From our awesome anchorage at First Beach in the Sakonnet, we decided to go for a long-ish sail all the way to Falmouth, MA. We wanted to be in Vineyard Sound for late morning to ride the favorable current (or more to avoid the unfavorable one), so we weighed the anchor at 05:00 and motored out of the Sakonnet... and motored and motored and motored more. There was very little wind and none really forecast until much later.
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| Sakonnet River at 5 AM |
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| Leaving Sakonnet Point light astern as we head across Buzzards Bay |
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| Buzzards Bay sunrise |
A Pearson 34 sloop makes a terrible motor yacht and after enough
hours of listening to the Diesel, we really wanted to find a place to go
to wait out the calm. Linda found Tarpaulin Cove on Naushom Island.
Naushom is one of the Elizabeth islands - a string of remote mostly
wilderness islands between Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound. The most
popular sailing destination in the Elizabeths is Cuttyhunk Island. We
motored past that as we headed east in Vineyard Sound.
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| Buzzards Bay Shirtless |
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| Buzzards Bay Light (this was the subject of many coast guard chartplotting questions on the Captain's test) |
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| A house on the bluffs of Cuttyhunk. Quite a view of Martha's Vineyard from up there I bet |
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So
what is at Tarpaulin Cove? Nothing - and that's the whole idea. It's a
beautiful sheltered anchorage off of a beautiful beach (that only us
few boaters can get to).
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| Only a couple neighbors when we first put our anchor down in Tarpaulin |
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| Chin-chin beached as the away team explores the sand and goes for a swim |
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| The lighthouse at the entrance of the cove |
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| View over the anchorage from the lighthouse. Quite a few more neighbors now |
Should we stay or should we go?
Tarpaulin was beautiful and would have made a lovely place for an overnight anchorage. After his swim, capt Bob became quite unconscious.
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| zzzzzzzzz |
As the afternoon wore on, we started looking out into the sound and seeing boats actually sailing. Then we looked at the forecast for the next day and saw absolutely dead wind again for the morning. So rather than miss all this nice sailing and then go motoring again the next morning, we decided to head for Falmouth. With a very poor cellular connection, Linda finally managed to reserve a slip at the town marina. We enjoyed a nice fast downwind sail to Falmouth. It was a bit bouncy in the sound so we had trouble going straight downwind but we made it there in a few zigs and zags.
Falmouth
Falmouth, MA is a very cool cape cod town. Lots of shops and great restaurants. This is also the first place we've been where there were bike rentals. Not only rentals, but a great rail-trail to Woods Hole. After a hearty breakfast at Betsy's Diner, we headed for the bike shop. $17 for a half day - a half day meaning 12 hours! Not bad.
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| VIP treatment at Falmouth Town Marina. Yachtsman? Me? |
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| Any kind of bread you want in this shop. We were not patient enough for the line though. |
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| work work work work work work work |
The five or six mile ride to Woods hole on the bike path is really beautiful. You pass wooded areas and beaches along the way. We've only ever seen woods hole from the water side and when you're passing through the waters of Woods Hole, you really can't sight-see. There are very powerful currents in the hole and the wise skipper times the passage for slack current. It's still nerve wracking to go through there for the first or second time.
From the Land, Woods Hole is a very cool place. It is dominated by marine research and marine in general.
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| Linda posing by the water at Woods Hole |
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| NOAA - Thanks for all the great charts! |
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| Posing with her wheels by the inner harbor |
Safety First
Just after we returned from the grocery store and West Marine (across the street!), we got a visit from a representative of the Power Squadron asking us if we would like a free safety inspection. The pay-off if we pass is that we get a sticker for the boat which should reduce the odds of the Coast Guard stopping us and boarding us when we're out with passengers (or customers).
He asked a bunch of questions, asked to see our navigation lights work, etc. The only problem we had was that our flairs were expired in 2011. Code says we need three red flairs that are in date. He said if I ran back to West Marine and got new flairs, that we would pass. He even had a 10% off coupon for them which he gave me! So I did, and so we passed
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