It's Cold Up North!

We left Charleston and our new friends there as planned and had a 6 day trip to Maine. The weather was not in our favour and when we had wind it was usually from the wrong direction. So we ended up sailing about half the journey and motoring the rest. One of our best sails was around the infamous Cape Hatteras (renowned for very bad weather and extremely rough seas) where, with the Gulf stream, we were doing 10 knots over the ground!

The US navy seemed to have decided to carry out live firing exercises all along our route from there which gave us a bit of excitement!

Typical exchange - “Warship 96 commencing live firing at xx position keep 30,000 yards away” our response “we are at zz position on a course of xxx degrees. Are we OK to continue (the last a bit desperately!)”.

They were very polite and nicely said OK each time but we had to keep repeating the experience as they would keep moving around so that just as we were out of range, we were back in it. A warship of course moves a lot faster than a small yacht!!

We caught a 16lb mackerel which is the biggest of those fish yet plus another 9lb fish which we could not identify! It was OK to eat but not worth the effort of filleting so if we catch more they will be going back!

We had a bad forecast promising 35 knot wind so rather than continue into Buzzards Bay as we originally planned, we shortened our trip and headed for Block Island. It has a very protected anchorage with a very narrow entry into a large lagoon type harbour. On arrival, it was very full but we picked a good spot and dropped the anchor and then – RELAX!!

Our initial thought the next morning was how cold it was!! Having sailed about 400 miles north made a big difference to the temperature and we were almost shocked to see people swimming! The island was pretty but very touristy. Most of our time there was spent recovering from the journey but we did have a walk into town and buy a few food items.

We then decided to go on to Buzzards Bay but it was a very foggy morning so we delayed for a bit to see if it would lift. Eventually we decided to go in the fog but it was hard work as we had to depend on the radar and this doesn't always show the small boats. One did pass close to us and it's amazing how suddenly they just seem to appear. It then rained for a while and although this was unpleasant, it did clear the fog away and we had good visibility for the rest of the trip. We went to a lovely little bay called Hadley Harbour. It was really secluded with a narrow entry but extremely quiet and peaceful and we are looking forward to going back there for a sightly longer stop on our way south.

After that it was a short hop to Bassett Island before we headed through the Cape Cod Canal. Its a very wide canal and with the tide we transited it at around 8 knots. It has a couple of bridges across it and these did look a bit low despite the charts saying that they were 135 feet high! We sailed across Cape Cod bay to Provincetown which is the last town on the end of Cape Cod. The whole harbour was full of mooring buoys and very busy. We walked around town, which is the gay capital of the area, but it was so busy that we soon retreated to the boat.

We left the following day and headed for Boston. In true Chapter Two style there was no wind the first part of the journey and then it was on the nose and blowing hard as we went into Boston harbour. The harbour is very big and we anchored in one of the outer bays before heading into the city the following morning.

Our mooring was right outside the aquarium and it was really easy to go ashore and walk into town. We spent a few days looking around Boston and walking the freedom trail (this celebrates the start of the American War of Independence) . We also went on the oldest still afloat naval vessel, the USS Constitution, which is slightly younger than the Victory but is still in the water.. The last evening we met up with Helen and Andy, my (Karen's) boss from National Grid. We had a lovely evening catching up and headed off for a leisurely breakfast the following morning as they headed into work!

From Boston we sailed directly to Mount Desert Island in Maine which was our most easterly and northerly destination in Maine. We left Boston at 5am and motored out of the harbour with a wonderful sunrise and in the usual US style we motored most of the way to Maine!

When we reached Maine we could not believe the number of lobster pots! How does a single lobster survive? There are so many it is very difficult to motor between them without them going under the boat with the risk that the lines tangle round the propeller. We headed up the 'fjord' (the only one in the 48 lower states) to Somes harbour which is in the middle of the Island. It was a lovely picturesque setting and we had a pleasant walk into the oldest town on the Island.

The scenery in Maine is lovely. The sailing is between lots of islands which are covered in trees. There are also lots of big houses too! The down side is the temperature, we are freezing. Suddenly the water is 18C and the air temperatures at night are down to 10C. We are sailing in boots, jumpers, coats etc and sleeping under multiple blankets! The whole boat is much colder and getting out of bed in the mornings is not nice! We are also getting leaking taps etc where seals are retracting in the cold. The upside is the battery drain from the fridge/freezer is non existent!

After Mount Desert island we have been heading west and have visited Eggemoggin Reach, Seal Bay in Penobscot Sound (we did see some seals on the morning we left there) and Rockland. In Rockland we visited the Wyeth art gallery which is well worth a visit. There have been three generations of Wyeth artists and they are all extremely good although our favourite was Andrew Wyeth who died in 2009. Just south of Rockland we had our first lobster. We anchored in a bay with a good restaurant and had a lovely relaxed lunch of lobster (with wine too) followed by traditional blueberry pie.

We are currently in a boat yard in Thomaston having the generator repaired again and a few other things. Then we will head south back to the warm after a few more stops in Maine.