A quick trip with my son and friends

My son Jon is not a big fan of sailing.   "It's stupid" pretty much sums up his opinion of sailing.  To be fair, his introductions to sailing have not been great.  On each attempt we've made, something's gone wrong..  We seemed to either have no wind or mechanical failures or crappy weather.  These were the kind of trips that sailors say "oh well" about and look forward to the next trip but they don't exactly entice a newbie to sailing.

Yesterday was an exception to this. The wind was absolutely perfect for both getting there and the return trip and the weather was beautiful. I know now that when Jon complains about sailing in the future that at least he's seen it as good as it gets.

Provisions
Linda talked him and his friends Doug and Frankie to join us for the afternoon on a trip to World's End near Hingham for swimming.  They provisioned with hot dogs and doritos, flippers and snorkels.  The agreement was made..

Are we there yet?
Despite doing between 6 and 7 kts, getting to World's End (only about 8 miles) was not fast enough.  We tried to make him feel better by recalling our previous week's trip to Provincetown which took over 9 hours each way.  "That's stupid".  I tried anyway to get a few "happy charter customer" photos on the way out:

L-R Jon, Frankie Doug

Rail Meat

Sitting on the low side so they can dip their toes

We're there (finally)
Several days later, we traveled the 8 miles and arrived at World's End.  First we tried to anchor but there are just too many mooring balls around there so we just grabbed one.   It didn't take long before the big splashes started.

Jon takes the plunge

Harbormaster Visit
The ball we were on said "Rental" with a phone number.  At one point the Hingham Harbormaster came over and asked if we called and reserved it.  I was expecting to get thrown out but he said it was fine for me to tie up for a few hours.  For overnight, they would have wanted a credit card number for sure.

Shore patrol
World's End island is part of the Harbor Island Parks system.   I've not been ashore there yet but it sounds like there is great hiking and nature there.   These guys donned flippers and set off on their raft (a walmart floatie) for shore.

Away Team

Good album cover

Mission accomplished

They didn't hike much (for one thing they neglected to remove their flippers), but they posed for some great shots

Card Sharks
We have a deck of cards in the nav table.  Who knew they would ever be useful?

The trip home
We had a great southerly wind for heading home.  We sailed from about as soon as we let go of the mooring ball.  We ran the motor through the very narrow channel leading to World's End just so we could point a little higher.

As we were approaching Hull Gut between Peddocks Island and Hull, Linda noticed a big tanker coming in. We got way out of the channel and planned on just tacking around a bit to let him pass.  A flashing blue light boat came over and strongly encouraged us to stay out of his way.  We brought in the jib and fired up the motor for a few minutes so we could just stay put.  I guess we could have heaved to but that might have just confused the tanker pilot.

Anyway, once that passed, we sailed all the way back to Charlestown into a beautiful sunset.   The guys went up to sit on the bow during most of the trip.

Yachtsmen