Day (-1) : Preparations
We're getting ready to head north overnight tonight with a final destination of Portland, ME. I had to bring the dinghy back to the marina and get that all set.
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| The Foot operated dingy pump (right) and the fuel for the foot operated dinghy pump (center). |
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Fujin is stocked with food and drink and all mechanical systems seem to be in good working order*. Camera batteries are full and SD cards are empty.
We just have to get through one more work day and then we're off at about 7PM tonight. Portland is about 97 n mi from Charlestown so we expect about a 20 hour trip if we go straight there. We might decide to go somewhere completely different between now and tonight.
*famous last words.
Day1.01
Leaving at 06:00. So we didn't leave at 7PM last night like we planned. We got up at 4:30 and headed down to the marina for a 6:15 departure. Wind was light and out of the south so we motored for quite a while up almost to Marblehead in fact. It was mildly foggy the whole way up and we turned the radar on a couple times.
Around 11:00 the wind picked up and turned easterly a bit so we put up the sails and moved along at 3 or 4 kts. Not bad. At this point, we still had no idea where we were going to go today. Portland is not a good option for today, so we thought about Rockport or Isles of Shoals off of Portsmouth, NH.
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Fog
About now we got into some really heavy fog. We were doing the good captain thing and sounding our Long-short-short horn blasts. Eventually our horn ran out of air so we were using life vest whistles. If you look closely at the gps track above (at the part that is a straight line over land), you can see that the electronic gizmos had some trouble in all that fog.
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| A tanker at anchor in the fog a couple miles away |
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| We could hear this guy and see him on the radar but not visually until he was this close |
The racing sailboat below emerged suddenly out of the fog. All the crew has matching outfits but we felt slightly superior because our sails were up.
We finally decided on Rockport and about as soon as we turned the corner around Cape Anne, the fog cleared and opened up to a beautiful harbor with a nice wind. We considered again the Isles of Shoals but the wind was right behind us and we were only making about 4kts. We would arrive there late and we really want to explore when we finally get there.
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| blogging in Rockport |
15.00 Sandy Bay Rockport. Surprisingly this is our first time sailing to Rockport. We have taken the commuter rail here twice when we have been moored in Manchester-by-the-Sea during inclement weather. We were suprised at the number of moored boats here as we have not seen many during our land trips in the past. The New York Yatch Club out of Newport, RI has an event this week that is bringing many of their high end racing sailboats to Rockport today. We feel somewhat low class on Fujin without matching outfits as seems to be the norm on the NYYC racing boats. You can see many of them behind Bob in the photo above.
The Rockport Fujin Cruising guide
The great thing about Rockport is its flexibility within an itinerary. There is nothing time-sensitive about this place (except for the hours the restaurants are open). No tides, or marina hours to worry about here. Most cruising guides talk about the friendly harbormasters here and how they will find a place for you in the inner harbor. Forget all that (nothing against friendly harbormasters). The anchorage at Sandy Bay is superb. I've never gotten such a strong hold so quickly and yet had the anchor pop off the bottom so easily (when we left) anywhere else. It's really protected from the prevailing winds so you'll have a very smooth, quiet night and on most days you can get very close to the beach and the free dinghy tie-up. It's also a spectacular place to swim and you can normally anchor within swimming distance of a swim platform (which of course is within swimming distance of the beach). I've seen the inner harbor. I don't see any appeal to going in there compared to anchoring at Sandy Bay. I like the price of anchoring better too.
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| iPhone picture of Fujin in Sandy Bay |
The dinghy docks are inside a breakwater at White Wharf and they are rowable (we used the motor). The only tricky thing is at low tide, you have quite a climb up a ladder to the bluff. Be careful if you're trying to carry stuff.
There are garbage cans right there. I filled our drinking water container from the private slips in white wharf. It's pretty gross if you take the water through someone's rubber garden hose, but if you take it from the spigot, it's just fine. There are also drinking fountains at the harbor master's building around the block.
Once on land, you're in the usual touristy stuff that you find in these towns. The real Jewel on the waterfront here is the
Shalin Liu Performance Center. This theater is absolutely beautiful. It features a gigantic window overlooking Sandy Bay (see Fujin out there?) behind the stage. Imagine watching a concert and keeping on eye on your anchor holding at the same time!
Day 2 Rockport to Isles of Shoals
It was really foggy again this morning in Rockport so we went ashore for breakfast and teeshirt shopping. We also had to replace the air horn that we wore out in the fog the previous day.
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| Foggy morning in Rockport |
We took off at about 13:00 and got in an awesome beam reach and some big waves. We went due north (true) to Isles of shoals and rarely made less than 6kts. We had some 3 then 4 then 6 foot waves breaking around us the whole way. When we finally turned into Gosport harbor, the wind was really cooking.
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| Posing with new Rockport tee on the way to Isles of Shoals |
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| This guy passed us easily on the way north |
More Whales
Just a couple miles south of Shoals Light, I saw two whales surface right off our starboard bow. I yelled so loud, Linda thought something terrible had happened! She grabbed the video camera. They surfaced one more time but we missed it in the video. Linda didn't see them at all (but she believes me)
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| Isles of Shoals Light |
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| Dropping the sails in Gosport Harbor Isles of Shoals |
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| Got a Portsmouth Yacht Club mooring at Isles of Shoals |
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| Star Island Resort |
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| Inside the Star Island Resort |
Back to the boat for a nice home-cooked meal and blogging merriment. The rain was just starting when we returned to the boat. Later on, it turned downright nasty. I'm wishing I put a second mooring line on.
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| Nasty weather |
Day 3: Isles of Shoals to Newburyport, MA
We woke up to a beautiful quiet calm morning in Gosport Harbor.
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| We're in Maine but those guys are in NH |
We enjoyed our $10 breakfast at the Star Island resort. Well not so much enjoyed but were nourished by it. Star Island does these week-long retreats for organizations. I get the impression they are mostly religious organizations. This morning, one group was leaving and the staff was getting ready for the next. Just before we ate, someone told Linda that an intestinal bug had been going around the hotel recently. Great. We were hungry and ate anyway. I'd stay away from the eggs and go straight for the oatmeal.
After breakfast, we hiked around Star island. It was sunny and we had some spectacular scenery.
Later, we took a long dinghy ride over to smuttynose island. It was only a long ride because we went to the wrong island! Eventually we pulled into a little cove on Smuttynose (right next to the harbor) and hiked around a bit.
We finally left about 13:00 for Newburyport. We had a very weak south wind and we had to go quite southerly so we just motored the whole 16 miles.
Day 4 Newburyport - Plum Island
No GPS track for this one. The netbook decided to do a vital windows update during the trip.
We left Newburyport at about 08:00 after a quick rainy stop at the fuel dock. 8.93GALs of mostly diesel and not much rainwater I hope. The docks in Newburyport have really wide fairways between them. I guess this is because of the current in the river. I told the guy at the marina "hey I think you're missing a whole row of docks right there!"
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| W I D E fairways at Newburyport |
We were leaving right at high tide which is the safest time to pass through the bar at the mouth of the river. Linda put out the jib and we actually sailed most of the way down the Merrimack river. Before we came here, I had always sort of feared this place. Now we're sailing down it! You have to be very careful in this river with currents pushing you out of the channel. You need to continually look behind you to see where the channel WAS as much as where it is up ahead. This is also a good place to do a safety bearing (you remember how to do that right?)
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| Leaving the fuel dock on a cold rainy morning |
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| Sailing down the Merrimack |
Near-shore Sailing
We had to do a big tack from the mouth of the Merricmack to get down to the south end of Plum Island. We did the last few miles as a series of small tacks just off the beach at Plum.
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| Tacking just off the beach at Plum Island |
Beached
We took a dinghy ride inside Plum Island Sound. We were at low tide and the entrance channel is unmarked and very narrow so we didn't want to chance driving Fujin in there. Once we got around the back side, we saw LOTS of sailboats in there. Some big ones too. This is one of those places to stay away from without "local knowlege" I guess.
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| Hello |
Message (dollar) in a bottle
Hey look what I found
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| Looking up the beach at Plum |
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| Linda poses with her ship |
Day 4.5 Plum Island - Rockport
After an awesome dinghy ride inside Plum Island sound, we took off on a FAST sail back to Rockport. We were doing well into the 7s most of the way. We were feeling adventurous so we sailed off the anchor at Plum Island (never done that before).
On the way we approached closely to Folley Cove just north of Rockport. We read about it and wondered if it would be a good place to stop over. There was one power boat in there and some people swimming and not particularly pretty scenery so we passed on it. Maybe another time.
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Day 5: Rockport - Manchester
We saw some stand-up paddle boarders in Rockport this morning and so Linda got the idea that we needed to finally try this. We went to a local place in Rockport but their boards were out until later in the morning and we wanted to get going. So Linda called the place in Manchester and it sounded like we would be able to rent some boards if we got there before 5PM.
We did one BIG tack (see below) from Cape Anne out a few miles and then south-west to Manchester.
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Today's activity will be Stand-up Paddle boarding. There is a place right on Central St in Manchester (conveniently located next to a public boat ramp) that rents paddle boards called
Surfari. We showed up at the shop and within about 10 minutes were putting our boards in the water. Instruction Schmuction! who needs it!
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| Still not ready to stand up |
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| Standing up in Manchester harbor |
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| The camera is successfully passed to Linda and Bob poses by Fujin |
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| Returning to the shop heading toward the railroad bridge |
Day 6: Manchester to home (via Misery Island)
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We went ashore for breakfast at the
Beach Street Cafe. Not much to look at inside but really really good breakfast food. We also visited a shop that that Linda noticed earlier called
The Grove It's a Cafe. It's a clothing store and boutique. It's a performance venue. It's really a cool place. We got a latte and I bought Linda a cute necklace.
When we left, there was really no wind and it was getting hot so we headed for Misery Island again for a quick stop and a swim. This time we thought we'd try the eastern side of Misery where there are a couple groups of mooring balls. At Misery, the balls have no lines on them. We've mastered the trick of picking these up. Anyway as soon as we tied up, I noticed bah-zillions of jelly fish in the water. Some species must have just hatched out because they were everywhere. I figured swimming might not be so smart here.
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| Our mooring at Misery. This is our own dock line on it |
I tried to capture the jellies on the camera and enhance the photo a bit. You can see lots of little white cone shaped things swimming around
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| Add caption |
We decided to mosey around to the other side where we usually go and as we moved around the north side of the island, I was seeing fewer and fewer jellies in the water. Once we got to our usual place between great and little misery, there were none to be seen. Weird. So we went swimming. I also ventured over toward little misery island to try to see the shipwreck that is supposedly there. It was high tide but I was able to see it and even touched it with the dinghy oar. The Wreck is
The City of Rockland
See the full photo album here
