Day 194, Year 8: Transitioning Back to Living Aboard
Date: Thursday, May 16, 2013
Weather: Sunny, High Temp Reaching 70 degrees F
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
I was only away from Windbird for 16 days, but anytime you are away from home for a bit, it takes time to transition back normal. And today was not normal, so the transition will continue tomorrow. We did get up at 3 am and we dropped Lee and Lynda at Logan Airport’s Terminal B in Boston at 5 am. We were back on the Cape by 6:30 am. We had told Heather and Jed that we would come with their van at 8:30 so Jed could transport kids to school and day care, so instead of driving all the way down to Woods Hole for an hour or so and then coming back, we drove straight to the Laundromat at the end of Heather and Jed’s street. We had sheets and towels from the passage and Mark’s dirty clothes and that laundry was done before 8 am. We then went to Heather and Jed’s and found out that the new washing machine that got hooked up last night was not draining. Laundry there had piled up for a few days, so after getting everyone off to work and school, we went back to the Laundromat to wash those clothes. We made a run to take some things to the Swap Shop at the town dump and Mark went in to West Marine to talk with Sylvia, the manager. She wasn’t in yesterday, but he caught her today and will be starting to work soon. This is the busy season here, so I think he’ll be working full time for a while. It was nearly noon before we returned to Heather’s with three big laundry baskets full of washed, dried, and folded clothes. Heather slept all morning trying to recover from the stomach flu that hit her so suddenly and violently yesterday afternoon. But after the morning’s rest, she got up and felt much better—not good enough to eat anything, but better. Sam and Jonah had made plans for a welcome home dinner for Granddad, so we decided to stay, take afternoon naps there to make up for the early wake-up time, and then have dinner. By dinner time, Heather was much better and was able to both cook and eat. So whatever she had was a 24-hour bug of some sort. I’m hoping the rest of us don’t get it, but that would be just too lucky. The repairman from the appliance dealer where they bought the new washing machine came in the afternoon and got the washer working, so by the time Jed came home from work, things were pretty much back to ‘normal’ in the Goldstone household. We had a great dinner that Heather was able to prepare and then we headed back to Windbird.
Tomorrow we have to deal with a car issue, get the salt washed off Windbird, and then get ready to have Heather, Jed, and boys over for dinner. That will signal that things are back to ‘normal’ on Windbird.
Final Guest Log from Windbird’s Trek to Cape Cod
Written by Lynda Kaufman, Guest Crew on Windbird
Well, the adventure is over and this guest log is to summarize the out-to-sea overnight sailing portion of the trip. The Delaware Bay to Woods Hole section of the trip was sailing 24/7 for 3 days and 2 nights. The seas were rough and winds not in the best direction, especially early on, but even with those conditions, getting awake and alert wasn’t as hard as I expected. The whole thing wasn’t as exhausting as I expected either. I took naps off duty and slept well between watches. It was pretty busy with ship traffic the first night and getting and staying on course was hard the second night—but there was less boat traffic. Between 12 and 2 am, I heard another woman alert the coast guard that she and 2 others were on a 37 foot sail boat that had dismasted. Definitely not what you would want, especially in the dark. The Coast Guard was coming to the rescue. I anticipated I would be nervous about night watch but wasn’t. My only concern was how much I dared alter course to stay on our projected route.
All in all I found the entire trip less intimidating than I had expected and I definitely have more confidence in myself. I would declare the trip both a success and a learning experience.
