great hammock store where we purchased a cool hammock to hang from the halyards. After lunch and a quick trip to the Market where we purchased 8 new potatoes and 3 apples for $7.50, we put the grocery list away and headed back to the dingy.

We also managed to walk up to the Pilgrims’ monument which oversees the town (picture attached)

     Just when we thought the waves couldn’t get much rougher – they did! Lucky for Richard I was in front and got the brunt of the salt water bath, there wasn’t a dry spot on me, at least the water was fairly warmJ

     The remainder of our afternoon was spent with me moving out of Richards way, which is pretty hard to do on a boat. The man is like a whirlwind that never stops. In 3 hours he managed to change the oil in the main engine, generator and transmission, take the used oil back to the dock for disposal, take the hour meter out of the water maker and replace it with our nonfunctioning engine one. Prepared the dingy for passage tomorrow by taking the engine off and stowing the seats, lifejackets and paddles. Recheck the anchor and got extra lines ready as the winds were forecast to get up to 35kts tonight with a weather warning issued. The sky looked very scary before dark with lightening all around (picture attached).

 In the years leading up to our trip I was often asked if I was scared to go on this type adventure, I must say that scared was something that never crossed my mind. Richard and I bought our first boat together in Moose Jaw in 2002 (you can take the Marine timer out of the Maritimes but …) and there have been some tense situations over the years but I have always felt secure in his judgment, he errs on the side of caution and doesn’t push the limits… OK that’s the wrong choice of words because he does cross the Foy line a lot… Maintenance wise there is not too much that he isn’t able to do, although he may need to research it a bit…Not only did he replace the transmission on this trip… he did it twice!!! The boat may not always look pretty…but it works and if it doesn’t then we have five extra of every part!!!