by Judy Handley | Jul 28, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 267, Year 8: Tarpaulin Cove to Cuttyhunk to Hadley Harbor
Date: Sunday, July 28, 2013
Weather: Rain Overnight, Day of Intermittent Fog Mixed with Overcast Skies
Location: Hadley Harbor, Elizabeth Islands, Massachusetts
The good news is that the weather forecast did not materialize. There was a 60 to 80 per cent chance of thunderstorms and rain all day today, but that didn’t happen. We got rain overnight and fog early this morning, but by 8 am when we were ready to leave Tarpaulin Cove, the fog lifted enough for us to head out. We went south along the east coast of the Elizabeth Islands and cut through Quick’s Hole to the west side of the islands and then further south to Cuttyhunk. The fog returned as we went through the cut, so Heather, Sam, and Jonah were on watch on deck, fog horn in hand in case it was needed. It was not the dense kind of fog where you literally can’t see your hand in front of your face, but it was still a big nerve-racking. When we got to Cuttyhunk’s outer harbor, we picked up a mooring and then headed into the inner harbor in the dinghy. The island is only big enough for one little village and since none of us had ever visited the village, we took this opportunity. We brought the dinghy into the dinghy dock, explored the dock long enough to find a place to buy ice cream for the boys, and then walked up the hill to see what we could see. On the dock there was the ice cream shop and a small seafood café and loads of lobster pots. When we walked up the hill we found The Corner Store, Soprano’s restaurant, the US Post Office, the Island Market, the Museum of the Elizabeth Islands, Town Hall and a library, Cuttyhunk Elementary School, and Cuttyhunk Union Methodist Church. Most of the buildings are traditional gray clapboard or shingles with just the right amount of blue-purple hydrangeas sprinkled here and there. We were told that only 15 to 20 people stay on the island year round and that in some winters only a couple of people can be found. The rest are summer residents only. We found a small plaque marking the grave of an unknown Indian friend of Bartholomew Gosnold who founded the village in 1602. Gosnold only stayed on the island a few weeks, but some still honor the 1602 date. We found lots of things on the island, but we didn’t find our friends, Jane and Roger Bonner from Connecticut. We had hoped they would sail into the inner harbor while we were on shore, but it was time for us get the boys back to the boat for a late lunch. After lunch, we went to the nearby beach on a long spit of land with one house on it with its own air strip, airplane, and boat dock. As Heather noted, “No one should have this much money.” But then it is the Forbes family that owns the Elizabeth Islands and most of the land on Cuttyhunk and they do have that much money!
As we were playing on the beach, the fog rolled in again and Mark was dreading a foggy sail to Hadley Harbor. But we decided to go for it and again lucked out. As we pulled up the anchor, the fog literally blew away for our trip up the west side of the Elizabeth Islands to Hadley Harbor on the north end. We got there in time for the Sam and Jonah to try their hand at fishing off the boat and for Jed to go for a dinghy explore with Ollie. Mark grilled beef and veggie shish kabobs for dinner to end a full day of sailing fun and island exploration. It’s really too bad that we have to go back to Woods Hole in the morning. I could definitely enjoy a few more days out here. But work beckons. Jed has a grant due by week’s end, Mark is starting a new consulting job, Heather has a day’s reprieve before she is back to work, and Camp Oma has a busy agenda for the week. So on we go.
Note: This log was written on Sunday, but not sent until Monday.
by Judy Handley | Jul 27, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 266, Year 8: Anchored in Tarpaulin Cove
Date: Saturday, July 27, 2013
Weather: Mostly Sunny Today, but Rain in the Forecast
Location: Tarpaulin Cove, Elizabeth Islands, Massachusetts
Mark doesn’t have to work at West Marine tomorrow, so we took off on a little sailing excursion. He has to be back in Woods Hole by 10 am on Monday, so we can’t go far, but at least we are out here. Heather, Jed, and boys decided to come with us, despite the ugly forecast for rain tonight, tomorrow, and on into Monday. We are hoping the weatherman is wrong. Mark got home at 6:15 pm and we caught the 6:30 pm bridge opening to get out of Eel Pond. We had a great sail (a little challenging since I was trying to serve dinner) and are now anchored in Tarpaulin Cove. We are anchored right next to a mega yacht with a helicopter on top. The boys found this interesting, thus the choice of location. Once we were anchored, Jed took Sam and Jonah ashore for a late evening explore since we won’t be staying here in the morning. Weather permitting, we will head to Cuttyhunk Island tomorrow morning. Friends from Mystic, Connecticut, that live in South Carolina in the winter, will be there on their sailboat, so we hope to connect with them. It has been 22 years since I have been to Cuttyhunk, so I am looking forward to exploring there tomorrow and heading to Hadley Harbor on the Buzzards Bay side of Woods Hole tomorrow night. That way we can catch the 9 am favorable current to take us through the Woods Hole cut and back to Eel Pond 10 am so both Mark and Jed and can get back to work. Unfortunately, I will not be able to send this log tonight as there is no phone service here to provide internet. And I’m not sure if we will have phone service until we return to Woods Hole on Monday. I’ll probably have to wait until then to send the logs.
by Judy Handley | Jul 26, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 265, Year 8: Slow Down Day
Date: Friday, July 26, 2013
Weather: Still Cool and Rainy
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Yesterday was a full day of activity but the weather has slowed things down a bit. Mark and I drove to Heather’s around 10 am and Mark immediately sequestered himself in the den for a conference call. I played with all three boys while Heather went to work for a couple of hours and Mark went to work for the remainder of the afternoon. The boys and I continued playing with bubbles using the very last little piece of dry ice from yesterday. After the dry ice was gone, I gave Ollie the big bowl with bubble liquid in it, sat him in the middle of the kitchen floor, and then had the big boys use straws to blow bubbles for him. He continued to play in the bubbles for quite some time, while Sam and Jonah did some more experimentation with their bubbles on the dining table. I don’t get to see Ollie nearly as much as I see Sam and Jonah, so I really enjoy the time with him. He is just too cute for words and is such a good natured little guy. After bubble play, it was then time to feed Ollie and get him down for a nap, so I caved to the video gods and put on a video for Sam and Jonah to watch while I put Ollie down. We don’t revert to videos very often, but on a cool and rainy Friday, I decided it was well deserved and gave us all the break we needed. Later in the afternoon, Heather took me into town to catch the trolley back to Woods Hole and I have been sitting here working on photos ever since.
The weather is supposed to be sunny tomorrow, but then the rain returns on Sunday. We had been planning a sailing overnight with Heather and family for Sunday, but we’ll have to see what this weather is going to do before proceeding with that plan.
by Judy Handley | Jul 25, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 264, Year 8: A Little Bit of Everything
Date: Thursday, July 25, 2013
Weather: Big Change to Cool–Overcast with Sprinkles
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
The big news is that overnight the temperature dropped into the 60’s and it actually felt cold this morning. The past 25 days have been hot here, but the sudden change was too abrupt to feel refreshing. Cool is one thing, but feeling cold in the middle of the summer is not my idea of fun. When I look at the weather review for the day, I see the temp made it into the low 70’s, but it was windy and Sam and Jonah kept their sweat shirts on all day. So Mark and I weren’t the only ones that felt chilly.
Mark worked at West Marine today and I had Sam and Jonah for another Camp Oma day. We had no grand plans for the day, but it ended up to be jam-packed with activity. We started out in Falmouth at Goodwill Park for swim lessons. Even though the water was warm, the air was too cold to stay around after the classes ended. So we switched to an indoor activity—Legos in the Library. This is a weekly offering at the public library and it was fun, but not something I would do with the boys again. They have almost as many Legos at home as the public library has, but there were some pieces that they don’t have and they took advantage to make special vehicles incorporating the new parts. We ate lunch on the way back to Woods Hole and made a stop in the WHOI Exhibit Center on the way to Windbird to check out their weekly water activity. This week the boys got to see the pH of sea water on a color scale and it turned blue (neutral) when red cabbage juice was added. Sam and Jonah were then given straws and told to blow bubbles in the water, and almost instantly it turned purple (acidic) on the scale. Great way to show little ones how too much carbon dioxide makes changes in the environment. This stop was on our way from the car to the boat where we were going so Jonah could take a nap and Sam could work on his summer journal. When we left the Exhibit Center to continue on to Windbird, one of the Science School teachers who knows Sam and Jonah stopped us to let us see the baby skate she had in a bucket, along with skate egg cases. The little skate was no bigger than Jonah’s hand and was so cute. But where, other than Woods Hole, do you get to see this kind of thing just walking down the street? After nap Sam requested a quick trip to the aquarium, so off we went again. It was so crowded for the 4 pm seal show that we just went inside to say hello to all of the fish and head up to the touch tank for a few minutes. Then we went to meet Jed and head home for one last activity. On Tuesday, our ‘bubble’ day, I had asked Jed to see if he could get some dry ice for us. If a lab is getting a shipment, dry ice might be available, so he asked around and found some. But we didn’t have time to experiment with it on Tuesday. So today, I went home with the boys and we turned the kitchen into bubble experimentation lab. They had learned from the ‘bubble man’ about soap films and learned that you can insert things into a bubble if the object is completely wet. So we put the dry ice in large metal bowls and ran a thin cloth (one of Heather’s silk scarves) over the top of the bowls to make a soap film. We then watched the bubbles expand from the gas coming from the dry ice and inserted things into the bubble film without popping the bubbles. So much fun! We poured water over the dry ice to make our bowls look like boiling cauldrons and finally we squirted bubble solution on the dry ice and watched bubbles form. The day didn’t have a focus, but we had a lot of fun, learned some new things, and followed up on some things we had already learned.
Heather and Jed invited us to stay for dinner so I picked Mark up at West Marine and headed back to H & J’s. Thursday night is fish night at the Goldstones in the summer because they get fresh fish from the local fish cooperative on Thursday afternoons. The fish this week was striped bass and it was delicious . . . as were the green beans fresh from the garden and the fresh pickles made from garden cucumbers. Add to that homemade black cherry cobbler and whipped cream and you have a perfect summer dinner. Thank you, Heather and Jed.
by Judy Handley | Jul 24, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 263, Year 8: Project Day
Date: Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Weather: Mostly Sunny, Not Much Wind
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Filling your boat’s water tanks is not necessarily a ‘project’, but it sure feels like it. Here in Eel Pond, we pay Woods Hole Marine for a mooring, but that comes with no access to water. In order to fill up with water, we have to go to the small municipal dock. And we have to go at high tide or run the risk of running aground. Add to that the number of dinghies tied to one end of the dock that make it nearly impossible to approach the dock for a landing, and you have a ‘project’. We thought we would try going to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s dock which has much easier access, but when we were approaching, an employee nicely reminded us that we could not dock there unless we are associated with WHOI. So it was back to the town dock. We successfully tied up, filled up with water, washed the boat down, and cleaned the galley sink drains by running water through the system. By the time we got back to the mooring, it was almost noon. Mark spent his afternoon doing a remake of our spinnaker pole. It has never worked right, so Mark replaced the head end today. He cut off the old one and riveted on a new one. He still has to take the other end apart to check the inner workings, but that is project for another day. Late in the afternoon we headed to our daughter’s house to do some gardening work. I had a nightmare about the garden last night and was determined to go today to do some things that I have meant to do for the past three weeks. Heather, Jed, and boys were headed out to the County Fair when we got there, but we did get to spend a few minutes with Ollie. It seems that we hardly get to see him these days. There is just never enough time—not enough time to hang out with Oliver, not enough time to work in the garden, not enough time for all the boat projects. But we just keep plugging away. Tomorrow Mark goes to work at West Marine and I have another Camp Oma day with Sam and Jonah. On Friday I have all three boys for part of the day, so I’ll get my Ollie ‘fix’ then.
by Judy Handley | Jul 23, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 262, Year 8: B-Day—Beach and Bubbles
Date: Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Weather: Overcast Early, Then Partly Sunny, Hot and Humid
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Today was a Camp Oma day and Granddad joined us which made it extra special. We spent the morning at Stoney Beach here in Woods Hole. Sam and Jonah especially enjoyed having Granddad along to play with them in the water. And then went to see Jed at work in Redfield (one of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s buildings). A lab there is doing live monitoring of underwater cameras at about 3,000 feet down in the Atlantic. Mark went with the Sam, Jonah, and Jed while I dealt with parking. Mark was blown away by the clarity of the live video. He could only wonder why a camera attached to a robot in the depths of the Atlantic can send back absolutely clear video and we cannot possibly get such a good connection on Skype video.
In the afternoon we went to the Falmouth Public Library for a presentation called, “Bubbleology—The Secret World of Bubbles.” Keith Johnson from Rhode Island gave a state-of-the-art bubble sculpture presentation. He put on a really great show that absolutely amazed the children. FYI—He said he uses Uncle Bubble concentrate available on Amazon. The grand finale was putting a child volunteer inside a bubble. And yes, the bubbles were huge. After the presentation, we went out on the library lawn and tried some bubble tricks of our own. Unfortunately it was very windy—not the best conditions for blowing bubbles in a controlled manner. But we still had a lot of fun.
