Where we go from here. About a million years ago when we were in Norwalk, Connecticut, I (James) noticed a little crack in the bulkhead between the main saloon and the head just under the mast. Well I’d better let Dena tell you about that… Last summer, we pulled the mast to repair rot in the bulkhead James just told you about. I (Dena) patched the damn thing rather than tear it all out, because to do otherwise would require us moving off the boat. In that big ol’ job, one piece of rot was right under the mast. This part of the bulkhead is thin because of the passageway cut through it. A crack developed where the weight stressed the rotten section. I cut and chiseled out the bad parts and beveled the edge of what remained. My repair looked like this after the new pieces were cut but before they were fiberglassed into place. The process of working on the boat in Norwalk got us looking around at the boat, thinking critically about some things we hadn’t focused on. Like the doors getting out of whack, harder to close. And then James pointed out the crack. We hoped that it wouldn’t matter much but as we made our way up the Eastern Seaboard the crack slowly widened from the stresses of being under sail all the fucking time. Last Friday after getting underway from Beverly, MA, just after we set sail, I (James) grabbed a couple of flat-head screwdrivers and tuned up the rig. If you want your sailboat to point as high into the wind as it possibly can you have to tune the rig in a way that is tight, but not too tight. It has to be perfect. Each wire leading from the mast to[…]
Read moreMonth: July 2012
The Maine Event
We started our day in Plymouth very early to catch the tide and come up with the wind. That we did. Waving at Boston as we slipped north, we eased into the island complex around Marblehead and into Beverly, MA. A small, 3 generation marina, the Beverly Port Marina, became our temporary home. In the evening, the 91 year old grandfather, Jim, was chopping wood out front of the chandlery. For real. Adequate facilities gave us the crucial opportunity to SHOWER. This was a very big deal being as though we hadn’t showered in a week. Swimming in salt water takes care of the muck, but leaves behind a salty residue. It’s not entirely unpleasant and we didn’t smell bad (at least to each other), but it doesn’t get rid of oils in hair, creating lanky protodreds on Dena and a ratty beard on James. I (James) pulled out all the cleaning supplies and went to work on de-salting the boat. This was a project that I very much got into. On my hands and knees, I scrubbed with a hand-brush from stem to stern for 2 1/2 hours in the 90 degree Beverly heat. In the end, the boat was Bristol and the water tanks were full and ready for the next leg in our adventure. I (Dena) pulled entertainment off the internet and charted out/planned out the next phase of our travels. We had debated heading straight to Portland and I planned out a few options – hit or miss New Hampshire was the question. We’d heard from some friends living there that the coast was rugged and the entrance bars have to be timed absolutely perfectly – also that they’re not really worth it. Dinner at the Anchor Restaurant consisted of real New England clam chowder (in[…]
Read morePlymouth Rocked
We sailed and sailed and sailed and sailed… On a Friday, we sailed from Bristol, RI, to Sachuest, RI, off Third Beach and we swam to the beach and had a lovely walk and an ice cream cone. On a Saturday, we sailed from Sachuest to Clarks Cove, MA (rocked, we were all alone, how’s that happen?) outside South Dartmouth on opening day and there were only a-ga-gillion boats parading outside New Bedford for “The Blessing of the Fleet”, yuk… And then on a Sunday and the very special day of patriotic displays of explosive power, we sailed from Clarks Cove to Onset, MA, on Cape Cod. Anchoring far from the masses, we rowed into town for a pizza and bread and eggs and soda. When we started our row into town, we had absolutely no idea that the 4th of July would be celebrated on the 7th of July in Onset, Mass. The beaches were packed with patchy white charred flesh and drenched in cocoa butter. Torquemada’s dungeon could not have reverberated with as many screams as the children of Onset ripped loose as they freaked the fuck out in the water. Making a quick escape, we rowed back to the boat with groceries at our feet, just in time for a truly delightful fireworks display. We’ve been bombarded by fireworks that were just a little bit too far away all week long. Then to be in a nice quiet anchorage, almost by ourselves, and to have a perfect, close experience overwhelmed us with an appreciation that usually gets lost in the cost-benefit analysis and jokes about vestigial displays of military force. In other words, we had a great time. We leaned against each other and held hands and it was awesome. Thanks, Kate, for softening us up for[…]
Read moreOff Day, Day Off
We tried to go to the Herreshoff Museum in Bristol, RI, but it just didn’t work out. Got the dinghy set up for a sail and set off in a brisk, beating wind. We quickly realized that the current was against us in a big way. Tinker is sailing to windward better than ever before, but it doesn’t matter how high we can point into the wind if we aren’t sailing faster than the tide is going out. The tide was sucking us right into the Mount Hope Bridge channel and the wakes of dozens of inconsiderate “pleasure” boaters stopped our progress again and again. Decidedly not the way we wanted to start the day. After two hours of trying everything to make windward (including striking the sailing rig and rowing along the shore), we still only made a direct line from the boat across the bay. That was when we got our first indication of how off we were. James felt like he was being misunderstood and Dena felt like nothing made sense. We weren’t making shit happen like we are used to doing. Turning back to the boat, we consigned the museum to an unlikely later trip back to the area. Making directly across the channel wouldn’t get us to the boat – we still had to beat into the wind, pointing far up the shore from the boat, in order for our lee to carry us down to the boat. Strangely enough, that went perfectly. The frustration was too strong, though. I (Dena) retreated to the forepeak with my smartphone and Kindle app to read Treasure Island. I (James) read my book for a while, but ultimately fell asleep. When we started to stir again, just before noon, we decided it would be a good day for[…]
Read moreSailing, The 4th of July
…Whatever.
Read moreThe Adventures on Dutch Island
In 1947, the reign of human terror ended on a tiny island in the Narragansett Bay. Since then oblivious grasses, feral vines, and silver shale rule the once involuntarily populated 102 acre rock. We sailed to the island in Tinker on a close haul from our boat to the pebbled shores of Dutch Island. I (James) got the slow tack to the island, taking approximately 20 minutes to cross the harbor. We carried Tinker up the beach about 30 yards to get above the high-tide mark and made fast on an ancient steel ring built for that very purpose a hundred years ago. We went into our trip ignorant of detail, but knowing that we’d seen both a lighthouse and a tall brick wall with empty windows. Without narrative, our experience was creative. We told each other stories – what we thought we’d found, who we thought had created it. Rather than leave you in the same state…here’s a bit of history. The first European settlement on the island was established in 1636 by a Dutch West India Company trader, but all signs of that original settlement have long since been erased by the evils of war. The next and far more powerfully successful mark left was made by the original Dutch Island Light, built of stone collected from the island in 1827. The original structure was replaced with brick in 1857 and a fog bell was added in 1878, but the needs of mariners have been met on the south point for almost 200 years. The very first thing I (James) noticed was the beach was sick with absolutely perfect skipping stones, carved by the salt water. These smooth shale slabs were literally everywhere. I was in heaven. The size and feel and weight of a perfect skipping stone[…]
Read moreSix States in One Month
The last few days have been great sailing. From New London to Mystic, to Point Judith Harbor of Refuge, to Dutch Harbor in the Narragansett Bay, we’ve sailed mostly on a broad reach, waves with us, and wind in the 10-15 knot range. Enough to keep us moving at a good clip but not enough to worry us, though we reefed and unreefed quite a bit to maintain our comfort level. We started in Baltimore on May 31st and sailed from Maryland into Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and reached Rhode Island on June 29th. This kind of thing is only possible on the East Coast. To hit 6 states on the West Coast, you have to add states of other countries – BC, WA, OR, CA, Baja, and Hawaii. And doing that in a month? No way. July looks to be the month that we do RI, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, with a possible stop in Nova Scotia. In Mystic, we ran into more of the same moorage troubles. The waterfront association sets aside some area for anchoring, but that area seems to be getting smaller. It used to encompass about 100 yards square of 7-9 foot depths, but that is true no longer. The anchorage markers delineate an area with 3 foot depth, which is not enough for our boat at 4’9″ of draft. James and I clucked over the chartplotter and decided to try anchoring between the channel and some boats on moorings. When we sat back on the anchor rode, we were in the channel and too close to another boat. Pulling the anchor up revealed that we had hooked onto a massive derelict mooring chain, the buoy for which had long since broken away. The chain weighed hundreds of pounds and I (James)[…]
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