Rick woke up at 4:30, thinking about our trip back to Newport. Our plan was to go to Cuttyhunk and spend one or two nights there and then go back to Newport on Wednesday. Rick listened to the NOAA weather on the radio and it didn’t sound good. There is a hurricane, Franklin, off coast of Florida which will be generating waves and wind for us as early as Wednesday.
Our fearless captain, looking his best!
We talked about our plan. It would be a long passage back to Newport, maybe as long as 10 hours if the current wasn’t with us, so at 8:30 we needed to make a decision quickly (the charter contract prohibits sailing after sunset). The downside was the forecast said fog, thunderstorms and scattered showers were possible today. But the weather could be worse tomorrow, depending on what happens with Franklin. If we were going to Cuttyhunk we couldn’t leave until 11:30 because we need to time to trip with slack tide at Quick’s Hole. Kathryn didn’t think Rick could sit there until 11:30 worrying about it so we decided to go. The duration of the trip ended up being far shorter than 10 hours because the current was in our favor and contributed about 2+ knots to our overall speed, yet again. We didn’t put up the sails because the winds were less than 5 knots, very light, coming from behind us, which would have contributed nothing to our progress. We made it to the mooring in Newport by 4. We relaxed that evening. When we listened to the forecast upon our arrival we were glad we had made the return journey.
We are working on finishing our leftovers so we had dinner on the boat.
Having decided to spend another night in Edgartown we were looking for something interesting to do. We decided we wanted to have lunch in Menemsha and were considering various options to get there. In the end we determined that renting a car would give us the greatest flexibility. To avoid dealing with the dinghy dock we took the launch into the town docks and from there we took a taxi to the airport where we got the car. We “hit the road” by 9:30.
We headed towards Aquinnah and stopped at various shops and craft fairs along the way, including Alley’s General Store, Chilmark General Store, and Allen Sheep & Wool Farm. At the craft fair, Rick had extensive discussions with several potters, a weaver and of course, a photographer. We also stopped at Lobsterville beach. Here are pictures from the farm and the beach.
We arrived at Aquinnah and checked out the cliffs and the light house. According to a sign at the lookout, the Aquinnah Wampanoag believed that Moshup, a benevolent giant, created Martha’s Vineyard and the surrounding islands. He lived in a den on the cliffs of Aquinnah and would wade into the water to catch whales which he would cook for the Wampanoag. Blood from the whales stained the cliffs red and coals from Moshup’s fire account for the black. The Aquinnah Wampanoag consider the frequent fog in the area to be smoke from Moshup’s pipe, a sign of his happiness with the Wampanoag.
Menemsha was the next stop. It was quite crowded and we had trouble getting a parking spot but eventually we did. Rick decided to get his lunch from Larsen’s Seafood. Rick was very happy with his seafood chowder and salmon cake, the stuffed scallop not so much. Kathryn had expected to find something other than seafood but there was NOTHiNG so she had to be happy with an ice cream. Such sacrifice she’s willing to make for Rick!!!
Beach at MenemshaMenemsha harbor
After lunch we went to Vineyard Haven because there was a store that Kathryn wanted to visit. It turns out there was a big music festival in Vineyard Haven so there was lots of traffic. We finally got there and found a place to park. Kathryn went to the store and they didn’t have what she was looking for. We could hear the music, a Canadian band called Alvvay was playing and they were quite good. We decided to walk over to the festival where we learned that tickets were $150/person which was more than we were willing to pay. So, we walked back to the car and decided to go to our favorite Vineyard gallery — the Granary Gallery. They sell work from a photographer named Allison Shaw who we really like. We have a print of hers in our dining room. She has done a series of wooden dinghies framed in shadow boxes that would look really nice in the downstairs hallway.
A page in a book with pictures of all the dinghies
We are thinking about it as we are still thinking about the painting we saw in the Seychelles which would look fantastic in our kitchen. We went over to the Granary’s sister gallery, the Field Gallery, but we didn’t see anything we liked.
By this time we’d seen everything we wanted to see so we went back to Bad Martha’s for a beer and a bowl of nuts.
After Bad Martha’s we returned the car to the airport, took a taxi back into Edgardtown and returned to the boat. Neither of us was very hungry, too many nuts, but we really needed to cook the tuna. So Rick did and he had a good sliced tuna sandwich. Kathryn is still working on the chicken from several days ago. All in all a very nice day.
We woke to overcast and rainy weather but the sun started to poke through by 9. We listened to the weather and decided we would stay in Edgartown at least through Sunday night.
After showers and Rick finally shaving we went into town. We start by finding a coffee shop and enjoying some tea and coffee. Then we headed over to The Carnegie museum where we learned a little of the history of Martha’s Vineyard.
It was formed when the last great North American glacier retreated some 10,000 years ago.
It was inhabited by the Wampanoag for thousands of years. In 1642 the Wampanoag numbered somewhere around 3,000 on the island.
In 1602 an English vessel named the Concord, with Captain Bartholomew Gosnold anchored on the shores of Martha’s Vineyard. A shore party, dispatched to explore the island, reported finding a profusion of grape vines that prompted the Captain to name the island Martha’s Vineyard. Martha was either his daughter or his mother-in-law, who helped financed the voyage.
After our history lesson, we walked to Edgartown Pizza for a meatlovers pizza. There, Rick iniated a conversation with the owner and we learned about the pizza restaurant business, Martha’s Vineyard real estate and his other property in Israel. It was a lengthy conversation.
The Meat and Fish market was next to the pizza place so we stopped in. (The area where the car drove through the window had been repaired.) We bought a half rack of lamb. On our way back into town we stopped at Bad Martha’s brewery where Rick had a beer and of course a conversation with the bartender. We also bought some beer for the boat. Since Rick had a beer, Kathryn had to get some ice cream, so we made another pit stop at Scoops, the ice cream shop downtown.
We arrived at the dinghy dock and extricated our dinghy with the help of another couple. I don’t know why they don’t have a larger dinghy docking area????
We returned to the boat and decided to get fuel and water. Our fuel gauge said we were down only ¼ of a tank, but fuel gauges are often faulty on boats, especially charter boats. Also, we had emptied one of the two water tanks, so we wanted to fill that up too. We went to the fuel dock, tied up easily, and filled the boat with diesel and the dinghy with gas. Water was at a separate dock, so we headed there. It was unmanned so Kathryn had to jump off onto the dock to tie up the boat. We filled our water tanks and head back to our mooring.
While relaxing and watching the sunset we saw a seal cruising the mooring field, looking for fish. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a picture of the seal, but we did get a picture of the sunset.
It started raining in the middle of the night and was raining when we woke up. We were watching the weather trying to find a dry window to go into town. The forecast kept shifting and around mid-morning we just gave up and decided to go in. Here’s a lovely picture of me pumping the rainwater out of the bottom of the dinghy.
We donned our foulies (Rick’s term for our foul weather gear) and set off. Not many boats were in the mooring field or at the dinghy dock. I guess Edgartown in the rain isn’t a big draw. Our plan was to go to meat and fish market and the grocery store, then bring the food back to the boat and potentially go back into town to see a couple of museums if we weren’t monsooned by that point.
We started our walk to the meat and fish market and got waylaid by a coffee shop with a covered outdoor courtyard. We got our coffee and tea and all the tables were taken so we squeezed on the end of one that was occupied by a family. Of course Rick started talking to them. They were a couple with three kids and the kid’s friends, all from Hampton, NH. The mother had been a ballerina and taught ballet for Boston Ballet. We had a very interesting conversation about her professional experiences.
Once warm and fed (really good almond croissants!) we continued our walk. It was a little over a mile to the meat and fish store, drizzling the whole way. We were dry and comfortable in our foulies. We got to the store and it was closed because someone had accidently driven through the front of the store — apparently the fourth occurrence. We headed on to the Stop N’ Shop and did our grocery shopping. We stopped at another fish market on the way back to town and got scallops and tuna.
It was about 12:30 by this time so we went to a downtown restaurant — The Wharf — for lunch where Rick has some excellent clam chowder and Kathryn had a Caesar salad. Bellies full we dinghied back to boat (dinghying in the rain is pretty miserable). Back at the boat we put the groceries away and didn’t really feel like putting our wet foulies back on so we spent the afternoon in the boat listening to the rain. We checked the weather because we were hoping to go to Nantucket tomorrow. Unfortunately more rain is scheduled for tomorrow morning with very high wind gusts so we are scrapping the Nantucket idea and just sticking around in Martha’s Vineyard.
That evening Rick had his scallops — fresh from Menemsha — and Kathryn had a turkey sandwich. It’s hard to make two separate dinners on a two-burner stove. After dinner we read and made it an early night.
Well, we were supposed to sleep in but it was hard with the sun streaming through the hatch over our heads. It was a beautiful morning in a beautiful place so we didn’t mind being up early. As usual, Rick was on deck drinking coffee and watching the comings and goings of boats, wildlife and engaging with our boat neighbors. We had a relaxing morning; its highlight being a trip to town to dump our garbage and say goodbye to the folks from Philly we had met in Newport. We left Cuttyhunk around 10:30 with a parade of boats all heading toward Quick’s Hole.
We all had to time it just right so it was slack tide at Quick’s Hole when we reached it. Maximum current through the hole is approx. 3.6 knots coming from Vineyard Sound when the current is flowing, which means if your boat can motor at 5 knots you’ll only be able to make 1.4 knots. That would leave very little forward thrust for steerage — especially when you consider the route through the hole is surrounded by shallows and rocks.
All good. We had about a half a knot of current coming towards us at our entry point. (There are tide charts and other tools that allow you to predict current through the hole at any given date and time.) Perfect conditions!
Once through the hole the current in Vineyard Sound was pushing us toward the northeast, giving us an extra 2 knots in the direction of our destination, Edgartown. We made great time. There wasn’t a lot of wind, so we motored the whole way. Here are some lighthouses we passed on our route.
We rounded west and east chop on Martha’s Vineyard and the current remained strong and with us. At one point we were making almost 8 Knots, more than the theoretical hull speed of the boat.
Our passage to Edgartown remained swift and easy. We reached the small channel entrance to Edgartown harbor, radioed the harbormaster of our arrival and proceeded to the mooring field. The harbormaster radioed our mooring assignment and the search was on. We had to hunt for our mooring ball because we were destined for the innermost reaches of the mooring field. We are located about a 10-minute dinghy ride from the dinghy dock. Nothing we’re looking forward to if the predictions of rain and thunderstorms manifest themselves tomorrow!
Once situated we went into town to walk around. The dinghy dock was so crowded that the dinghies were 3 deep. Luckily someone was leaving so we helped them get out by pushing dinghies out of the way and then took their spot.
Edgartown is quite small, so it didn’t take us long to walk the entire downtown area. We looked at the menus of a bunch of restaurants but nothing really interested us. (At $50 an entree we were even less interested.) So, we bought a nice bottle of wine, went back to the boat and Rick made spaghetti sauce with steak leftover from the other night. We sat, talked, drank a good bottle of Brunello and had a good meal. It was a very nice evening!
Now it’s time to hit the sack and get ready for our rainy day tomorrow.
We were up very early this morning because we our goal was to get to Cuttyhunk, 36 nautical miles away, about 7 hours sailing, and we wanted to arrive early enough to get a mooring. The alarm was set for 5AM but it was too dark to even think about setting off. We ended up leaving around 6. The water was pretty choppy when we left the harbor. It was choppy enough for water to spray on the dodger (also known as a spray hood protecting the cockpit). Shortly after rounding the first bouy we were able to get a sail up to gain some speed and reduce the effect of the chop. It helped some. The rigging on this boat is somewhat convoluted with the main and the jib using the same winch and we found it confusing initially. It didn’t matter much because we were too close on the wind for the jib to be of any help, so we quickly brought it in. With time the seas flattened out and we had a nice sail.
We arrived at Cuttyhunk around 1 and there were plenty of mooring balls.
After getting the boat safely moored we dinghied into “town” and Rick got a cup of clam chowder for lunch.
We walked around a little and ran into our Newport boat neighbor. We talked to them for a while. They only had the boat for a week so they spent Sunday night in Cuttyhunk and Monday and Tuesday nights in Vinyard Haven. They will spend tonight on Cuttyhunk again and then return to Newport tomorrow.
We returned to our boat to plan our trip to Edgartown and book a mooring there. For dinner, Rick cooked the steak that we had brought for Kathryn and he had a stuffie that we bought on shore. A stuffie is a stuffed quahog which he really enjoyed. Tomorrow we get to sleep in because we need to time our departure to accommodate the current through a relatively narrow channel called Quick’s Hole that runs through two of the Elizabethan Islands.
The wind was really blowing last night. We had several loud thuds that woke us up and we got up to investigate. I think the dinghy got trapped under the swim platform so the last time we got up we raised the swim platform and didn’t hear anymore loud thuds. The small craft advisories were still in effect when we got up, so we weren’t going anywhere. Just about everyone in the mooring field felt the same way and no one no one seemed to leave until much later in the day.
After breakfast we went ashore and walked over to Old Harbor, where the fire was. We took our time stopping at interesting shops and checked out restaurant menus. Here are some pictures from our walk.
We walked by the beach and there were white caps. At that point we decided we were spending another night here. If we went to Newport we would be headed directly into the wind and the waves. Not a pleasant sail! NO THANK YOU!
Not surprisingly the hotel was pretty much gone. It’s very sad that such a historic landmark is no longer with us. It seems doubtful that it could be resurrected. Here’s a picture of it.
We walked back to the boat and considered have lunch out but decided to return to the boat for hamburgers. We relaxed for the afternoon.
Around 7 we headed into have some dinner. We had drinks and a calamari appetizer at Dead Eye Dicks. When we got back to the boat, we got ready to leave because we plan to be off the ball by 5:30. Our plan is to go to Cuttyhunk which is about an 8-hour sail. We want to get there early enough to get a mooring.
Ok, finally our sailing trip has begun!!! We left Newport this morning and headed to Block Island. It turned out that the fire did not impact that harbor and, while it was a little foggy early, the fog quickly burned off. So Block Island here we come.
It was a nice day, only slightly overcast. We put the main sail up after leaving Newport harbor and motor sailed part of the way to Block Island. The new GPS system worked just fine. We arrived at the Great Salt Pond Harbor on Block Island around 1:00. There were plenty of free moorings and we had no trouble picking one up. The moorings are very tight, I don’t think they could squeeze another boat in here!
We dinghied ashore and went to Dead Eye Dick’s for lunch.
After lunch we dinghied around the pond and then returned to the boat.
We relaxed/napped the afternoon away.
After resting we investigated local harbors in an effort to plan the rest of our trip. We had planned to go to Long Island but upon further research it looks difficult for us to get there. There would be some very long sails, questionable weather, and timing constraints associated with tides and currents. So we are working on plan B. It looks like the weather could keep us in a harbor on Friday so we are trying to figure out where we would want to be for two nights. Right now I think we will spend two nights in Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard. Having said that we have to see what tomorrow brings since currently there are small craft advisories. As I hear Rick say all the time “it’s about wind and weather.” Stay tuned!
A second slow day. Rick was up for a significant part of the night, thinking and worrying about the GPS. In the morning we downloaded the app, Navionics, that our boat neighbors spoke about, onto our ipad. Rick spent some time learning the software and we headed out. We rounded Fort Adams Point and were headed out the channel, however, the software did not show that we were moving. It turns out that the software can’t use wifi to triangulate position, rather it needs cell service to triangulate off of cell towers. Problem . . . our iPad does not a cellular plan. So we decided to return to the mooring and go to Verizon to put the iPad on our cellular plan. We easily picked up the mooring (not always the case) and got resituated.
We dinghied back to the dock and the car. We drove to Verizon where we learned that our iPad could not accept a cellular signal, so we ended up buying a new tablet. Luckily the Verizon sales person was a sailor and familiar with the software that we want to load on the tablet. We think we are back in business. This GPS has been an expensive problem both in terms of time and money.
After our Verizon visit we wanted to go out to lunch. We tried an old favorite restaurant at the Goat Island Marina but wasn’t serving food, something about a lease and a cook, so we went to another place recommended by the Goat Island Marina bartender and had some lunch.
Rick checking out our new tablet over lunch.
We returned to the boat in time for Kathryn’s family call.
That evening we cooked the chicken that we had brought because we don’t have a freezer and figured we either needed to cook it or throw it out. Neither of us wanted chicken so we will probably turn it into chicken salad. Instead we had our lunch leftovers. While the chicken was cooking we spent a little more time learning Navionics. Our tentative plan for tomorrow is to go to Block Island however there may be a couple of issues. The first is that there was a big fire there on Friday night a state of emergency was issued, so we have left a message for the harbormaster to see if boats are welcome. The second potential issue is that fog is forecasted for tomorrow morning and we can’t move safely in fog so fingers crossed!
We don’t have much to write about today. This morning we did some shopping, mostly buying things that we forgot. We came back to the boat and had lunch. We had planned to go out for an afternoon sail but Rick tried to use the GPS and found that it was missing data. The boat next to us is owned by the same charter company so Rick went over to see if they were having the same problem. They plan to use a program on their IPad but are unsure if they will have a cell signal while away from land so in our opinion it’s viability is questionable.
We decided to go into town for ice cream (because ice cream makes everything better) and to buy some navigation charts. When we came back to the boat Rick fiddled with the GPS some more and it was still missing data. We called the technical manager for the charter company and he couldn’t offer any solutions. Rick is not comfortable going to the Long Island Sound with this potential issue so we are currently thinking that we will sail to places that we are familiar with. Our plan is to go to Cuttyhunk tomorrow and see how the GPS functions. Once we have more information we’ll decide how to proceed.
I’m feeling a little frustrated that this GPS situation has caused us to miss a day of sailing but it is what it is and instead I’m trying to think about the beautiful sunset.
