A Tale of Two Chemists: Passage to Sebasco Harbor

Passage to Sebasco Harbor … Wednesday 4th to Thursday 5th June 2014

43 45.946 N 69 52.047 W

It's become a tradition for visitors on our boat to write a guest blog, so without further ado here is Rod's description of our passage from Hadley Harbor (MA) to Sebasco Harbor (ME) …

After such a glorious afternoon yesterday in Hadley Harbor, we awoke this morning to the tap, tap, tap of rain falling steadily on the cabin top. After checking the forecast, the crew of Cotinga concluded that Thursday's forecast was identical to today's and there was not much point in delaying our trip through the Cape Cod Canal and then overnight to Sebasco.

Donning FWG (foul weather gear), Gloria performed her usual task of weighing the anchor, which was delightfully covered in thick mud! Less worrisome than yesterday's occurrence.   While Mike motored us out of the harbor, I tried to shelter out of the rain under the new dodger that Gloria and Mike sewed over the winter. Fortunately for us all, the rain, which had seemed the steady, all day sort, let up about 1/2 the way on our trip to the entrance of the Cape Cod Canal. That was nearly all of the rain that we experienced on our trip to Maine, for which I, for one, was very grateful.

Our transit of the canal was uneventful, other than nearly having to wait for the RR bridge over the Canal to reopen. With only 7 feet of vertical clearance when down, it would have been quite troublesome to have fit Cotinga's 63 foot mast under the bridge!   Luck was with us and the bridge opened in plenty of time.   With favorable current, Cotinga made a steady 10 knots through the canal.

Exiting from the canal at Sandwich (no, we didn't stop for any), we found enough breeze from a favorable direction to hoist sail and set a course of 025M for Sebasco Harbor.

Steady readers of this blog last year will realize that Cotinga spent a lot of time under motor power while cruising from destination to destination.   This is, I think, typical of most cruising sailboats. The need to maintain some kind of schedule of port calls or to meet tide and current timetables often means that slow sailing must be forgone in favor of being on time for this practical aspects of cruising. I think that all of us were very pleased to have been able to do as much sailing as we had already, so it was very surpising that our good fortune was continuing.   We were able to continue sailing until nearly midnight except for a two hour stretch when the wind failed us. In fact, at times, we were sailing so fast, over 7 knots, that we became worried that we might arrive at our destination before sunrise.

Our northerly track brought us within easy sight of Provincetown and the Stellwagon bank, noted for whale sighting and whale sightseeing tours.   Mike commented on how he would like to see a whale and the whales must have heard him. We spotted a whale watching tourboat as it headed onto the bank and, when it stopped, we watched with binoculars (the whale watching boat was over two miles distant) and could easily see whales spouting and breaching!   We were all delighted as previous trips through this area had never been accompanied by whale sightings.

Pleased with our good fortune, we continued to sail on for several hours until Gloria, on the helm, noted an abundance of sea birds. In quick succession we spotted the dorsal fin of a small whale and then, about 200 yards off, the spout and then breaching of a much larger whale. It spouted several times more and the sounded, showing us the older, more classic "whale's tail"!     About an hour later, still sailing, we spotted what we think was a Mincke whale crossing our bow about 100 feet off!

As the day grew darker and the skies remained overcast, our breeze slowly tapered until we were forced to resort to the iron genoa to propel the boat.   This was about midnight.   With two crew in the cockpit at all times, one of us would sleep below for two hours until relieving one of the watch standers to go below and rest. This continued until daybreak, around 6 AM.   During the dark hours, the radar and the AIS (automated identification system) were a tremendous comfort as fog lowered the visibilty to an estimated 1/2 mile. For equipped vessels, we were apprised of their name, course, speed and size, plus other details. Those other vessels were similarly informed of our details and one passenger ship contacted us and we arranged a safe crossing with them. This ship was over 500 feet long and making 20 knots.   Nothing to get into a "right of way dispute" with!

Daybreak found us about 11 miles from our first waypoint off the Maine coast and, using both radar and eyeballs, we threaded our way through an array of lobster pot buoys. As we closed in on the coast, the visibilty, about 200 feet at that point, began to improve and coastal details could be admired.   Following the marker buoys we entered the harbor and took our pick of moorings at around 8:30 AM. While Gloria and I tidied up the yacht, Mike assembled and inflated the dinghy. We all got it launched, gathered some gear and headed to shore for a (semi)hot shower and a chat with the staff at Sebasco Harbor resort.

At that point, our ride back to RI arrived in the persons of Rod and Gloria's brother Paul and his wife Fran. Mike treated us to a celebratory lunch at the Resort. After ferrying back out to Cotinga and gathering some gear, we all piled into Paul's van and set off back to RI, me to my regular duties of retiree and grandfather, and Mike and Gloria to fetch more gear and then head back to Maine, by car, tomorrow.

Rod