Island Time

Three nights, three islands :

 

Friday 9/27 - Cuttyhunk

Saturday 9/28 - Rhode (Newport Harbor)

Sunday 9/29 - Block

 

So we left Onset MA Friday morning after beach play with the pooches and motored SW down Buzzards Bay with the wind at our backs. 3 hours later we reached Cuttyhunk Island, at the mouth of the bay. By then the wind was quite strong but we easily tied to one of the town's 50 rental moorings and dinghied in to explore. Lots of modest, we'll kept vacation homes and not much else, especially post season. We walked around and sort of got lost so we walked and walked, and it was all good.

Here's a view from the top of Cuttyhunk, looking to the NE. Can you find Spray?

Nne

Saturday we set off to the west for Newport and the sea conditions were ideal. We pulled into the busy harbor ( a real boater's paradise) at about 1 pm and for the 1st time in the journey, dropped our anchor in their designated anchorage zone. I got a charge from the cool boats moored near us and sailing nearby, lots of wooden classics. The 4 of us dinghied to a nearby park and walked down Thames Street on this beautiful Saturday afternoon, having pizza slices on a bench and watching the tourists. We found a good health food store and Sheila went in and bought what seemed like 100 pounds of food to lug back to the boat. That night we went to sleep listening to a rock concert at nearby Ft. Adams and were periodically awakened by nasty wakes from ships going up/down Narraganset Bay.

Here is Spray at anchor in Newport:

Sunday the NOAA report looked good for a run to Block Island. Predicted winds of 5-10 knots from the NE, which would be from astern. Instead we ran into 15+ knots from the SE (abeam), and 3-4 ft waves, which was quite uncomfortable. It was 4 hours of hell until we got to the lee side of Block and pulled into the Great Salt Pond and dropped anchor. It's a long 10 minute ride to the dinghy dock but there is a beach nearby for draining the dogs. After rolling at Newport this calm anchorage is welcome. On a busy summer weekend there would be 100's of boats in here but in late September only a few.

We walked to the main town where the ferries land, and tried to loop back to the lagoon but ended up lost and walked maybe 6 miles before we returned to our dinghy, but it was good. Since we like this island and we have time to kill (we'll be visiting my brother and sister, etc. this weekend in CT) we decide to stay 2 days here on Block. Today I finally took some time to do some boat maintenance (sanding Spray's teak transom in prep for revarnishing) and we took another long walk with the dogs, to this cool place:

(Photos in today's blog courtesy of Sheila and her iPhone)

 

Tomorrow conditions look good (we hope) for a run to Old Saybrook CT, at the mouth of the Connecticut River. Might stay there a couple of days too.

 

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Fetch : Portland to Buzzards Bay

Tonight we are comfortably moored in Onset, MA, at the SW end of the Cape Cod Canal, thus at the top of Buzzards Bay. Since leaving Portland (that's Portland Headlight above) on Monday we've been in big water : Gulf of Maine, Massachusetts Bay, Cape Cod Bay, and we've had nearly constant NW winds, which is where the term 'Fetch' comes in.

No, not Rigg's favorite game. The nautical term Fetch is an expanse of water acted upon by wind. Strong wind acting across a large fetch makes big waves, and we and Spray don't like big waves.

On Monday when we cruised down the coast of Maine from Portland, we hugged the shore so as to reduce the fetch. The NW wind was offshore and if we stayed close to the beach the wind had little chance to build up chop. This added a bit of distance to the cruise as the bays curve in some, and rather than straight-lining from point to point we arc inland to hug the beach. All in all it made for a comfortable 55 mile cruise to enter the Piscataquis River and grab a mooring at the town of Kittery Point ME. We had time to explore Ft. McClary with the pooches.

Tuesday was the same deal, again with NW wind and hugging the NH and MA coasts as we headed to Cape Ann. Rather than go out around the Cape we took the inland route of the Anasquam River to deliver us to Gloucester MA. Fortunately the tide cooperated well for that. (At the south end of the Anasquam we went through our first drawbridges of the journey. There will be scores more.)

Gloucester makes my top 10 list of favorite towns between Castine and Key West. There is no doubt it is 'fish city', and we rented a mooring in the inner harbor where we were surrounded by all aspects of commercial fishing. It's also very Italian and we enjoyed some pizza slices for lunch.

Our goal for Wednesday was to cruise straight south, crossing Massachusetts Bay to Scituate MA. Again there were NW winds but these were now roughly from behind us (waves from ahead = best, waves from astern = OK, waves from abeam = worst), and we watched them build in amplitude the farther we got from shore (bigger fetch). Spray yaws some in following seas which makes steering more challenging but is still a fairly comfortable ride. It's 25 miles from Gloucester to Scituate and half way across, with Boston maybe 12 miles to the west, we were probably farther from land than we will be at any other point in the trip.

We arrived Scituate at 2:30 and tied to a rented mooring. This includes launch service to/from the town dock. They really pack the moorings in there. We were amazed that the swinging boats didn't hit each other. Scituate is a high-end town and its biggest asset to boaters is a decent food market within 2 blocks of the town dock. Not only that but there was a farmers market where we scored some great corn and plum tomatoes.

Today (Thursday) we were cursing the fetch. From Scituate to the entrance of the Cape Cod Canal is a 28 mile SE run, and we had north winds acting on a fetch of at least 25 miles, so we had 3-4 ft waves acting just astern of our beam, making for a very rolly run of over 4 hours. To make it worse, where previous days had cool temps but warm sun, today was fairly cloudy so much colder. At first KT and Riggs were very upset by Spray's motion, but eventually they calmed down enough to sleep some.

We were some happy to turn into the Cape Cod Canal at about 2:30. The water flattened and the sun even came out more. In no time we were passing some 2nd tier state maritime college..

(How many President's mansions do THEY have? Humph.)

A mile later we turned right and followed the channel into Onset Harbor, where we hang on a town mooring. This is a nice town with a great beach (signs say no dogs but ours can't read) and an island to explore.

Soon we'll be making our way into Long Island Sound and stopping in CT to visit family, but not too soon. We're thinking of slowing down and visiting some obscure stops such that it'll take a week or so to reach CT. Stay tuned to see where we visit.

 

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Strange sighting

We made good progress today.  55 miles from Portland to Kittery.  Strong and cold NW wind made us bundle up and hug the coast so we were only 1/2 mile or so off shore (near York ME) when we saw this large fin ahead, flapping periodically.  As we drew near we were amazed to see it was one of these:

http://youtu.be/JhHaMtgyHlQ

And not a small one either.  Sheila knew what it was called, I didn't.

Conehead Riggs

 

On this rainy Sunday a few words about the trials of Riggs seem appropriate. It all started maybe 10 days ago in Castine when a friend brought her larger dog over for some play time with Riggs (KT Bopp is too proud for such nonsense). All went well, with a game down at the cove where the larger dog would swim to retrieve a thrown tennis ball, then come to shore and trot around with it as Riggs tailed him to recover his precious ball the moment it was set down.

Eventually we headed back up to the house with dogs in the lead and apparently the 1 ball and 2 dogs math caused a problem (not sure as the dogs were out of view at the time). Most likely Riggs got aggressive to get the ball, and got bitten as a result, leaving a single puncture wound to his side. Sheila cleaned the wound and we assumed it would heal but unfortunately over the next few days Riggs would not leave the wound alone, constantly licking it.

So last Monday as we were packing Spray, Sheila decided that the wound looked nasty enough for a trip to the vets where the wound was cleaned and stitched up. They returned with a prescription for a strong antibiotic as the vet was worried about continued infection. To keep Riggs from bothering the wound, use of the 'cone of shame' was required 24/7. Silly as he looked, Riggs adapted to the cone OK (you really cannot shame Riggs).

We sure wish the story ended there, but it didn't. The antibiotic had a very unfortunate side effect as it apparently killed the good bugs in Rigg's digestive tract, leaving him with a case of the runs, which kicked in just after we left Castine on Wednesday. So we spent our first cruising days with an incontinent Riggs, which involved lots of paper towels and spray cleaners, unplanned laundry needs when we arrived here in Portland, and eventually the purchase of some special dog food and yes, diapers. Quite a challenge that unfortunately fell mostly on Sheila (hey, I had to drive the boat).

The good news is that, as of today, Rigg's system is recovering nicely, and no diapers were used last night. His wound is still healing, so the cone is still needed, but hopefully only for a few more days.

So, bring on the next challenge!

 

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Cruising at last! Castine to Portland

 

 

We had several planned ETD's. Saturday 9/14, then Monday 9/16, then Tuesday, but finally on Wednesday the 18th we headed out of Castine Harbor at around noon. As you can see above, conditions were perfect as we passed Dyce's Head Light, and that held for an hour or so as we headed south down Penobscot Bay. Then the typical afternoon SW wind started up but that wasn't bad as we headed directly into the resulting chop.

After we rounded the south end of Islesboro, we angled more west towards Rockland where we planned to fuel up. Now that we were taking the waves at an angle Spray tossed some. Not bad for us but apparently too much for my homemade dinghy davit system, which suffered a major structure failure when one of its support arms snapped. Sheila took the helm while I lashed the dangling dinghy to Spray's transom and we continued into Rockland, arriving at Journey's End marina at nearly 3 pm.

We quickly took on 120 gallons of diesel fuel (@ $3.88/gal which is a good price) and had planned to continue onwards another 2 hours to Tenants Harbor, but the choppy conditions and my desire to repair the davit prompted me to ask about renting a mooring from Journey's End for the night. It would be $30 for the mooring but if we were interested in tying up in an available slip instead they could do that for the same price. Done deal!

So comfortably tied up in the slip we addressed our raging hunger with a quick walk to Rockland Cafe for takeout lobster rolls and fries, which we brought back to consume on Spray's flying bridge. Then I set about repairing the davit (its now better than ever) while Sheila had an adventure chasing down some medicine for Riggs (more on that later). Being at the dock was convenient for walking the pooches around downtown Rockland. We also picked up a few items for Spray at the nearby Hamilton Marine store and got hot showers at the marina.

While Wednesday was warm and sunny, it got cold at night and Sheila broke out her sleeping bag. It was in the upper 30's when we awoke Thursday so we fired up Spray's propane heater. Thursday quickly warmed to become a perfect cruising day, calm and sunny, and we were underway at about 8 am, out around Owl's head and then turning SW. We passed Tenants Harbor at 10, Boothbay at 1 pm, and continued to Seguin Island, picking up a mooring there at 3 pm.

 

Seguin has a great lighthouse and we enjoyed touring that plus hiking some its paths. After supper we went back ashore and climbed up to the lighthouse (360 degree view) to see a great example of cosmic symmetry: Since it was near equinox the sun set directly west, and since it was a full moon, just as the sun set you turn around to look east and see the moon rise in perfect synchronization. Really nice.

 

Since Seguin is out in the big ocean the swells gave us a somewhat rolly night, even though we we in a reasonably protected cove. The mild rolling actually didn't bother our sleeping, and Friday morning we were ashore early for another climb to the lighthouse and to drain the dogs.

 

Friday was also a perfect cruise day and we soon entered Casco bay and snaked between its islands for a quick stop in Falmouth, then on to Portland where we had reserved a slip at DiMillo's Marina, right in the Old Port! We were in the slip by 2 pm and have since (its now Saturday night) been enjoying the big city. Some of my ex-colleagues from ORPC stopped by Friday evening to visit, which was real nice. You can see below that life here is pretty comfortable.

 

Original plan was to stay here 2 nights and move southwards tomorrow (Sunday), but the calm weather is gone as a front passes through, and we'll probably add a 3rd night and resume the cruise on Monday. Stay tuned!

 

 

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Getting Spray shipshape

Bill had a fairly intensive job over the past two years, and apparently is poor at multitasking, so Spray sat neglected 'on the hard' near the top of our driveway, inadequately covered by a tarp and inhabited by mice and squirrels.  By the time she was launched this summer she had mold and mildew issues indoors, and some wood rot areas both inside and out.  Furthermore the berth cushions had been left inside and these were moldy and mildewed.

So to make Spray habitable we needed to scrub down her interior, coat many storage areas with special mold 'encapsulation' paint, repaint exposed areas, and find and repair small areas of rotted wood.  Berth cushions had new foam ordered and covers laundered.  Curtains removed and laundered. The salon headliner was replaced with a new more sound absorbing type.  Soundproofing underlayment was added to the salon floor and 'beautiful' carpeting put over that (not so beautiful in Sheila's opinion).  And on and on.

 

Then we had to select what gear and provisions to bring along and try to fit it all aboard Spray.  I'm not sure why, but 2 people/2 dogs apparently need 4 times the gear as 1/1.

In all of this work, our different styles became apparent.  Sheila is much more thorough and methodical about these preparations than I (I would pack using a pitchfork), and I had difficulty being patient.  Nevertheless we survived the ordeal, even though it took 2 weeks longer to get going than I had hoped and even though we don't yet have a good place to store everything aboard yet (the forward stateroom is one big storage locker right now).

So we are finally underway.  Spray still needs lots of maintenence work, mostly on her exterior, and we'll be tackling that as we cruise.  Speaking of cruising, the next blog entry covers our escape from Castine.

Welcome to our blog!

A new cruising adventure, so a new blog!  Sheila and Bill Corbett, and their two rat terriers KT Bopp and Riggs, are spending the 2013/14 Fall/Winter/Spring cruising aboard their vintage (1969) wooden Grand Banks 32' trawler 'Spray'.  Planned itinerary has us departing Castine, Maine in September and heading south, probably to Florida, via the Intercoastal Waterway (ICW), hanging around until it gets too warm, and then cruising northwards back to Maine.

Spray is a slow boat, with a cruising speed of 6-7 knots, so the journey is the thing.  We'll take 3 months or so to get to south FLA, and same returning, so exploring the many towns enroute is a big part of the trip.

So let's get going with a description of the agonizing process of readying Spray and her crew for the voyage (see next blog entry).