Day 6 - The quote of the week

Good breakfast in Salem at “The Red” the best breakfast diner in the town. In the marina we were docked next to “Fame” who had their canon pointing directly at us.

As we were heading across to Boston we had one of those moments! I need to set up what has to be the quote of the week. We are sailing with the Spinnaker back to Boston. I am standing looking to the bow from the companionway. Dave is behind me just getting read to put out the fishing line out when I say “Dave, do you want a Harpoon?” He answers, “No, I need a bloody net!” Of course, by Harpoon I meant a Harpoon IPA.

Shortly after this comment Dave hooked one. His first reaction was to look for a lobster pot that he thought he must have snagged. But it was a fish. Much excitement aboard Prairie Gold but alas, the line snapped.

As we approached Boston harbor the winds picked up to 20-25 kts and we tacked into the area adjacent to our marina, brought in sails and docked, and tried one of those Harpoons! 

We made it safely back to Boston after a great week together. Some memorable moments:

1) Whales - first Dave saw a spout from a whale in the distance, then within moments we realized that we were within the very close vicinity of several whales.

2) Cleaning the head from the ocean

3) The Annisquam River

4) Provincetown - If you have been there you will understand. If you haven't, you should take a trip. Its a unique place where one can cast aside normal biases and be yourself. Google it and you will learn.

5) The fire on someone's boat. We learned later that the engine on the boat exploded blowing the two people in the boat overboard into the sea. Once was seriously burned and airlifted to Boston. Here is a link 

Day 5 - The Annisquam

For our penultimate day of sailing we decided to take Dave and Sue up one of our favorite local spots, the Annisquam River. The Annisquam meanders from the southern side of Cape Ann in Cape Cod Bay up to the northern side where it connects with Ipswich Bay. It’s a narrow river that hasn’t been dredged for many years so one has to follow the channel marking buoys carefully and one has to wait for a couple of hours after low tide to ensure there is enough water under the boat to make it through. There are three bridges to navigate – the Blynman canal bridge (which has 8ft vertical clearance when closed) the railroad bridge (greater clearance but no enough for our sailboat) and the route 128 road bridge (60+ feet of clearance). We radioed to get the first two bridges to open and after passing the Blynman canal bridge we saw Cape Anne Marina, the home of three of the Wicked Tuna boats.

 Channel 13 - Would you raise the Railroad Bridge please? Roger!

As we meandered up the river we got a couple of depth scares when the depth sounder read 5feet (our boat draws 4.5 feet). After clearing the river we turned east and sailed around Cape Anne and back to Salem where we docked at Pickering wharf marina. We had winds up to 25kts and were bouncing around a bit, but all crew cane through beautifully with nobody looking worse for wear. I guess they got there sea legs.

The character of the river changes as you head north. Here are shots in sequence along the route.

 And as you can see above, even though there is water, its quite shallow. But guess which person on the boat said that those birds have 8 foot long legs? Clue: The other male on board whose name begins with D

 A nice wooden boat - but what a lot of maintenance.

 Beech area in Ipswich Bay

Dave still hasn’t caught any fish. One day left.

Day 4 – Portsmouth to Gloucester, MA - In search of Wicked Tuna

We are in search of “Wicked Tuna” which is a TV show hosted out of Gloucester, MA. Dave loves the show and is looking to see if he can see the boat – tuna.com and it’s skipper Dave. We hate to break it to him but this season they are filming further south in a north versus south fish off.

We set out from Plymouth Brewer’s marine at 5:50am knowing that with an average speed of 4 kts we would make Gloucester at about 4pm. We set out early to get to the destination but also to make sure that we could leave before low tide. As we were disembarking the depth sounder read about 5 feet. With a 4.5ft draft I didn’t want to wait a moment later. Rather than get everyone out of bed, Dave and I disembarked on our own.

We sailed along the narrow channel from Plymouth and could see lots of very very shallow water which only 18 hours before looked very different at high tide.

Once out of the narrow channel we turned east, raised sails then as we entered Cape Cod Bay and turned north we ran dead downwind and got out the trusty Spinnaker.  As I type its been flying for the past 4 hours and we have the spinnaker and main, wing-on-wing. We continued with the Spinnaker all of the way to Gloucester harbor and arrived at Brown Marine Yard at 3:30pm. After a beer, or two we headed over to “The Studio” for dinner.

When on the launch service we learned that one of the Wicked Tuna TV series boats was docked next to the restaurant and that another boat is our fishing at the moment, returning Friday. Our waitress told us that they frequently eat and drink the Studio bar. Today we head up the Annisquam river and will pass Cape Ann Marina which is the home port for three more of the wicked tuna boats. We are in search of Dave from tuna.com.

Sailing with family from England

Day 1 – Wind, waves and nausea – but great sailing (Boston to Scituate)

Dave (my brother) and Sue from England joined us for a week of sailing. When asked where we will go we answered, “depends”. We had booked dinner in Salem at Restaurant 62 in the hope of heading there. However, winds were from the NE at 10-15kts and once we exited the harbor it was clear that the sea was very lumpy and needing to beat into the wind for several hours would not be worthwhile. So instead we fell off the wind and had a great and fast sail down to Scituate. When I say a great sail, I mean I had a great sail. During the sail our guests learned that going downstairs in waves can be quite nauseating so they all stayed upstairs in the fresh air. It was quite cold, probably 60F and overcast.

By the time we got to Minots Ledge all crew were incapacitated with nausea. The upside was I was sailing solo. At the outset we were concerned that Sue might not be able to handle the nausea and we had made a deal that she could head back to Boston to shop for the week with Lande. However, she was a trooper and wanted to try again the next day.

Day 2 – Scituate to Provincetown – whales, seals and a boat on fire

We headed out of Scituate early at about 7am as the wind was still at about 10kts and forecast to turn from the north to the south and to lessen. So we wanted to make use of the wind we had as much as possible. After dinner the evening before I was asked, “where tomorrow?”  Of course the answer was “depends. We could head to Provincetown, Plymouth or push through to Buzzards Bay and we would decide as we left Scituate harbor. Upon leaving with three other vessels in front of us they turned south toward the Canal (required to get to Buzzards Bay) and/or to Plymouth. They had no sails up. The wind was about 10kts from the north so heading south our apparent wind would be too low for fun. Consequently we headed to Provincetown on a nice close reach sailing at 5-6 kts all the way. As we approached the tip of Provincetown we saw 8-10 humpback whales very close to land. They put on a great show!

The day was a little warmer but still chilly.

After seeing whales close and personal we continued towards Provincetown and saw smoke and heard desperate calls on VHF channel 16. We don’t believe anyone was on board. The emergency crews responded quickly and towed the boat away from the town and the other moored boats and tried to dowse the fire. One report indicated that they didn’t think the boat would sink, but that there was not much left of her. Another responder asked if someone could attach a floating ball to the boat so that if she sank they could locate her more easily. Quite chilling to listen to all of this talk.

After a head pump out I snorkeled around Prairie Gold checking the through hulls. In particular the one from the head which seems to be blocked. More work to do there when she is out of the water for a bottom paint job. Good news is that the hull is very clean and still has a good coat of ablative paint.

We went into town and neither Sue nor Dave realized what a sight P’town would be. I have never seen their eyes so wide open! We had drinks at a restaurant with some of the worst service ever. As a consequence we decided to head back to the boat to cook burgers (bacon and cheese) corn on the cob, with some salad.

By the evening the wind had turned South to SE as predicted. The evening discussion of destination was quite different than previously. When asked where, I answered Plymouth. But of course this is almost straight into the predicted wind. However, we have an important teleconference we can’t miss at 2:30pm and it’s the most appropriate distance for the available time.

Day 3 – Provincetown to Plymouth

We set off closer to 6:30am this morning with light wind. Dave is still to catch a fish so the rod was out quickly. We sailed for an hour then turned on the iron genny. Today is the warmest of the three days and everyone seems to be getting better sea legs. While underway Dave has even been able to come down into the saloon!

Leaving P-town

When we were midway between P’town and Plymouth, we stopped for a swim and as I was entering the water a whale surfaced 100ft away. I am going to conclude that I swam with the whales today.

We have been having problems recently with emptying the head holding-tank when offshore. To try and remedy the situation we had the head pumped out and at the same time flushed sea water through the system to give it a thorough clean out by the pumpout boat. As I snorkeled we opened the head through hull, and with a coat hanger was able to push through the through-hull into the holding tank and successfully get sea water to flush through.  Hopefully the system is fully functional now. Now we use the head and when we are offshore tomorrow we will see if we can empty it.

As we were arriving at Plymouth we saw a seal (I think it is trying to steal lobsters)

 And that vehicles really is driving on the beech