It’s been a while since my last post, so I thought that it was about time to catch up and let you know where Lucie and I have been and what we are up to.

After our time in Narragansett Bay, we headed across to Cuttyhunk Island.  It is a really quiet island out in the Elizabeth Island chain, which separates Vinyard Sound from Buzzard’s Bay in Massachusetts.  It was quiet and scenic and we really liked it there.  Lucie said that it was the closest to a Carribbean island that you could get up here in the north.  We anchored there for 4 nights and had a relaxing, fun time.  The water was warm enough and clean, so we swam every day.

Cuttyhunk Harbor

WildHorse at anchor

Getting our folding bikes ashore at Cuttyhunk

After Cuttyhunk, we headed to Martha’s Vinyard. First night we spent anchored in the outer harbor of Vineyard Haven.  It was really rough and rolly there, almost like being underway so after exploring the town a little bit, we left there and went to Edgartown and took a mooring in the inner harbor.  What a difference!  Calm and comfortable there.  We toured Martha’s Vinyard on our bikes, went to the beach, and generally had a good time there.

After that, it was time to go back to a real town to do laundry, refill water, and other more mundane things.  We sailed across back to the mainland to New Bedford, MA.  It is a real working harbor and supposedly has the biggest fishing fleet in the US, even counting Alaska.  It is also a very interesting historical town and as friendly as you can imagine. It also used to be the biggest whaling center in the US and is where Melville lived when he wrote Moby Dick and where Joshua Slocum rebuilt Spray and left for his first-ever solo circumnavigation.

New Bedford harbor

Historic New Bedford. Church built to save sailors from ladies of ill repute!

We left there yesterday bright and early at 0530 to get to the Cape Cod Canal in time for a favorable current.  We had a nice sail up Buzzard’s Bay from here and caught a ride on a 4-5 knot current up the canal.  We are now in the Sandwich Marina, just inside the eastern end of the canal, waiting for good wind and weather to start our passage to Nova Scotia, hopefully tomorrow.  This is a nice llittle harbor with friendly people and a pebbly beach at the beginning of Cape Cod.  The water is COLD here, but we swam yesterday anyway.

Canal Railroad Bridge – happily, it was up for us!

The beach here at Sandwich… Nippy water!

Our planned route

More to come after we reach Canada!