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.
