Day 349, Year 6: Wonderful Sail to Nantucket (with one little mishap)
Date: Saturday, October 8, 2011
Weather: Sunny and Warm, Winds W 10-15
Location: Moored in Nantucket, Massachusetts
How lucky could we be to have such a warm, sunny day with winds and current from a favorable direction for a sail to Nantucket in October? I guess pretty lucky, but that is what we had for today’s sail. The winds were a bit on the light side for downwind sailing, but we put out the spinnaker, and away we went. We left Eel Pond at the 7 am bridge opening to take advantage of the favorable morning current. We had originally planned to only go as far as Martha’s Vineyard today, but the conditions were too good to stop. We just kept going and arrived in Nantucket at 2 pm. We did have one unfortunate mishap about two hours out of Nantucket, but we didn’t let it ruin the otherwise great day. At one point, the winds got a bit gusty and the wind in the spinnaker started pulling us over at an uncomfortable angle. By the time Mark was able to head forward to try and release the spinnaker, a block at the top of the mast that the spinnaker halyard goes through broke loose and the halyard dropped until it caught on the upper spreaders. This allowed the bottom of the spinnaker to fall into the water. For a bit we were dragging the spinnaker along until we could muster the energy to pull it out of the water and onto the deck. This happened in almost the same place that we dismasted our previous boat, Sky Breaker, in the late 1990’s. It was one of those sailing moments that makes me a bit tense, and I know Tom and Kitty as new sailors were tense as well, but no one panicked and we came out of it just fine. It did add a bit of excitement to the day, but I think we could all do without that kind of excitement.
When we arrived in Nantucket Harbor, we picked up a mooring ($45 a night) and headed into town to do a bit of a walk about. Nantucket is the name of the island, the county, and the main village-the only place in the United States with the same name for all three. And the village and the entire island are quite charming. We walked into town and then up the cobblestone Main Street. It is lined on both sides with the homes of sea captains of yesteryear. From 1800 to 1840, Nantucket was considered the Whaling Capital of the World. The homes are topped with “widow walks” which were used to spot the incoming ships, some returning with lost seamen-thus the name “widow walk”. Herman Melville based his story of Moby Dick on the Nantucket ship Essex which was rammed by an angry whale in 1820. The history goes on and on and you can feel as you walk through the town. After the walk about, we hopped on an island bus and went out to the west end of the island to the village of Siaconset. We sat on the beach and watched seals playing in the water before returning to the village of Nantucket. Then we headed to Sushi by Yoshi for a delightful dinner. It was a great day.
Tomorrow at 10 am the current will be right for us to head back west to Martha’s Vineyard. Unfortunately, it looks like the winds are going to stronger than predicted and coming directly at us. So we are going to have to do a bit of tacking. Hopefully that will work out and we will arrive in Oaks Bluff by late afternoon. That’s the plan. Let’s hope it works out.
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| 111008 Day 349 Cape Cod, USA–Sail to Nantucket |
