New Bedford 41:38N 70:55/w
Millybrown
Mark Hillmann
Sat 18 Oct 2008 04:22
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Down the US coast I found myself unable to keep up
with the blog. The navigation is intricate all the time, the lobster pots
need a constant watch (we have caught two so far) and the crew have dragged me
ashore to eat and drink nearly every night. This catches up, I will check
if we have missed much.
But last night is worth writing up: I came through the Cape Cod Canal at midnight by mistake . It was meaness really, after getting the tide wrong, I was not prepared to pay the $10/hour "waiting for the tide" fee at the Harbour of Refuge for longer than necessary. I then had to keep going across Buzzards Bay in the early hours and sailed through the hurricane barrier into New Bedford. I chickened out of finding a mooring in the dark, in the busiest fishing harbour in the world (so they say here) and went back out through the barrier to anchor until daylight. The 10lb Fortress "best anchor in the world" found weed as in Scotland and Iceland and was yet again replaced with the 35lb CQR. I have not cracked the single handed bit yet. Perhaps both chickening out and testing for anchor grip can be counted good seamanship, but I knew the Cape Cod Canal was tidal. By the time I worked out the tide time, motorsailing to windward for several hours was not enough to catch it. I am the one who tells the Americans they know nothing about tides, as there are none here. Further north in Maine this may be slightly true as the offshore currents seem weak. The Bay of Fundy, just over the border in Canada, has a 13m tidal range but it soon reduce to 3m tides in Maine. Down here there are 3 knot currents between the islands, the same as in the Maine rivers, but at home Maryport has 10m tides and the Solent and Scotland both have many 4 knot currents. New Bedford is only a few miles from Woods Hole, which I think is the US Oceanographic Institute, so perhaps I had better shut up.  New Bedford was the major American whaling
harbour, long ago. It still claims to land the highest tonnage
of fish in the US. You do not see fishing boat numbers like these in
British ports now.
I came in to a mixed yacht &
fishing boat mooring area. Piled "bow to the pier" moorings, like the
Baltic. Good thing we practised there, so I could manage today. The
town itself seemed devoid of a proper centre or many pedestrians. I will
hire a car tomorrow and join everyone else on
wheels.
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