We were determined to do a two-overnight sail this weekend. We both got to the marina as soon after work as possible and we set sail (set motor actually) at about 6:30. As of the night before, the forecast was for 18 mph winds out of the west. Wow. Well, they lied. We had grand plans to make it to Scituate maybe but between starting so late and having about no wind, that was not going to happen.
So Friday night, we motored over to Peddocks Island and grabbed an open mooring. It was a beautiful calm, warm moonlit night. We both fell asleep in the cockpit.
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| Posing with Boston Sunset behind us |
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| And so ends another day in Boston |
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| Moon over the anchorage at Peddocks |
On to Misery
The next morning, we got a pretty early start and decided to head north to Misery Island near Manchester to swim and relax and then probably move on to Marblehead for the overnight.
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| Linda Relaxing on the bow while we sail very slowly up to Misery Island |
On the way up, our buddies Phil and Yolande on
Prairie Gold texted us and said they would be heading north from Scituate to Salem. We asked if they wanted to come join us at Misery Island first and they did.
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| Prairie Gold dead astern running wing-wing |
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| Rafted up with Prairie Gold at Misery Island. Notice how Linda goes over to the Fancy boat. |
On to Salem
We made an executive decision to do Salem instead of Marblehead so we un-rafted and followed Prairie Gold across the bay to Salem Harbor. Once we got in there, we were circling in a holding pattern for quite a while because Salem Water Taxi was not able to come up with space for us. Finally they sent us to the competition at
Hawthorne Cove and they found to transient moorings for us. Hawthorne is where we winter stored Fujin in 2012-2013 so we have happy thoughts about them.
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| Nice shiny new Mooring ball and Mooring Lines at Hawthorne |
Slow ride home
We knew getting home would not be fast. The forecast was for pretty light winds and from exactly the wrong direction. If that's not bad enough, we would be opposing a flood tidal current while leaving Salem and later opposing an ebb tidal current when entering Boston Harbor. And see the picture of the full moon above - this is a spring tide so max current is really max current. When we left Salem, we both started sailing straight out from shore for several miles the plan being that we would do one big tack to make it back to Boston. The wind was still pretty light and variable.
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| Prairie Gold about a mile ahead of us just after they did their tack toward Boston |
And it hits the fan again
As we got near Boston, the wind started picking up. We were sailing as high as possible and started hitting 6kts. We were considering reefing the main. Eventually we partially furled the genoa to de-power a bit. With about a mile to go, we did a very ungraceful take-down of the genoa. It was quite windy and we decided to turn down and furl it while being blocked by the main sail. Good idea except you should actually look and see if anyone is coming before you do an abrupt 90 degree turn! I was at the helm - my bad. Anyway, there was some traffic there and so we ended up turning to the point of doing a hard gybe. ick - messy messy. All's well that ends well. Live and learn.
