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Date: 20 Jul 2012 03:03:43
Title: art, fish, whales, sailing, thunder and lightening - never a dull moment
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42:16.6N 70:56.75W

 

 

Mon, Tues & Wednesday – 16th, 17th & 18th July

 

During the night/early morning the fishermen moved all the dammed buoys that had made anchoring so awkward, further out into the bay.   Upside is that at least we now can't swing into them if the tide & wind conspire against us!

 

We went into town for an early lunch and to visit to the hardware shop (everything was open on Sunday - presumably it is such a short season here that they make the most of it), then Rob went back to work on board and I set off to visit as many art galleries as possible.   They are all listed in a glossy booklet and conveniently almost all are down one lane.

 

It was great to see the variety, not just anodyne seascapes as many of the towns we have visited display, but a huge variety of all genres.   Admittedly I didn't actually peruse those galleries with a wealth of homoerotic or masochistic art forms!   There were some lovely portraits - and yes quite a few simpering males, but on the whole few art club type attempts.   One gallery seemed to be the front room of a house:  I tried knocking, putting my head round the door and calling, tiptoed in and then an elderly lady tottered out on her stick, on her way to the loo and said help yourself, he'll be back soon.   And there were some superb female nudes.   Eventually an equally elderly and rather grumpy man barged in, shouting instructions evidently, to his wife but settled down to chat to me.   He was the artist, but I didn't find out his name, pricing, or anything you might expect a selling artist to impart!   After about 40 galleries in the hot sun, I called for my taxi (!) and we went off in the dinghy for a quick walk along the sand (and into the famous Edward Hopper painting of the Cape Cod lighthouse - see the photos) as the ferry washes tried to dislodge Doris from the beach.

 

We decided to leave the next day - we are due in Boston on Thursday, but the weather on Wednesday is forecast to rain so we can hole up amongst the Boston Harbour Islands then.   The night was very still, so we were treated to an endless racket of the Cormorants rattling their bills as far as we could work out - they sounded like dozens of woodpeckers at work.   There is a nesting colony on the long breakwater in the harbour - and very smelly it is too.

 

Woke up to a flat calm and slightly hazy day - so another whale hunt day.   Rob set his fishing lines as we rounded the hook of Cape Cod, passing all the fishing trip boats already ensconced by the shore at 0730 hours.   Almost immediately a huge fish hooked itself and jumped out of the water and a minute later broke off the hook - and that was that fishing-wise for the day.

 

Still near Cape Cod I spotted one pass of a black back breaking the water -  possibly a Long-finned Pilot Whale.   About an hour later as we neared the yacht we had been following out of Provincetown, my eye caught something black on the horizon and can only assume it was a whale breaching - since the other yacht quickly changed course towards the sighting, we followed suit.   We saw in the distance two whales spouting, their backs breaking the surface and several times their tails lifted as they dived.   Very exciting but I had hoped for a slightly closer encounter (yes spoilt) - Rob would rather be too far away than too close!   Later Rob spotted a Fin Whale racing away in front of the boat and managed to snap a quick photo of it.   So they are definitely out there.

 

Interestingly the boat we had discussed with the carver in P-Town (Provincetown) which he was happy to let us believe was a tuna boat, is in fact a boat employed in tagging Great White Sharks.   There is a website (http://m.capecodsharkhunters.com/) that details each day's work and much of their tagging is carried out on the east, Atlantic side of Cape Cod where there is a huge colony of seals on the beach there.   They are finding sharks as big as 18'.   Funnily enough there seems to be less detail of the location of some of their findings - they certainly didn't specify they had been in Cape Cod Bay on the day we sailed across!  The spirit of denial and Jaws lives on.

The wind filled in nicely from the southwest and we had a great sail under the full cutter rig just as we turned to the west towards Boston.   I had persuaded Rob to sail Serafina due north as we then crossed the Stellwagen Bank which is a prime whale feeding area and the wind then obliged to make it a good sail from then on.   The wind died as we neared the Boston islands so we stupidly took down the sails, as it then subsequently increased again but as we were busy navigating through channels we admitted defeat.

 

There wasn't a great choice of anchorages for protection from westerly winds so we opted for one that is supposed to have good holding in mud behind Paddocks Island.   Unfortunately Boston Harbour has re-installed the buoys which were missing last year, so the better area was filled with a mooring field.   We edged our way in as best we could, the anchor dragged a bit and then seemed to bite;  and we bounced around in a fairly gusty westerly knowing that the wind was supposed to go to the southwest when we would be better sheltered and then die away after midnight.   After an hour or so, as conditions got worse and the radio forecast indicated more of the same westerly tomorrow, we had a hasty re-consideration of our options, up anchored and motored round the island into another area surrounded by two other islands which offered better protection from the winds crossing the tidal flow.   We dropped anchor again just north of a small mooring field below Quincy Great Hill (well it’s the highest bit of land we have probably seen coastally but it is by no means soaring!) in an area not noted as an anchorage and we are by far the biggest thing here, but in considerably more shelter.   It didn't offer any respite from the ferries plying back and forth at great speed to Boston, but beggars can't be choosers.

 

Tuesday night wasn't ideal as once the ferries stopped, the fishing boats zoomed out, so Serafina did rock and roll somewhat.  

 

Wednesday morning started hot and sunny and on the quay just south of us, the fishing boats were now belting back in with loud VHF radios conversing to each other.   It transpired that today was the day that about fifteen local fishing boats together with their escort of five police boats, take disabled veterans out for a day's fishing in their wheelchairs.   So the whole operation got noisier, the boats were seriously overcrowded, and everything was conducted at full speed!   They all returned (one breaking down just by us and having to be towed in) - a whole lot quieter - at around lunchtime, just as the weather deteriorated rapidly and we were treated to an afternoon of a somewhat aimless thunderstorm and heavy rain but this did have the advantage of flattening the sea which very unusually had come out of the east.   We hailed one of the Police boats (Quincy Police) to find out what the outing had been about and the officers explained. They then asked if we had sailed the whole way here from England so we explained what we had done so far. They were suitably impressed and then the senior officer offered his apologies for the poor quality of American beer!

 

Roll on a real live marina berth tomorrow!

 

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