Category: 2021 New England Sailing

Yesterday the forecast for today was mostly sunny and mid 70’s and we had planned to rent bikes to tour the island.  However we woke up to rain and the new forecast said it would be overcast all day.  Actually, it rained and was overcast early and cleared up in the afternoon.  We regrouped after our bike plan was foiled and decided to rent a car.  We dinghied into Edgartown and ubered to the airport where we picked up the car.  We went all around the island from Gay Head to Vineyard Haven to Oak Bluffs and finally took the ferry to Chappaquiddick Island.  We had lunch in Vineyard Haven at the Black Dog Tavern.  We also stopped at Alison Shaw’s gallery since we have a photo of hers that we bought when we were here about 15 years ago (for those of you who know our house it’s in the dining room).

After a lovely day we returned to the boat for a dinner of sandwiches.   We had a beautiful sunset. That evening there was sheet lighting in a cloud, something we’ve never seen, over Edgartown.  Unfortunately we couldn’t time it to get a picture.  

Here are pictures from our day.

 

We were up even earlier this morning.  We finished prepping the boat to leave and were off the dock by 5:50.  As I mentioned yesterday, rain was headed our way and we hoped to be in Edgartown before it started.  We motor sailed the whole way and pulled into Edgartown harbor by about 10.  It really looked like it was going to rain.  The sky was very black but it never rained.

The harbor is very picturesque with lots of old houses with cedar shakes.  After a brief nap for both of us and some lunch we went into town.  We walked around, checking out the shops and restaurants, and Rick bought a sweatshirt at Vineyard Vines.  We spent the remainder of the afternoon on the boat.   I was reading and Rick was watching the boat traffic.

We returned to town for dinner and an ice cream for dessert.

Here are a couple of pictures of Edgartown and the harbor.

Here is our route today.

 

We were up and off the ball by 6:20 this morning. The wind was light so we motor sailed to the little village of Menemsha, part of Chilmark, on Martha’s Vineyard.  Initially, I didn’t feel too well becauce the seas were pretty choppy and it always takes a day for me to get use to the motion. I watched the horizon and evetually I was fine.  There were a lot of lobster pots so I sat on the bow as the lobster pot lookout.  Luckily we kept the lobster pots at bay. We has a following tide which allowed us to make good time.  We came into Menemsha harbor around 11.  We were on the pier and docking was easy with the help of the harbor master.

The village of Menemsha is tiny.  It consists of a beach and two lobster shacks.  It’s a fishing community with lots of commercial fishing boats.  I think they catch a lot of swordfish here because there is a swordfish scuplture, a swordfish weathervane, and the special at one of the lobster shacks was swordfish. The town was featured in Jaws and it’s where the great white shark came into the harbor.

For lunch, Rick has seafood chowder from one of the lobster shacks and he said it was excellent.  I had a turkey sandwich.  In the afternoon, we took a dinghy ride up to Menemsha pond (about a 10 minute dinghy ride), walked along the beach, and watched the comings and goings in the harbor.  It was very relaxing.

As you can see from the pictures below it was a nice day but not very warm (even though some people braved the cool temperatures on the beach).

Here are some pictures of Menemsha.

That evening Rick had a little neck clams and a lobster roll; he’s in food heaven! I had a PB&J.  We prepped the boat to leave since it’s supposed to rain tomorrow and if possible we want to avoid sailing in the rain.  We are back on the sailing schedule.  Get up early, go to bed early!

We woke up to rain.  We planned to go into Newport first thing to get a few items that we had forgotten but the rain delayed our trip since we didn’t want to dinghy in the rain.  The weather started to clear around 11 so we decided to head into town.  After stopping at West Marine and Walmart, we returned to the boat for lunch.  In the afternoon we took the boat out into Naragansett Bay.  We wanted to familiarize ourselves with the boat mechanics and practice getting on and off the mooring before setting off.  We motored out and watched some boats’ racing. There wasn’t much wind so we didn’t bother to put up the sails.

It was still pretty cloud and there were a lot of dark clouds so we didn’t stay out for too long. I said it before but we really love the sailboat life.

After relaxing a little on the boat, we went back into Newport walked around and had a wonderful italian dinner at Mama Luisa’s.  The food was very authenic and reminded us of being in Italy. By the time we got back to the boat the weather had cleared and the stars were out.

In addition to the rain, it’s been quite chilly.  The forecast said overnight was going to get down to 58F.  We don’t have heat on the boat but luckily we brought a down comforter.

We are off on a mini (for us) adventure. We have chartered a 42 ft sailboat out of Newport RI for two weeks.  We arrived in Newport around 3:30 and were met by Brian, owner of the boat and Mike, an employee of Brian’s.  Our boat, Summer Dreams, is on a mooring so we followed Mike in our dinghy out to our home for the next 2 weeks.

Mike showed us all the specifics about the boat and then left to do it all over again with another charterer. We went back to the dock and brought two loads of our stuff (we have 50L of water plus food and clothes) back to the boat.  It feels great to be back on the water, getting ready to live on a sailboat.

After getting settled on the boat, we went out to dinner in Newport.  Over dinner we roughed out an itinerary which includes Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Provincetown, Onset, Marion, Plymouth, and Cuttyhunk.  We will see if the winds, weather, and tides cooperate to allow all these stops.  Here are some pictures of the boat.