Cape Cod

Cape Cod
N 41 55.023 W 070 30.984

We have a guest crew person on board. My sister Nancy met us in Marblehead and she'll sail with us to New Bedford. It's a real treat having her on board. In normal circumstances we could never get Nancy away long enough to sail with us. Besides being a soccer mom, and an electrical engineer (like me), she is also a business executive. However, just now Nancy is between jobs, so she took advantage of her rare freedom to join us.

The weather forecast called for SW winds at 5 knots. Fortunately, they were wrong once again. We had 15 knot winds, mostly on the nose, but just perfect to sail close hauled the whole day and most of the night. It was a fun day and a great experience for Nan. She had never sailed at night before. The lights of Boston on the horizon at night looked especially nice.

Finally, at 0300 this morning, the winds dies out. We motored only one hour to reach shore and now we're anchored a few miles away from the north end of the Cape Cod canal. This morning, when the tidal current reverses, we'll traverse the canal.

I had an encounter with a tugboat towing a barge last night. It wasn't a close call, he never got closer than 1 mile. The problem is that I have a devil of a time interpreting the navigation lights they carry. It looked to me like he was heading directly at me. I called on the VHF and asked the tug captain. No problem, he could see me and his heading was 90 degrees away from me.

Now there's yet another thing to worry and fret about. Our friends Dave and Hilde on Raven are holed up in San Antonio Texas hiding from hurricane Ike. They should be OK, but I think that Raven is still tied up at the dock in Kema Texas, near Galveston, and right in Ike's path. We'll cross our fingers on their behalf.