Fujin returns home to Bristol RI for the winter

Sad and happy to say that Fujin is safely tied up to a mooring in Bristol Harbor after a 117 mile trip from Boston.

Our friend Phil joined me (Bob) for the trip which started at 12:20 AM Saturday morning.  Just to be responsible adults, we brought Phil's fancy offshore lifefraft from his boat over to Fujin.  In the process, I almost inflated it as we pulled it out of the locker.  That would have been an expensive trip-ending catastrophe!

Anyway, our intention was to get through the Cape Cod Canal before noon when the current switches against us.  Phil and I raised the sails as soon as we passed Boston Light at about 1:30 AM and could turn a little to the south.  We had a moderate but very steady wind and rode a fantastic close reach all the way to the canal.  We rarely fell below 6 kts all night.   We were dropping the sails to enter the canal at 8:30.  Fantastic!

Other than being really quite chilly, you couldn't ask for a nicer night sail.

Sunrise nearing Sandwich, MA

Clouds lit by sunrise over the canal

Provincetown monument to the North East

The first 103 miles

Flying through the canal

At 9am, the canal was at peak current.  With low revs on the engine we were making around 10kts.  We were at the railroad bridge in about 40 minutes.  I took the time to play galley whench and make us some breakfast.  It was awful* I should never be allowed to cook breakfast again.

*my attempt to avoid cooking in the future

Taking photos in the canal while cooking breakfast

Birding in the Canal

Forcast says...
Great wind from... exactly the wrong direction.  This was destined to be one of those arduous Buzzards Bay passages.  We sailed a bit as we left the canal but as soon as we turned westward toward Newport, we had wind right on our noses. 

We motored for a while and attempted sailing (with lots of tacking) a few times, but generally the last 30 miles down Buzzards Bay was pretty awful.  Strong wind in our face and big breaking waves coming right at us.  With the engine cranked, we were making maybe 3.5kts.  I started not feeling so great.  Phil "iron-stomach" sat calmly eating peanuts as Fujin got slammed in the waves.  These last few hours before turning into Newport seemed to take as long as the previous 12.

Enjoy some Buzzard Bay sunset photos

To the eye, this looked like a painting on canvas

Tricky entrance to Newport in the dark

It seemed to take forever but we were eventually able to make the turn north into Newport.  It was about 6:30p and getting dark fast.  Linda was already at (nice warm) restaurant at Bannister Wharf waiting for us.  She helped us find where to go via cell phone.  It's very hard to see anything in the harbor as you approach the town because everything is so lit up on shore your eyes don't adjust to the dark.  Phil went to the bow with his powerful LED searchlight and kept shouting back collision avoidance instructions to me "port... port!  PORT!!!  HARD PORT!!!!"

Eventually we found Bannister amidst all the marinas and could see Linda standing on the fuel dock.  I backed into the slip and felt a lot of relief.


Guest accommodations provided by...

Linda's friends Lori and Todd who live in Newport graciously put us up for the night.  They were very concerned for our comfort but Phil and I probably could have slept on barbed wire that night.   Next day, after a fantastic breakfast (way better than I could ever make**), conversation, and photo ops, Phil and I and our new crew addition Greg, boarded Fujin and headed north toward Bristol

**let's stick with that

The forecast was for light winds from the North.  Bummer.  We only had 13 miles or so to go so we figured we would sail whenever we could even if it was slow.

About to motor under the Newport bridge heading north to Bristol

Fantastic Finish

As we passed the last island before Bristol Harbor, the winds picked up and turned westerly and we flew!   At first we were thrilled to see 4kts on the display.  Then we went for 5 and got it.  Could we get 6?  yes we got it.  7?    Yes!  we had a peak of 7.3kts.  Rail was almost in the water.  It was awesome to return into Fujin's birth-port under sail

Click here to see the whole photo album

2011-oct-fujin-bristol

Fujin With full sails on a light wind day near Boston Light Boat Shooter Yacht photo sharing

Trip to Portland Maine early September

18:43 Leaving Boston

Our departure was unfortunately delayed by prior commitments (jobs) until about 6:45 pm.  We had the boat mostly provisioned the day before.  It was going to be a moonless 95 mile sail through the night.  Bob estimates arriving in Portland at 2:43 the next day (and he wasn't far off).

Rounding Deer Island with Boston fading into the distance

 We had great wind leaving the harbor.  Great in terms of strength, but awful direction.  We figured we could start sailing as soon as we got round Deer Island.  When we made the turn, the direction was good but it started weakening.  Still we got all the sails up and made around 4 kts.

Unfortunately, it continued to die and within just a couple hours we were motoring.  This would continue for the next almost 10 hours.  Ugh!

The instrument pod around 2am

It was a very dark night with no moon.  The stars were incredibly brilliant though and we could see quite a few meteors.  It also started to get a bit foggy around Cape Ann.   I tried to spot the lobster pots before hitting them but it's really almost futile.  As my friend Phil says "just run over them and hope for the best". 

First Light off the coast of Maine

After so many hours of motoring, I was really looking forward to first light.   I needed to sleep!  I think this is the best part of overnight sailing - that color as the sky just first starts to light.

As expected, the sun came up and we also got a little breeze.  We put the sails up and Linda took over but it was such a beautiful morning, I didn't want to just go to sleep so I grabbed a fishing pole.  No, nothing but who cares.

Multi-tasking

yaaaaay wind yaaaayyyy

ZZZZZZZZZZ
I went below and fell into a deep sleep for a couple hours.   When I woke up, I heard some "ticking" noise.  To me, it sounded like a halyard tapping the mast in the wind.  But when I got up to the cockpit, the noise was coming from below somewhere in the drive train!   I quickly pulled everything out of the aft cabin and removed all the access panels.   We had some sort of rotational noise happening but I didn't know where from yet.  It didn't sound like the xmission, or the stuffing box.  It sounded more like it was from under the boat.  My only guess was that a zinc came loose on the prop shaft and it was flopping around on there.   We went with that theory and continued on to Portland.

Casco Bay chart

Almost to Portland
After a few more hours, we could see the light at Cape Elizabeth.  Once we rounded the cape, there was only about 5 or 6 miles left.  Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?

For some reason, Linda took lots of pictures of shirtless Lobstermen

Landed
Finally at about 2pm, were were on our slip at Dimillo's Marina in Portland.  I quickly became unconscious. 

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

After getting settled and checking in, we had a quick bite and beer at Dimillo's Floating Restaurant and then headed out to explore Portland.

Best Pizza ever

We were tired but we had a plan to see a band at Geno's Rock club on Congress St and they didn't start until 10pm.   We lasted for a few songs and headed back.


Portland Day 2: Morning Boat Maintenance
I thought I'd dive under the boat and see if my guess was right about the loose zinc.   Sure enough, the zinc (the only zinc) was ready to fall off.   I grabbed a hex wrench and with a few dives was able to tighten both screws.  Man is the water cold in Maine!

Have hex key, will dive

Seals zigzagging in the channel outside of DiMillo's

The Visitor
Our buddy Greg drove up to Portland to meet us for what should have been a day sail around the Casco Bay islands.  The wind had other ideas though and it got very light around the islands.  Our only choice was the open bay and even this was pretty light.

Scenes like this are common in Casco Bay

Greg is promoted to skipper

Portland Day 3
Today, there was actually some wind but we chose to be tourists and explore the town.  Exploring of course includes shoe shopping.

I'll take one of each

Portland Day 4: Forecast says...
Head home.    We were looking at 3 days in a row of South or South-west winds.  We decided to leave a day early and break up the trip since it would involve a lot of motoring.  We had no reservations anywhere and it's a holiday weekend.

Portland Sunrise as we head out of the harbor.  Destination unknown

We finally decided on Portsmouth NH as our next stop for the day.  As we rounded Cape Elizabeth, we got a decent angle on the wind and were able to sail a bit.

Linda hoisting the Main in her PJs

Rough ride
The sailing didn't last long.  We were just too high up into strong winds and 4 foot seas.  We had to revert to the Diesel for most of the way to Portsmouth.   We spent most of the day getting beat up pretty good on these waves.  We both took the blue tablets but Linda got pretty sick.

Seasick

We were finally able to sail for the last few miles into Portsmouth.  We picked up a ball in their transient field but then they moved us over close to the yacht club on a ball which just opened up.   The Launch driver was even nice enough to give us a lift into town.

Whaleback Light in Portsmouth Harbor

River Current on our mooring ball

Foggy Portsmouth Morning

Day 5: Off to... ???
Today we switched roles.  Linda sailed and Bob was galley whench and communications officer.  Bob did better in the galley.  I couldn't find any place that would take us for the night either north or south of Cape Ann.  We got a really  nice breeze off of the NH coast at a decent angle and had the toe rail in the water!

Linda in the galley at 30 degrees

Almost

Back in Massachusetts
We still didn't know where we would spend the night but Linda wanted to visit the Plumb Island area just north of Cape Ann.   We decided we would try a passage through the Annisquam River.  Slack current was not until 4 or 5 pm so we anchored off the beach for a rest and a quick swim.  The water is much warmer than in Portland!

Swimming near Plumb Island

Annisquam Passage
The Annisquam is a narrow, shallow, twisty shortcut through Cape Ann.  There are three bridges - two of which have to be opened to pass under.   What could possibly go wrong.  We were a bit nervous about trying this but we went for it.  We were at high tide and slack current so it should be pretty easy.

There is a strict no-wake rule in the river.  As usual, power boaters seem to generally disregard this rule and some were quite impatient with us only going a little over the speed limit.  They were passing us and throwing up nice wakes.  Bastids.

%^&$%^# power boaters bearing down on us.

Your 5 foot draft boat is in 2.8 feet of water

Fun with Depth Sounders
Our depth sounder has a habbit of screwing up once in a while and displaying an alarmingly shallow depth.  It of course chose the annisquam channel to do this.  Here we are in "2.8 feet" of water  (we need 5 feet).  This tends to be a little unnerving.

First bridge  Rt 128

Second Bridge.  The Amtrak RR bridge.  This is normally open

Home stretch.  Gloucester harbor on the other side of the  last bridge

Found Lodging
Linda went below for about 5 minutes and came back up announcing we had a mooring in Marblehead harbor for the night.  She is definitely communications officer from now on.

Heading toward Marblehead.  Salem power plant stacks ahead

Day 6: Homeward Bound
We left Marblehead early the next day and headed straight for Boston.  Once again straight into the wind.  Once we rounded Deer Island we were able to sail nice and fast for the last leg.  Just then an LNG tanker decided to come out and we had to circle around and kill some time as it passed.

Our skyline

See all the photos from this trip

Fujin With full sails on a light wind day near Boston Light Boatshooter.COM