Nip left Tenants Harbor at 9:00AM and by the time I was boarding my 11:30 AM flight from LGA, he was pulling up to DeMillo's dock in Portland. Two and one half hours! It was going to be an excellent adventure. We met the Wagners at Flatbreads down on the Portland Waterfront. Delicious homemade pizzas. Then off to the fish market to purchase dinner which Whit was cooking. For those of you who have had a Whit Wagner dinner, you know how delicious this is going to be. And it was ... grilled swordfish with a rissoto. Oh my! After a quick trip to the local sweet shop, we gathered Mrs Potter and her friend, piled them in our boat, Rum Drop and headed for Prouts Neck which was to be our first port of call. But not so fast! Halfway out of the harbor we lost linkage in the port engine controls. For those of you who don't know what that means, you can learn right along with me. You'll be glad to know that Nip knew exactly what the problem was called, we just needed to find someone to fix it. Off to Sprague's Marine, (thank you, Wags) and within ten minutes a man had met us, opened the cover on the port engine, reconnected the linkage which had become pinched and disconnected, put the cover back on and we were good to go!!! So everyone got back on the boat and off we went. (A special thank you to Chris DeMillo who created dock space for us at his yard even though he was "an inboard guy".)
We pulled into Prouts an hour later and unloaded. Henry Wagner followed Nip down to the mooring in the river. (Thank you Bob and Sarah Gould. That is a great mooring) while Helen and I went up to the house, unloaded and had a little nap before hottubbing, drinks and a delicious and fun dinner. I doubted that any of our future evenings would be so plush!
Friday, September 4th:
Off to the dock at 7:15AM with Whit, Helen and Henry. Wow, what a send off. Thanks Guys!Henry dropped us at the boat with Wagners waving from the dock, we were off on a gorgeous morning with relatively flat calm seas. We passed Boone Island with it's red bricked light appearing right out of the ocean and then on to the Isle of Shoals, (pictured here) which are islands in the middle of nowhere off of Portsmouth, NH. They are a cluster of small islands. One was called "Smuttynose". Love that. In the picture you can see a big beautiful wooden hotel just sitting on this island. Amazing! We pushed on to Cape Anne, deciding to cruise the Annisquam river and Byman canal instead of going around. Beautiful. It was a good time to have lunch while slowly navigating the sandy river. Out into Gloucester Harbor and tucked in by Manchester Harbor, skimmed West Beach and poked around Marblehead Harbor. You could almost walk from boat to boat the harbor was so full. We saw the Casey's light blue Little Harbor called Manticore getting ready for a trip. We also saw Sea Blitz, a red Hood/Zurrin design owned by the Noyes. They looked like they were heading out as well. It was a gorgeous day! Then on to Boston.
We entered the harbor via the North Channel passing high speed ferries, some tugs and some beautiful sailboats all enjoying the day. At the Longwarf docks, we saw some tri-decks. One was sporting the Ocean Reef burgee. Another beautiful boat was called Mary Alice. her dinghy was the size of our boat. Tucked up next to the Charlestown Bridge is the Constitution Marina. Great place. We tied up, headed for the pool and cooled off, relaxed and napped.
.At 6:15PM, we picked up Courtney and some of her buds from the Longwharf and cruised around the busy harbor at sunset while the full moon was rising. We had so much fun. It was so beautiful. At 7:30 while still light out, we dropped them off headed back to our slip. Off across the street, we dined at a place called "Olive's". I highly recommend it! Came back to the boat ... no shore power. Didn't matter, we curled in with the hatch open and fell sound asleep with a cool breeze blowing.
Saturday, September 5th:
We showered at the marina and said "Good-bye" to some friends we met. (Hi Patrick, Tom, Sheila and Tara) Had some quick photo ops and signings, got some advice about making and eating our lunch in the canal and off we went at the crack of 10:30. (We did have to wait for Courtney to walk down to the boat.) As you can see from the picture....it was another 10! And just a beautifully calm ocean. We headed directly, or as directly as we could, for the Cape Cod canal. We weren't alone. Who did we meet at the entance to the canal?... Mary Alice. She is so large that she had to radio ahead and communicate with the canal master to get permission to enter and a coast is clear sign. It is a little skinny in there for a boat her size. The tide in the canal was falling and the current going through the canal was amazing. An "E" ticket ride is the best way to describe some of the water at the mouth and turns in the harbor. And low and behold, who were we following? The Manticore was also rocking and rolling their way through the canal on their way to Marion. Preparing lunch in the canal was hysterical. I felt like I was doing a plate-spinning routine. But everyone got fed and we made it out the other side to Buzzards Bay. Apparently, some one yelled, "Go"! and everyone ran to their boats and floored it across the bay. I have never seen so many boats going in so many different directions so fast. Hysterical. On through Woods Hole which was another ride. Speed boats flew through and small boats almost buried their bows in the waves. Safely out of Woods Hole, we headed across the sound for Osterville or West Bay. We pulled into West Bay @ 2:15PM. The first boat we pass in the channel is the Wyeth's boat, Dreadnought from Tenants Harbor. What are the chances of two boats from the same small harbor in Maine finding each other? Well Jamie's wife happens to be from Osterville as do I and her family was having a wedding in town so I guess the odds got better. We headed for Crosby's and waiting for us in front of the Wianno Yacht Club is our welcoming committee, Ginny and Will Stevens, Tom and Todd McInerney. Now I know I am home. We gassed up at Crosby's, unloaded at the Ellis' dock (Thank you sooo much Ellis clan) and picked up the Phillips' mooring just off the Kjorlien dock. Thank you Karen and Mrs Kjorlien!!! My sister met us at the dock and we waved "good-bye" to Rum Drop for the week. A big thank you goes out to Matt Carstensen at the Oyster Harbors marine. He came out on a blowy rainy Sunday and adjusted shore power and generator and made us all happy again. You are the best Matt.I promise not to be so mind-nubingly detailed in the next post. This is the first leg and there was so mauch to say.. I know, hard to believe for me, huh? Until next leg!
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