Day 274, Year 10: Not Quite According to Plan

Day 274, Year 10: Not Quite According to Plan
Date: Saturday, July 11, 2015
Weather: Gorgeous Day; Temp in the 80’s F
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, MA

Some days just don’t work out as planned, and today was one of those days. But thankfully, it ended up to be a lovely day doing things ‘not quite according to plan’. Shortly after we received a text message from Geoff and Chris telling us that they were off for Nova Scotia, Heather and Jed arrived in Quissett with the boys. The plan was to sail through the Woods Hole cut and down to Tarpaulin Cove in Vineyard Sound for a fishing day. Jed had checked the tides earlier in the week and thought things were perfect for going through the cut and into Sound around 10 am with a favorable current for returning after 1:30 pm. This morning Mark and I checked our Eldridge’s ‘bible’ for currents and tides to see what the best time for heading through the cut would be and we didn’t get the same results as Jed. When Heather and Jed arrived, we had Heather check Eldridge’s again to make sure we were reading it correctly, and she agreed that there was no way we were going through the Woods Hole cut today. So we adjusted our plans to just sail down the west side of the Nashon Islands and avoid the problem with the adverse currents. Unfortunately, Sam had his heart set on going to Tarpaulin, so we had to deal with his disappointment before we finally decided to raise the sail and get going. Uh-oh. The sail would not go up. It was almost impossible to pull the halyard to raise the sail. We then went into problem solving mode and decided to stay put on the mooring and figure out the problem. Heather volunteered to go up the mast in place of her dad to see if she could figure out the problem, so up she went. The boys played down below and were incredibly good while we tried to sort out the problem, but it soon became evident that the solution to the problem was not going to be quick one. The halyard was on the sheave but it became obvious that it was jammed somewhere down inside the mast. Heather came down and Jed took off with Sam and Jonah and a packed lunch to fish off the rocky sandbar that is exposed in the middle of the harbor at low tide. We could only see them from a distance, but Sam looked like a very serious fisherman. He’s working on a Boy Scout badge and it requires that he fishes for at least one hour. I think he probably did that this afternoon.

While Jed and the boys fished, Mark and Heather kept working at the halyard problem and when they thought they had a solution, Heather went up the mast again. Heather was probably up the mast about an hour this time while Mark worked on various solutions to the problem. Finally, they got it working by rethreading the halyard down the mast—easier said than done—but they did it successfully. Jed returned with the boys about the time Heather was descending. We could have taken off at this point, but the boys decided that they just wanted to go to the beach. Heather and Jed took them to the beach while Mark took a nap and I basically just sat on the boat and did nothing. And actually, that was quite nice. We didn’t get to sail and we didn’t catch any fish, but I think everyone had a great day. The boys did more swimming today than they have ever done and even came back to Windbird and jumped off the dinghy to swim in the water around the boat. For whatever reason, the boys have always been afraid to jump in water over their heads, even when wearing life jackets. So they made a giant leap forward today by doing this. Hopefully by the end of the summer, we’ll have three swimmers.

It is fascinating to watch grandchildren grow up. Sam, Jonah, and Ollie, who have lived near the water and been to the beach almost daily in the summer months since they were born, are not swimmers and divers, at least not quite yet. Ziggy, who spent the first four years of his life in the mountains of New Mexico, is a natural swimmer and diver. Who knows how these things happen, but I saw a couple of photos on Justin’s Facebook page this week that I just have to share. Justin has never liked sailing, but he always loved surfing, and Ziggy has evidently inherited his dad’s love of riding the waves.
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150711 Day 274 Cape Cod, USA–Mast Work and Fishing in Quissett Harbor