This post is a bit longer, since I am going to try to wrap up the end of our summer cruise.

Once we got back to Shelburne, we were feeling a little nervous about hurricane Lee, which had started threatening the East Coast and Maritime Canada. When we were up in Prince Edward Island, we saw millions of blown-down trees and some buildings that were still wrecked a couple of years after they had suffered a hit from a hurricane, so we were definitely taking it seriously.

This was making us want to get the hell out of Dodge!

We spent a pleasant 2 days in Shelburne again. On the last evening, we decided to go out for dinner and on the way home walked by their market area, where they were having free live music and the whole town was there. The band was One Meter Up and they were one of the best rockin’ cover bands ever!  It was really fun with everyone from little kids to old folks out and dancing.  They were LOUD, so it’s probably good that the whole town was there anyway. Those Nova Scotians like to party!

Rockin out at the Guild Hall

The next morning we got up and went to fill up with fuel and water. Lucie very competently umoored the boat, then docked it and undocked it after filling up. We sailed out of the harbor and timed our rounding of Cape Sable much better this time, with the current helping us instead of stopping us.

We had a fairly easy sail back to Cape Cod, about 56 hours in 5-15 knots of wind. A bit of fog, but not too dense. The only downside was that it was upwind port tack the entire time, close hauled or nearly so. It felt weird once we arrived and the whole world wasn’t leaning to the right anymore.  The seas were empty this time as well; I don’t think that we saw more than 1 or 2 other vessels until we got close to Cape Cod.

We did see some Great Shearwaters again, although quite a bit fewer.  This time the juveniles, which were probably the ones that had hatched during the spring, decided that we were the most interesting thing that they had ever seen.  Initially one landed on the boat, which was cute until he started pooping on the deck.  I waved my arms and yelled, but he had absolutely no fear of humans.  I then poked him with the boat hook, and he just gave me a dirty look and waddled elsewhere.  Eventually I did get him to fly off, but then a whole flock of juvenile delinquent birds started mobbing us for a few hours, and at times we had 5 or 6 on the boat at a time, on the deck, on the dodger, and on the bimini, standing and pooping on the solar panels.  Again, the had no fear. I was running around yelling and shooing them off so much that Lucie made sure I was tethered to the boat so I wouldn’t fall in chasing birds.

Non-paying passenger

We arrived in Provincetown, MA around 6:30 pm and  it took us a while to find our mooring, but we finally did and got tied up.  By then, it was 7:30 and we basically ate dinner and crashed, sleeping like you only can after being sleep-deprived for a couple of days. The next day we went ashore, took showers, and walked around P-town.  It’s a fun, very touristy town and has great beaches and bike trails, with a National Seashore Park all close by.  We wanted to spend a few days there enjoying it, but hurricane…

We left the next morning for the sail across Cape Cod Bay to the Cape Cod Canal again.  There were many other boats beating feet out of P-town, since at that point it looked like Lee was turning west and going straight for them.  We timed the canal perfectly for the current and zoomed through and anchored that night in Onset Bay, which looks like it would be another fun place to hang out. Maybe next time.

However, our new activity was checking the National Hurricane Center about 8 times a day, moving every day, and making phone call after phone call after Dockwa after Google trying to find a sheltered harbor out of the hurricane path, to little avail. Everyone was either already full or price-gouging. One place wanted almost $1000 to put our boat there for 3 days! I had actually said yes to that one, since at that point it was literally the only place we could go.

From there we headed over to Cuttyhunk again and moored in the inner harbor. That harbor is basically an enclosed box and we were very tempted to just stay there, but the forecast was still for 50+ knots in Cuttyhunk so no.  We then went over to Block Island again and had a nice 1 night stay there, including a little shore time. The weather was still breezy, sunny and nice, but Lee was breathing down our necks and a big swell had started coming in from the storm from the south.  The trip to Block was upwind in 20ish knots and into the big swell and wind waves and was again slow, rough and wet.

However, hallelujah! We finally found a hurricane hole to hide out in!  The Greenwich Bay Marina, which had come through for us when we needed to drop Dave off at the beginning of the summer, said sure, come on in! They were even charging their usual rates and not gouging. I immediately called and cancelled my slip at the other place.

We got up early the next morning and we had a great sail, still in strong winds but in the same direction as the wind and seas, 2 reefs in the main and staysail, up to Newport and Naragansett Bay.  3 other boats were headed that way and left about a half-hour before us, and WildHorse just walked on by all of them. I love how she sails!

The entrance into Naragansett Bay was a bit intimidating, with the big swell piling up on the shallows and breaking on the reefs on both sides.

IMG_5410.MOV

(click the link for video)

However, regardless of how exciting it felt, the channel is deep and wide and we had no problem entering. Once inside, we still had good wind but calm seas and sailed all the way up to the head of the Bay, into a little creek, where the amazing people at the marina helped us into our slip. I really have to give a shout-out to Safe Harbor Greenwich Bay!  They said that they got 30+ boats into their place within 2 days. They did everything they could to accomodate anyone that they could. I don’t know about everyone else but they also really made us feel welcome and were so helpful with everything, despite the coming storm and being so busy.

We stripped everything off the decks, secured the sails, put many lines on the boat tied to everything, and waited.  The storm decided to head further east, so it turned out to be a bit of a nothingburger where we were, kind of felt like a breezy day in SF Bay with light drizzle. We met more amazing people there, with everyone getting their boats ready for the storm. One young guy in his late 20’s or early 30’s had the exact same boat that we used to own in SF down to the year, a 1977 Downeaster 32.  He had just sailed it solo from Annapolis, MD to Newfoundland and back. We invited him over for a beer and dinner, and checked out each others’ boats of course.

Happy to be there after a day of storm prep!

After Lee was past and we had finally done laundry and put to boat back together, we sailed to New London, CT where some friends that we met in Nova Scotia have their boat and arranged a place in their “marina” for us to leave WildHorse for a month or so. It’s a very friendly small dock that has a mix of working boats and pleasure boats, and is extremely reasonably priced. (I promised not to divulge the name of it, since it’s kind of a local secret.)  There were swans swimming around, and although they look graceful and elegant, are actually bad-tempered and mean – pretty much an XL, fancy goose. This one hissed and tried to bite Lucie.

Attack swan

We put WildHorse to bed and are now back up in Burlington taking care of some business, dental appointments, house work, etc. Jack will be heading back down to CT next week to do some post-cruise maintenance and projects and get WildHorse ready for the next adventure!  More posts to come once we get underway again.