Day 3 Dinoflagelates, docks, and damn good coffee on the way home to
Woods Hole.
9-6-11 1035 Green House. Being in a tubby catboat tied to a dock is very different than the same boat on an anchor line. Among the positives, no rocking and rolling with every passing wavelet, and no worry about dragging and a bad lee shore experience. Among the negatives; changes in wind direction and getting chewed up by the dock. On Saturday night at Penikese, after bluefish, broccoli, and the previously un-noticed dog kibble for dinner in the gathering dark, I set out an anchor to the side of the boat to hold her away from the doc, and we went happily to bed. About a half hour later, the rising tide changed our relationship to the doc, and I got up to change the lines. By 11, the moon was down and the bumping against the doc more insistant. But it was warm and windless, and the waters were twinkling with startlight..and more! With Fuji watching disapprovingly, I went over the side and into that paradise of light that is commonly called phosphoresence. In this case, probably Noctiluca scintillans, the sea sparkle. It's brilliant greenish light in response to water movement means that your hands, feet and,yes, any body part you chose to move, is surrounded by a layer of flashing light. Warm velvet water, halo's of energy, a great reward for being up at odd hours.
About 1 AM the wind came up out of the SE,which meant that Susie P began to have a serious fight with the dock. I set a second anchor, but eventually around 4, had to recognize it was time to move. I used both of the anchor lines, and figured out how to push the boat out and around the end of the dock to hang off the other side..and managed to get it done without losing Susie P or causing serious damage to myself. Time for one more submergence into the sea of sleep, rocked by the sleeping sea. And then the sun was hinting,whispering, calling, speaking, shouting up into the eastern sky, back towards Woods Hole, and it was time to get up. Went for a walk with the little dog, on a leash because of the birds, along the rough mown paths to the old rainwater cistern, to the leprosarium bathhouse, and finally to the north end and the cemetary, where those who died during the 20 years, up to the 1920's, are buried. Back at the boat, we were sitting down to our regular kibble, bacon and eggs breakfast when Chuck, with Deb's two kids, came down to bathe, meaning swing excitingly out on the crane used to life heavy baggage to land from the supply boat, and then let go!. Chuck worked at the Penikese School. He's a chemist become molecular biologist become healer become teacher of delinquent boys. A full sized bearded friendly faced guy guy. Fuji and I walked back through the sunny windy morning with him, and hung out in the main room of the main building while he brewed coffee and Deb made pancakes. Debs day jobs center around body work these days, with a history of social work, along with raising the kids who seem bright and sparkly. Deb has one of those 'light up the whole face' smiles The room, virtually unchanged during my years of visiting, has that patina of a well used group kitchen. A mixture of rules and accepted anarchy. Wooden counters coated with the finish of many hands, many meals, and perhaps a few butts in blue jeans. Photographs, artefacts, and of most interst to me several faded and smoky fish prints in rough frames..one huge flounder, and one small black sea bass. The windows look out towards the North, and you can imagine the remanded boys, city dwellers set down in such a rural spot, watching the sea for the appearance of the supply boat. Eating Deb's pancakes and drinking the damm good coffee, we talk of schools, of drug and alcohol treatment possibilities, of whether the sea is boiling hot, and how the pig died, still without wings. Fuji hopes for more bacon, but its all gone, and time for us to go, too
Hmm, still a double reef day, with the wind now blowing straight back towards Woods Hole. I had thought to sail south through Sow and Pigs shoal and perhaps off towards Nomans, but with this wind that seems difficult. We untie, motor out, head up and hoist our reefed sail, and slam off across the wind on starboard tack towards the Canapitsit channel between Nashawena and Cuttyhunk. Penikese, as the adventure novels relate, disappears in the wake.
Most of the sailboats coming our way are running on motor under bare spars. The few going downwind are flying along on jib only. With the double reef, Susie P chuckles and gurgles and sails herself..I can literally let go of the tiller and she just sails steadily along on a easy beat upwind. We duck in close to Nashawena, come about, and are back across towards Cuttyhunk, and so on and forth until we're rounding up under the lee of Barge Beach. So called because it was constructed out of wooden railway barges towed up from New York and sunk to create a sand trap. Perhaps one day they will rot and the sea will break through and flood Cuttyhunk Pond, but for now its a wonderfully sheltered harbor. We drop the sail, tie it up the the boom, pull up the centerboard and motor towards the channel entrance. A madwoman/merwoman standing on the fore deck of an approaching 32 foot sailboat draws our attention. She's gesticulating, flailing her arms, shouting something. What, give way?? What, rocks ahead? What, cosmic bad hair day? Oh, it's Bronwen, Bronwen from Woods Hole, and she's just to saying hello!!.
Susie P follows 'Remembrance', Simon (and thus Bronwen's) boat up the channel, past the decomissioned lifeboat station, and into the harbor/pond. Most of the $35 a night moorings are taken, some huge motor yachts are backing and filling around the fuel dock, and Labor Day is clearly already in full swing. We put- put around gawking, but no real desire to go ashore. So we raft up with Remembrance, drink chocolate milk and eat cookies, and read some more of Anne Patchett while S and B head into shore to look for breakfast.
Now its after noon, and time to move on. The wind is still out of the southeast, and still pretty strong, but what the heck, we've got two reefs in. So we cast off, motor out, put up the sail and, whoops, are away downwind at a terrific pace. Against the tide and all, we must be making a full 7 knots through the water and about 5 on land. Nashawena, the beach where we have anchored in the past, the beach where the Highland cattle sniffed me awake one morning several years ago, and all the rest of its beautiful rock bound shore glides by. This is almost straight downwind, with surging waves that lift Susie's little haunches and surf her down into the next valley, and the next wave. No real danger, just the thrill of feeling the boat, all tons of her, take off on the back of a wave and act like a surfboard. Fuji does not appreciate my undivided attention on steering, and spends most of her time under the cockpit benchseat, or down in the cabin. We race by Nashawena, across the mouth of Robinsons (waves, but nothing like the day before) past Pasque, and angle a bit upwind to the right towards West End Beach on the end of Naushon.
It's bright sun and some clouds passing, lighting up the white sand beach with its green woodlands rising behind. The wind is about 15 with gusts to 20, and we come into West End beach cautiously under motor. A couple of Tupperware motor boats are anchored on double anchors near the beach, and there's a 2 foot wave running right up to the beach. But we anchor without any problem, and the big Danforth seems to hold agianst the tossing of the boat. We also put out a second anchor, to stop Susie P from swinging around on the main anchor, and after waitig ot be sure, load Fuji into the Diaper Rash and row for shore. The people from the two boats are one extended family, and no wusses either. In the continuing wind, they are broiling hamburgers and offering beer. Their black lab is happy to see us. Labs are so rewarding that way. Fuji wants to play chase, excited by the moving air. But the lab is a little old for chasing. Instead, Fuji goes wild in the little fresh water stream that has helped create this beach. Tiny troutlets in the water. Wrack and weeds from Irene's recent incursion. Spartina and other grasses, and behind it all the endless green of catbriar and poison ivy.We share a beer with the uncles and cousins, and then get our butts a little wet inthe shore break getting into the Diaper Rash to row back out to Susie P. Once there, we feast on ham and turkey sandwiches, and some more Ann Patchett. She's left Manaus now, and with the mysterious scientist are heading for what sounds like a New World version of Heart of Darkness. I know its not gonna be Platoon or Apocalypse Now, because Sala doesnt finish books like that, walks out of the movies, too.
Now its coming on 5 PM and the picnic group is rounding up coolers and kids, getting them out to the Tupperwares, starting motors, and pulling anchors. I think about spending the night here, which had been Plan A, But with the low tide, aobut 3 feet of water under us, the wind shows no sign of abating, and the 2 foot waves are starting to break before they get to us. I imagine the night ahead, the darkness, the pitching and rolling, and the worry about the anchor dragging, the sickening noises Susie P's hull will make as it grinds on the rocks. Nope, time to move on.
Two reefs are still best, and sure enough, we whirl out of the shallow bay and are careening North once agian, this time towards Kettle Cove, the next anchorage. It's only a few moments away at this speed, and clearly has the same size waves crashing on its white sand beach. Hmmm...well, two hours of light left, and perhaps it will be better in the lee of Wee Peckets. So we move on, big swoops and swooshes, constant noise of water moving, of the propellor of the motor spinning in neutral, of the breaking waves around us. The wind is if anything a little higher, and so I scandalize the sail...which means slacking the top halyard to decrease the efficiency of the sail even more. That seems to work, now I can hold a course towards Wee Peckets, whereas a few moments ago, the boat would come down a wave and fight against the rudder to head off the wind and to the right, towards the shore.
About a mile north of the passage between Wee Peckets and Naushon, the wind suddenly shifts to the SW, and I have to change tacks. Rather than jibing at this speed with this kind of following wave, I decide to come about. Whoa, that was exciting...big noises of rattling pulleys and other gear, big wallowing and rolling, and an exciting armount of flying spray as we head back out for sea room before coming about again to resume our trip. This is a little like doing a right and two lefts to negotiate a no left turn, but seems safer. And soon we are through the channel, and come about again to head left over to the downwind of Wee Peckets.
Wee Peckets is really three islands, and now a breeding ground for gulls. Once it was the main target for bombing practice for war planes flying out of Otis Airr base, which is now a military reservation. .Sometimes on a South wind there is a good lee onthe North of the main island, But not today. A 60 foot square rigger is sitting in the only real out of the wind spot. And so I imagine the night...fear of collisions added to fear of anchor dragging...about 45 minutes of daylight...and hoist sail again, to head on downwind towards the only really safe harbor for miles...Woods Hole!!
So we came flying along past Uncatena, upwind slightly to catch the current that I was convinced would be there to sweep us through the Hole and into Great Harbor.
Ooops!, Little miscalculation. The current had turned an hour earlier, and is ebbing, thus AGAINST us.
Well, nothing to lose. If we can't make it, we can always run down to Quissett, and perhaps tie up next to John's boat 'Limulus' for the night. But we might as well try.
That big wind pushed us right along into the Hole,and once there,I turned up the little engine, and we were making it. Big swirls and boils, but all familiar from early morning fishing trips. Now the current is a little stronger, and we are just about holding steady. And is the wind shifting further west? Are we gonna suddenly jibe, lose power, and start going backwards?
At that point, a strange sound., a little like the jangle of a bicycle hand bell. From behind us. I turn to look, and whoa, about 20 feet away, dead slow and right behind us, her two hulls looming on either sides of a tunnel that looks ready to swallow us up, is the Fast Ferry Catamaran!! That sorta friendly alert noise is the alternative to their air horn, which is definitly capable of causing heart attacks when heard in this situation.
The guy on the side of the wheelhouse of the Fast Ferry holds both arms out, hands up, clearly asking me what I am doing. I wave, point ot the sail, hold my own hands up; sorry, doing the best I can.
It took a very very long 5 minutes to make headway, avoid a jibe, and ease over to let the Fast Ferry by. As it did so, and gathered speed again working up to its usual blindingly fast 30 mph or so, an amplified voice said said 'Nice sailing'. Best news I have ever received from an electronic voice.
And so we got through the Hole, jibed and ran into Great Harbor, headed up, took down the sail, motored to the mooring and in the fading light, now overcast with clouds that adumbrated rain, called Sala with the last of the cell phone to say we had finished our cruise to Penikese.
Alan
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