Through the canal

 17- The wind was much stronger last night and it blew hard much longer than the predictions. Non-the-less we survived just fine. When the tide was flooding (going up river) the boat would be twisted sideways to the wind. The wind was strong enough to heel the boat right over. Once the ebb started the boat settled into the current and the wind was once again on the nose. I might have even gotten some sleep if hadn't been for that damn halyard slapping all night against the mast. I tried several times to quiet it down but to no avail.

    This morning was nice and calm and I spent some time despider webbing the boat putting it back to normal. While most of my preparations probably didn't make a difference you never know. If the hurricane had taken a slightly different path we could have been hammered. Of course the guy right behind me who did less than nothing to prepare his boat did just fine also. A boat had broken free of its mooring on Friday here at the yacht club. His mooring line had chafed through. This made me go check mine. Fortunately it happened Friday daytime and not one of these last few nights.



   9/27- Well after two hurricanes and a week long break we are finally on the move again. We waited until Wednesday to take off to let the last of Ophelia clear the area. We motored out of Portsmouth and finally got to put up our sails as the wind was out of the northeast. We zipped along until we reached Rockport and then the wind started dying off. It felt like we were in a cement mixer. There were still some pretty fair waves left over and they seemed to come from every direction. So we motored the last 10 miles into Gloucester and anchored in Lighthouse Cove which is just north of the yacht club.  

   It felt good to be making progress again. The weather is forecasted to be mostly NE winds for several days so we hope to take advantage and put some miles under our keel.

   Portsmouth has some of the strongest currents I've seen.  Some said 4-5 knots in front of the yacht club. The boat would actually sail forward in the current. There was a period twice a day where the ebb current would just fly by the boat. When the wind blew in the opposite direction it caused little 2-3 foot wavelets to form. Sometimes it pushed the large mooring ball right under the boat. After putting up with that for a week or so when Alayne got back from CA we decided to move across the river to a yacht club mooring. While this side didn't have the raging current it was still enough to to hold the boat stern to the wind. I could hear the mooring ball go under the boat a couple of times. It also held the boat sideways to the ocean swell which rocked the boat quite a bit twice a day. So I was looking forward to getting out of there and being in an anchorage that didn't bounce all over the place. Alas tonight there is no wind and so the boat turns with the tide, you guessed it, sideways to swell.

    If it sounds like I'm complaining I still remember that after everything else I am on a boat on the ocean. 


9/28- We took off from Gloucester around 8:30 and put the main sail up right in the harbor. I had been worried about the anchor because it was very rocky where we spent the night. It came up just fine with very little mud on it.

    The wind was light again and the sea state agitated. This is not a good combo. We tried to sail for about a half hour and then the gear was just getting so beat up we turned the motor on. After about an hour we tried again and this time we got all three sails up and had a nice broad reach the rest of the day.

    It was a bitch changing sails in that sea state. The boat was bouncing and yawing so much it was dangerous to do work on deck. I do have jack lines rigged and so I put my tether on and went up there. It was still not easy trying to wrestle that big main sail up and down. Hopefully the seas will calm a bit tomorrow.

The night in Scituate was very bumpy. The wind piped up out of the east which it almost never does and that blew waves straight into the harbor entrance. Guess where we were moored. Anyway it finally calmed down.


9/29- We left Scituate around 7:30am. We got all the sails up again and had a nice close reach all the way. We made it to the canal entrance by 11:30 which was 28 miles away. We took the sails down and motored through the canal. We hit 11 knots at one point. We turned into the cutoff for Onset. The current was so strong here I could barely control the boat but it finally settled down and we tied up to a mooring here. 
    We went for walk into town. It's funny we had a good time here the last time we were here and as we walked through town it's amazing how many memories it brought back. I could remember details I had totally forgotten about, roads we walked down and restaurants we ate at. Of course that was 7 years ago and things do change. The place seems a little worse for the wear. Restaurants have come and gone and the marina has changed hands several times.
   We will probably be here a couple of days as it is supposed to rain most of tomorrow and there is big wind and waves coming. So we will sit it out and wait for the sun.

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