Kathryn & Rick's Blog

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!

Quick’s Hole (locally /ˈkwɪksɪz/)^[2] is the strait in Massachusetts‘ Elizabeth Islands separating Nashawena Island from Pasque Island. It is one of four straits allowing maritime passage between Buzzards Bay and the Vineyard Sound.

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. 

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. 

We are back on the ocean.  We have chartered a sailboat out of Newport, RI for two weeks with tentative plans to head down the Long Island Sound. 

Leaving East Brookfield around 11:30 we arrived in Newport around 1:30. We were supposed to get on the boat at 5:00 so it appeared we might have a long wait.  We killed time by getting a parking pass and having some lunch at the Fort Adams concierge.  Here are some pictures taken from the marina.

Luckily we were able to get on the boat a little early.  At 4:00 we dinghied out to Summer Star with Andy, who provided an overview of the boat.  Summer Star is a 42 ft Jeanneau with three cabins and two heads. 

We had lots of stuff, but it only took two dinghy trips to get it all to the boat.  Here are some pictures of the boat (I’ll post a picture of the boat itself tomorrow). 

We spent the next hour or so getting settled and unpacking.  We decided we just wanted to relax on the boat, so we ate onboard and watched the sunset.  It’s really nice to just listening to the water lapping against the boat, hear the clinking halyards on the boats around us and feel its gentle rocking.