New Bedford

N 41 37.458 W 70.54.749

This morning I created a very blog worthy disaster. I was preparing to go ashore in the dinghy. I was taking trash and a couple of gallon jugs of waste motor oil, with me. I put all this stuff in the dinghy but the cap to one of the jugs was not screwed on tight. My attention was diverted for a while. When I looked back there was a puddle of black oil all over the seat and the inside of the dinghy. What a mess! More than two quarts had leaked and mixed with the gallon of loose seawater in the bottom of the dinghy.

I changed into my most grungy set of shorts and climbed into the dinghy to clean it out. It was awful. As I climbed in it rocked the dinghy and now twice as much of the inside was dirty as before. I had to stand in the oil, and sit in the oil and put my hands into the oil to clean it up. After that, anything I touched became oily. I picked up the trash bag, it was oily. Libby took it on deck, and now Tarwathie's deck and the side of her hull were oily.

You can picture the scene. The more we tried to control the situation the worse things got and the farther the oil spread. But we kept our heads. Step one was to get the suction pump and to pump the oil and oily water into jugs. When that was done we wrapped the oily jugs in plastic shopping bags. Step two was to wipe down the dinghy with oil-absorbent rags. I don't know who invented those rags or when they were invented but they are miraculous. With only two rags and ten minutes, almost all of the oil was off the dinghy, off Tarwathie, off me and off Libby. Step three was to wash all the above with dishwashing soap. Step four was to wash myself with pumice soap. It all worked pretty well. There are some stains on the seat of the dinghy, but otherwise the mess was cleaned up.

It could have been a catastrophe, but we limited it to only disaster proportions. If I had been alone and not had Libby to help it really would have become a catastrophe. Sorry, no pictures. If we had picked up the camera it too would have been oily.

We rented a mooring here. Only $20/night, much more reasonable than some recent stops. I went ashore, disposed of the trash and old oil and bicycled into the city in search of a West Marine store. It is very hot today, about 95F (35C), and it was hard to find things. (Ah yes, I just remembered about street layouts in Massachusetts) Eventually I found the place, and I bought charts and a new cruising guide for New England. Now we're prepared to go all the way up to the Canadian border.

I also bought some groceries and located a laundromat. We'll stay here tomorrow and do more errands.

The harbor is full of commercial fishing boats. We'll be entertained watching them come in and out. The harbor is also protected by a massive hurricane barrier. We entered through the gates this morning and we are moored right behind the barrier now. The barrier seems to be about 15 feet high. It makes me think of Katrina from last year, with 25 foot storm surges. It is very scary to visualize the sea coming in over the top of the barrier.

We are also close the the Vinyard Ferries terminal. My friend Pete Lemme was heading for Martha's Vinyard soon and I suspect that he may be boarding the ferry here.

Yesterday and today we had our first experiences sailing in thick fog. Both times we were in high traffic areas. We kept a sharp lookout, we tooted on the fog horn, and we watched on radar. In both cases, we were out of the fog within an hour, and we didn't have any near collisions. I think it scared Libby more than it did me. One bad thing is that no other vessels sounded their fog horns. That's not good. Anyhow, fog is part of life here in New England.

By the way, our cruising guide (by Duncan, Duncan, Fenn and Fenn) said that there is never fog in Buzzard's Bay. We had fog our first morning here. I bought a new cruising guide today.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Fall River

Sachwest Cove, N 41 29.650 W 71 14.592

This morning as we were heading out for New Bedford, I noticed that we were passing by Fall River 5 miles to the north. Curious, I looked it up in our cruising guide. Surprise, the guide said that they had warships on display. It also said that one could pull into a cove near the warships and anchor. We changed our plans, did a 180 degree turn and headed for Fall River.

When we got there we found that the cove had been converted from an anchorage to a mooring field. We tried to raise the mooring field owner on the radio, but no joy. We picked up a mooring and I left to take care of errands first. When I returned, and before seeing the warships, there was a woman there saying that the moorings weren't free, that we would have to pay $10/hour or $35 for overnight to stay there. Wow! That was too pricey. We left right away without seeing the city's attractions. Fall River is on my list of inhospitable places.

I take great offense at municipalities or other parties that convert anchorages to mooring fields, then charge excessive fees. I understand crowding and that sometimes moorings are necessary. However, $10/day is a reasonable fee. Burlington VT charges $13, and Marathon Florida charges $7. $30/day, $45/day or $10/hour are excessive. Perhaps I should join one of those political activist groups that are trying to legally or politically block conversion of anchorages to moorings. Perhaps not, I've never heard of one of those groups winning any battles. (Tell me if I'm wrong.)

The errand I ran was to go to a Radio Shack to buy a Sirius satellite radio. I brought it back to the boat, plugged it in, called the 800 number to activate it and it works. The technology is remarkable. The sound is flawless; completely static free, and there are lots of channels. It is very analogous to satellite TV. It should provide me with a reliable source for NPR news programs independent of where I am. The footprint of the signal is all of the 48 contiguous states, plus offshore areas, plus I expect the Caribbean and Central America. The cost for the radio is 2/3 of what an ordinary good quality AM/FM portable radio would cost. New technology is better and cheaper than old stuff. A modern twist though is that Sirius will charge me $12.95/month for service. They have me on the hook.

After leaving Fall River we continued south. It was too late to make New Bedford before dark, so we put in here at Sachwest Cove which is just 1/2 mile from the sea. Tomorrow morning we'll get an early start (unless it's foggy). I'm not sure if we are in Rhode Island or Massachusetts.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

A Day In Bristol

Bristol, Rhode Island, N 41 40.010 W 71 17.186

Yesterday's favorable impressions of Bristol were reinforced today when we went ashore.

We left our dinghy at the city dock just behind the harbor master's boat and walked down to the Herreshoff museum. The road along the way was lined with wonderful 19th century homes and the stripe down the middle of the road was red white and blue. Down at the museum the first thing we saw was an America's cup 12 meter boat on the front lawn. It was the America 3.

We spent the whole morning in the Herreshoff museum. It was delightful. The wooden boats, both power and sail, were wonderfully beautiful. The stories were interesting. The history was impressive. We were interested in everything we saw. Part of the museum was the America's Cup Hall of Fame. Needless to say, that was very interesting too.

After the museum we walked downtown for lunch, a visit to the library and to a botanical garden. When we were done and it was time to row back out to Tarwathie, there was a stiff breeze. It took me a half hour of strenuous rowing to get back aboard. We're not likely to go ashore again today because of that.

Horrors! While we were ashore, Tarwathie dragged her anchor 150 feet. I had 120 feet of chain out which should have been adequate for the 21 feet depth at high tide. We also had set the anchor well according to our S.O.P. Despite that she dragged anyhow. First time she dragged since Lake Champlain last summer. Now I have 200 feet of chain out and we haven't moved an inch since. Oh well. Tomorrow our goal is Buzzard's bay.

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com

Bristol Public Library

I got an email out of the blue from Dwight and Karen, former cruisers and owners of another
yacht called Tarwatie. They provided me with this link. A link to Tarwathie Scotland.

I'll write more on this later.

Bristol Fashion

Bristol, Rhode Island, N 41 40.010 W 71 17.186

Now this is a really nice place. We're at anchor in the harbor at Bristol. Bristol is the home town of the
Herreshoff family; the yacht designers of fame. It's about 1945 in the evening and there are four one-design
Herreshoff boats maneuvering to start a race at 1900. One of the racing buoys is right near Tarwathie so we
should get some outstanding views. I'll post pictures when we can.

The Herreshoff boats are long and low, made out of wood, and beautiful to look at. They have very tall masts
also wood and bendy. They fly enormous mainsails, as if they were cat boats plus a very small jib forward.
The jibs are club footed.

On the far shore is the Herreshoff Museum. We'll go there tomorrow. It sounds interesting.

I'm really glad that we are finding Bristol so pleasant. I was beginning to get a little discouraged about
New England. Block Island was too touristy, had too many boats and was too expensive. The moorings on Block Island
cost $35 up, but we were able to anchor.

Last night we stayed in Dutch Island Harbor (N 41 29.893 W 71 23.314).
The weather forecast was for severe thunderstorms with damaging winds and we arrived there just minutes before
an approaching thunderstorm. I saw no boats anchored, so we took a mooring belonging to Dutch Harbor Shipyard.
When I went to pay I was shocked. It cost $45. The shipyard didn't even have showers or laundry or any
facilities. I felt stupid for spending money so foolishly.

Today, on the way here we stopped at Wickford RI to buy fuel. That is another place where there are only moorings
and no boats at anchor. I've heard that it is like that in Maine also with all the popular anchorages converted
to moorings to rent for a fee. If that too much true, then New England may not be affordable for cruisers like us.

Once again, I'm glad to find Bristol so nice and so affordable (so far) in contrast with the previous three places
we saw.

This morning, I couldn't get the throttle/shifter control box to work. I had to take it apart to grease the components.
I hate taking things apart that I haven't seen before because I fear not being able to put it back together. This time
I had a little luck. When it was almost all disassembled I heard a "sproing" and a spring and a ball bearing flew into
the air. Miraculously, they did not fly into the water. They stayed in the cockpit and I was able to retrieve them.
When the lubrication was done and I was nearly finished I broke off the threaded end to the throttle control cable. Oh no!
I don't have a spare for that. Fortunately, I was able to thread the stub of the broken piece to get it back together.
Eventually I'll have to get a new cable or else I'll have to make a threaded sleeve to splice together the broken pieces.

p.s. Now the sailboat race is over and my favorite won! It was exciting though because my favorite and Libby's favorite
exchanged the lead 4-5 times

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com