I realize that I have not written in a week. Time has flown by. When last I wrote, the King of Tennis had just reigned supreme as we were leaving the Cape Cod Canal. This Canal seems pretty tame when you are riding the current, but if you should be fighting it, I am not sure that would be true. We surfed through it at 11 knots on a beautiful sunny day. We were with our rally mates at that time, but as we exited, they turned towards Maine while we, with some regret on my part, turned toward Provincetown. I wanted to go to Maine, but I remain sure it was the right choice not to do so.
So rather than look at a long motoring night, we raised our sails and ghosted along in about 5 knots of breeze for several hours towards Provincetown. We wanted so much to sail, but the wind did not really support us in this regard. But, since we have just chucked our schedule out the window, we did not care when we arrived. Raul steered most of the time, content to steer even in such a slight breeze; Valerie read her book, in peace I think; Jae read and fussed around the boat a little and I don’t know what I did other than plot the course and watch for lobster pots.
Eventually, as we approached Ptown, we doused the sails and motored on in to our mooring. Once on the mooring, the nightly happy hour started with rotation on showers. Incidentally, the water in Cape Cod Bay is clear and beautiful, so clear that our watermaker was happy making water all the way. That made us happy as well. Now, over three weeks into this adventure, I think our biggest worry has been the water system. Where we tried to make water, such as Cape May, it was dirty and the filters fouled. And if we had enough water, the pump system acted up on one tank.
Sirius has three water tanks, each holding 50 gallons. Two of the tanks have been fine, but the midships tank seems to have some sort of air leak that we cannot find.
As a result, when that tank is the source, the water pump won’t build pressure and shut off. We have to turn it off. If you are not a boater, you will not appreciate that on a boat such as ours, you become keenly attuned to every noise. We can identify, by sound, every pump on our boat, as well as a bunch of other things. An unexpected, or unknown, sound is therefore a big deal. The other day, while we were sailing to Nantucket and I was on the phone, I heard a strange noise. Jae had heard it as well and was already investigating. She assured me to finish the call, that everything was OK. When I did, I learned that one of our rope clutches, for the furling line on the genoa, had ripped out of its bedding. No damage done and no one harmed, but the load on the line was so great (we had a lot of wind) that it tore out. Raul correctly judged that the load on the brake was too great. We will not load the brake up that way anymore, though it has worked for us these past 8 years. The point is, noises are really critical to monitor and identify.
Once secure in Ptown, into happy hour and all clean, we rode the launch ashore and started looking for dinner. It is a crazy fun place. Ptown became an “artist’s colony” about 100 years ago. It has an absolutely overwhelming number of art galleries, all with interesting work. For about that same period of time, it has been a vacation and residence for gays and lesbians. Here, more than almost anywhere I have been, they show great confidence in being “out.” But it is also a place of many families and all sorts of folks. It is truly a heterogeneous place.
The next morning, Jae and I attended to laundry at the marina laundry facility while Raul and Valerie took off on rented bikes. They biked all over the National Seashore. We followed a few hours later on our Bromptons (which we love) riding to Race Point for sandwiches on the beach. The trail was up and down the whole time and required some real work, but riding through the dunes was terrific. Back in Ptown, we climbed to the top of Pilgrim Tower, which was built over 100 years ago to commemorate the Mayflower first landing there, not Plymouth! Teddy Roosevelt laid the cornerstone and President Taft dedicated it three years later. It was an exhausting day by the time we made it back to the boat.
But, we soldiered on, cleaned up, had happy hour and another great dinner ashore with plenty to appreciate along the streets of Ptown. In the morning, we moved over to Long Point, anchored, dinghied ashore and and had lunch on the beach. We watched seals for a while before returning to the boat and leaving for Wellfleet. Of course, leaving Ptown harbor the wind was on our nose for our course, but we were determined to sail, so we put in about four tacks, had a glorious sail with almost no other boat in sight on flat water and 18-20 kts of wind. It was the best sail to that point.
Wellfleet is a cool little town. It has a shallow harbor, so Sirius had to anchor far away from everything else and we had a long dinghy ride. Once in town, the next day, we walked all over, Raul inspecting every art gallery, while I looked for old Asey Mayo murder mysteries. I had remembered that, as a teenager, my mother found them for me and I think I might have read all of them. In a funky little used bookstore, I asked the Eastern European girl there, who spoke passable English, for the books. She had no idea and they had no filing system. But then I stumbled on three of them, bought them all, gave one to Valerie, will give one to my sister and will keep the third one for myself. We walked back to the harbor, ate raw clams (fantastic) and of course, the divine Wellfleet oysters. Happy Hour at the harbor begins at 3 pm we discovered, and the tide (10 ft tidal range) was out, so we had to wait to leave in the dinghy. In Massachusetts, we were told, happy hour with low cost alcohol is illegal, so they entice you with low cost claims, oysters and lobsters. According to our server, her parents explained that it was outlawed in the 70’s because our generation drank too much and had too many accidents and deaths.
We left Wellfleet the next morning, transited back through the Cape Cod Canal, and dashed into Marion, MA for a quick lunch at the Beverly Yacht Club. That was only possible because Annapolis Yacht Club has reciprocal privileges with BYC. By then, the tidal current was right to transit Woods Hole and we were off to Nantucket.
Four hours later, after another glorious sail, we reached Nantucket Harbor. I will close here, but I must say that while I was at the helm, we reached 10.2 knots with the wind on the beam, obliterating John Heintz’ prior record of 9.5 kts on the beam aboard Sirius. I hope he will come aboard and try to beat my new record.