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!!!