Saturday August 25th

Still hanging around P-Town. Friday night was verry busy. We’ve been going into town mostly in the morning before the crowds pile in.

Very, very dog friendly place. Lots of Dogs playing on the beach. Skip is allowed in all of the stores and is often greeted with a bisket and bowl of water. Went shopping this morning and didn’t bother feeding him as we new there were lots of biskets to be had. Eventually we even made it toi a gourmet dog bisket store and he had some home made treats.

Leaving tommorow morning for Onset (South). May head back through Woods Hole to Martha’s Vinyard again after Onset. We haven’t decided yet.

Wednesday August 22

Onset to Provincetown

Left Onset around 8:00 am. Shot through the Cape Cod canal like we were on a freeway. Made around 9 knots with the current. This is almost 2x faster than we are usually traveling!

Big moment. We’ve made it to Cape Cod Bay. So far all of our sailing has been in Buzzards Bay and Vinyard Sound.

Light winds in Cape Cod bay. Spent 2 or 3 hours sailing upwind but made a lot of leeway. It’s about 20 miles. Since we didn’t want to get to P Town too late we fired up the engine. Motored for around 2 hours and got to port. Ran well. Zero wind by the end of the day with a flat sea. Province town seemed like a different continent when it came out of the haze. Had Chicken Korma for dinner.

Staying here for a few days. May begin to travel south again Sunday.

Tuesday August 21

Sailed from Padanaram Harbor to Onset. Big day for us as we’ve never traveled down that side of the bay. Nice sailing. Wind was behind us so we poled out the jib and tied out the main, wing on wing. Made it as far as the entrance to Hog Island channel, which is the entrance to the Cape Cod canal. The harbor patrol came out to inform us that we needed to turn on our motor. He also advised us to drop sail if we were going to stay in the channel. We followed advise. This part of the trip was a bit stressful. We were going into Onset due to the canal current was running against us. Plan being to leave tommorow morning with a fair current. Getting into Onset with an opposing current was tough. Barely made 1.5 knots going in.

Got into Onset tired. Went to Mark Anthoney’s for dinner. I had pizza. Lynne had a lobster roll. Great place. Nice town. Going back.

The boatyard got a new carburetor for our outboard engine so we decided to sail back home to pick it up.

Motored all the way down Vineyard Sound due to light headwind. As soon as we reached Quick’s Hole the South West breeze picked up. Shut down the motor and raised all sail. Headed due North. Finally some nice sailing! 1 minute after raising the main I decided it needed a reef. Managed to blowout  one of the reefing blocks but had a great sail home.

Going to stay here for a couple of days. Need to do laundry, re-provision, and get more ice. It’s raining so we’ll wait until things clear up. We’ll probably head back out on Monday.

Also- I just added about 100 photos to the 2012 gallery section.

Monday August 13

Sunny day in Vinyard Haven Harbor. This morning we managed to get most of our bedding and damp clothing up on deck to dry. Lynne did some swimming while I lounged around and read a book. Cleaned house and went to shore. Going to look for some y-fi to check email and maybe upload some of this log.

Grilling burgers on deck this evening. Tommorow we may take the bus over to Oak Bluffs to check out Offshore Brewery.

Current plan is to head back home on Wednesday to pick up the outboard. If it’s not done we’ll stay here a few more days.

Sunday August 12th

Got a mooring inside of the breakwater this morning. Yay!

Friday night was crazy. Big storm rolled through. We battened down the hatches and waited it out. I tried to bring Skipper in to shore at one point but he became very frightened during the row in so I aborted the trip and returned to Catalpa. After the storm blew itself out (around 8:00pm) we had a new problem. For some reason the left over breeze blew all the boats sideways to the rollers coming in from the bay. Roller-coaster ride. Every single thing that was not properly secured was tossed around the boat. Drank wine, listened to music, and laughed (no fillings rattled loose). Things calmed down later and we had a good night sleep.

Basicaly the weather has been pretty mixed since then. It seems like every few hours a squall blows through. We close up the boat. Squall ends, and we get a dryer SW wind blowing through (open boat and dry stuff out).

Yesterday (Saturday) we went into town for ice and a civilized meal. Had dinner at the Black Dog Tavern. Half a rack of ribs and a lobster roll. Excelent meal.

For the past few days (regardless of weather) we’ve been watching these guys with giant kites on some sort of waterski boards. Amazing. At times they must be doing 50-60mph. During the storm, one skier was going so fast that he was throwing out a 10′ rooster tail behind him.

We like our spot in the harbor. It is well protected and close to the shore. It makes getting Skip to shore (bathroom breaks) easier. Vinyard Haven is a very busy little town so there is always something to see. Lots of pretty boats also.

Friday August 10th

We made it out to Martha’s Vinyard Yesterday.
Our vacation voyage started last Sunday. Due to bad weather we stayed in Harbor (Padanaram) and left for Cuttyhunk Island on Monday. It was a sunny, down wind run. Poled out the Genoa and ran wing on wing all day.  Moored in the inner harbor for a few days. We always enjoy Cuttyhunk. Had pizza at Soprano’s pizza Wednesday night (8th). Great sunsets.

Left Cuttyhunk Thursday (9th) for Vinyard Haven. No wind. Motored the whole trip over. Hot. Took around 4 hrs I think. Got into VH around 1:30ish but were unable to get a mooring in the inner harbor. It was race night so we got to see a lot of nice boats sailing around. Closed down the evening with Dank n Stormies and Chicken Vindalo.

The outer harbor is very rolly and weather is on the way. We’re going to attempt to get a mooring inside of the breakwater but no one is leaving due to storms coming up from the south. I wish we had our outboard motor to get Skipper into shore but I’m making due with oars. Outboard should be fixed sometime next week. I think we’re going to stay here for a few days.

We spent most of the day yesterday finishing up a few jobs and provisioning. There was a big fog bank in Buzzards bay so no point in rushing things. I stopped at Lee’s supermarket and bought a few hundred dollars worth of food and booze. I like seeing all of the cabinets stocked up. We’ll probably eat at restaurants half of the time but it’s nice to have options.

The weather is still not so great today so I’m thinking we might leave tomorrow. First stop will be Cuttyhunk island. We’ll probably stay there a few days to decompress.

On another note: We cleaned up the boat shed area and got rid of all the decaying plastic. It looks good. I’m debating what to do with it. Several people have expressed interest in it. One thought I’ve had was to cut it down into a smaller shed. I’d like to build a new dingy one of these years and it would be nice to not have to do that in my shop. Greenhouse, lawnmower shed, etc – seems like it might have it’s uses so I’m thinking about hanging on to it.