pictures will be uploaded later
We set off on a four day sail on Thursday evening at about 6:30pm. We sailed east until about 1am, then turned north. As we were passing Cape Ann, the land blocked the winds (~2:30am) and we had to motor for an hour. Winds picked up again and we were able to sail until about 4am. At this time, the winds died and we motored on north. By early afternoon we were approaching Cape Elizabeth. Rather than entering Portland we decided to head west to Seal Harbor which turned out to be a lovely little cove – although there are many unmarked rocks in the middle that we had to steer clear of. Just before we turned into Seal cove we caught a nice bluefish – guess what went onto the bbq that afternoon.
In Seal harbor we anchored for the night and as we were turning in for the night we noticed that two of the other three boats did not have their anchor lights turned on. This turned out to be an important observation, for when we woke in the morning (4am to set out early) there was dense fog and darkness ad we could just see one anchor light. As we got up the bioluminescence was spectacular – the best I have seen. Off the back of the boat there were thousands of spontaneous flashes and any disturbance of the water lit up the area. As we prepared to raise anchor, we also noticed that the slightest movement of the anchor chain caused vivid bioluminescence on every chain link – you could see the chain lighting up for at least 10 feet into the water.
With radar on, we identified the three boat, and with the charts the rocks to avoid and carefully navigated through a small gap between the rocks on the stern of one of the boats. For a couple of hours we were recording gps coordinates, direction velocity, just in case of problems. Then the fog cleared and the air was still. There was no wind. At one point we optimistically raised the spinnaker and with 3 knots of wind from the stern we made headway at a roaring 0.9kts. Given that several on board have the patience of a gnat, we decided to motor on to Portsmouth where we docked at Prestcott Park marina. The current can be wicked, but the marina is slightly to the side of the main current so we made it in okay.
That evening we went to a great restaurant, Cava, for dinner followed by drinks with a local band playing. Lots of oldie stuff, that we could sing (and I use that word loosely) along to.
On Saturday morning we had breakfast – a tasteless breakfast at a local restaurant. However, we should have thanked them for their slow service as it delayed our departure until the winds were up. Once we had disembarked and got into the channel, we were sailing immediately with the current. We passed the navy repair yard where there is the USS Miami. It has a fire and the repairs are estimated to cots $450 million.
Sailing was glorious. The wind was right on the nose from our destination, the Annisquam river. So we headed on an easterly tack past the isle of shoals then headed SW and finally motored into the Annisquam. The transit was beautiful and quite uneventful (thankfully). Finally we entered Gloucester harbor, and then sailed into Salem harbor where we picked up a mooring ball for the night. On Monday we then sailed back to Boston with great winds. WE used the motor as little as possible. In fact we sailed directly off the mooring ball and didn’t use the engine until we arrived at our marina. One day we will have to try to dock until sail power alone, but conditions weren’t right yesterday.
In addition to great sailing, we learned to be careful where we pick up water. We filled one tank in Portsmouth and it proceeded to clog the filter such that the water pump couldn’t force water around the boat. After much flushing and cleaning we managed to rectify the situation on our return.
No comments:
Post a Comment