Southbound

South, south, south

Keeping one eye on the weather reports and hurricane Dorian, we plan to be in Boston when the storm is projected to pass through New England. Nora plots the courses into the boat’s navigational system. We are ready to roll.

Nora typically plots the next day's course, the night before our departure.

We make a brief, one night stop in Kittery, ME and head to Gloucester, MA. What a surprise. It is schooner weekend and we are greeted at the harbor entrance by 20+ vintage schooners in a race.

The camera (or I) really couldn't capture all of the schooners.

A sample of one of the participants.

We anchor for a brief two-night stay before we continue on to Boston. Dinghy into town for shopping, sightseeing, and a peek at our favorite “dock rock”.

This rock is centered right in the middle of a slip!

And at high tide, the rock completely covered with water! There had to
be boaters that bumped into the rock, thinking it was an empty slip.

Boston Harbor

The cruise from Gloucester to Boston takes us past several outer harbor islands and through interesting working waterways. Dredges are working on a side channel. The main channel into Boston Harbor takes us directly under the flight path for planes landing at Logan Airport!

Worknot and Bravo have mooring ball reservations at Boston’s Waterboat Marina in the heart of downtown Boston. It’s a busy spot, but soooo convenient. Day and night, downtown Boston is right outside our window. The views of the city are spectacular and ever changing. Ferries zip by every 5 minutes. And the marina even has its very own Duck House for the ducks!   

Karl looking at his iPad, with the city in our view.

The night time view from our back deck is quite special.

One of the smaller ferries coming in to dock.

The unique floating "Duck House".

The Waterboat dinghy dock is only a 5 minute walk to Quincy Market, Faneuil Hall, “Little Italy”, and numerous restaurants, shops, bakeries, butchers, seafood markets, and quiet courtyards. The park next to the pier is perfect for Keela walks, and has an interesting carousel with lobster, fish, and rabbits!

Entrance to the marina.

...Tastefully done, and colorful!

Keela takes us for a walk!

This carousel sure is different! It has lobsters, owls, butterflies, ...

...rabbits, and even more unique critters!

Boston has historical buildings intermixed with the modern buildings.

We cannot resist the cannoli at Mike’s Pastry shop, and take several back to the boats for later consumption!

Apparently "Mike's Pastry" is a goto establishment in Boston's Italian district.

People were lined up to place their orders for their favorite cannolis. Across the back wall
were all of the different types that were offered. Had to be at least 30 different types! 

As we were walking down the street, we saw so many people carrying boxes from Mike's
Pastry shop. That certainly enticed us to go and check it out, and place our orders as well!

The weekly Farmer’s Market provides a bonanza of fresh produce at really, really reasonable prices. The stalls went on for several blocks. Nora bought corn on the cob, lettuce, plums, tomatoes, romaine lettuce, blueberries, cilantro, shitake mushrooms, and snap peas for less than $10.00!

A lot of specialties were at the market. Didn't know what this was,
but it sure looked nice!

The local blue crab.

This was a surprise. And yup, we passed on this!

This was our purchase of the day.

In honor of Boston’s Italian North End, Nora makes pizzas for dinner. Yummy!

Tasty, tasty!

A fierce rain squall passes through the harbor bringing incredible rain, wind, and clouds.

Big, low clouds rolling in.

It rained really hard, and it washed the salt off of the boat.

After the storm.

As Hurricane Dorian approaches, Bravo and Worknot leave the Waterboat Marina mooring field and head up-river to a safer, more protected overnight location at the Mystic Fuel dock. We fill up on the cheapest diesel we have seen all summer and tie up for the night. In the morning we anchor out near Logan Airport for one more night to let the hurricane move north.

Cape Cod Canal… again and Hadley Harbor, MA

As the storm passes, we make an early morning departure and continue south. The seas have calmed down and shipping traffic has resumed. A large tanker passes Worknot as we exit Boston’s inner harbor.

The transit of Cape Cod Canal is easygoing. It’s Sunday, so there is no commercial traffic, but plenty of recreational boats. The weather is beautiful and we have about 2 knots of current behind us to move Bravo and Worknot swiftly through to Buzzards Bay.

Cape Cod Canal is like driving the New Jersey Turnpike. (minus the tolls!)

The wind really picks up as we exit the canal channel. We head south and east towards the entrance to Hadley Harbor in the Elizabeth Islands. The entrance to this harbor is very, very narrow. Only one boat can go through at a time. Once inside, it is a well-protected anchorage as long as there are not too many boats in the cove. Luckily, it is Sunday afternoon and several weekenders are pulling anchor just as we arrive. The islands are privately owned by the Forbes family, so there are no plans to go ashore. We drop anchor, enjoy a relaxing evening and get ready to go bright and early in the morning.

Hadley Harbor, and yup, I'm a sucker for sunsets!

What a great view to relax!

Karl checking the anchor.

Block Island and Port Jefferson…. Again

As you can see, there is a pattern to the series of trips going south. Many of these harbors are ones that we visited going north in the spring often lingering for several days. However, now we are more driven by weather patterns balancing the need to move south, and the need to be in protected anchorages when storms are heading your way. Additionally, the days are getting progressively shorter giving you less time to travel in daylight. We certainly are capable of traveling in the dark, and the boats have the technology to do so safely. It is just more stressful and tiring to travel several days in a row pulling and setting anchors in the dark. If we can avoid it, we will plan the daily cruise so we depart at first light, and are anchored well before sunset.

On to Port Washington..

Cruising along the entrance to Long Island sound, we spot a strange object in the water. It’s moving at a good speed and as it draws close we realize it is a US Navy submarine. No…. it did not show up on AIS and they did not wave or communicate on the radio as they passed. Through the binoculars we could see four sailors standing watch. Three were facing forward. One was sitting down facing aft.

Our best guess is that they were leaving the submarine base in New London, CT and heading out to sea or ???

Wow, this is like the movie "Hunt for Red October"!

They even have a portable Raymarine radar on top.

We arrive in Port Washington and take a yellow mooring buoy. If you have not read our earlier blog, this town is one of our favorite cruising stops. The yellow buoys are very reasonable and include the fabulous water taxi service. From 8:00am to 9:45pm the launch will pick you up at your boat and take you to the town dock, Stop and Shop dock, or the other marinas around the bay. The layout of the town combined with the water taxi gives cruisers easy access to all the services you need… food shopping, restaurants, hardware stores, marine store, banks, postal services, and land transportation. We take advantage of these services to stock up and provision the boats.