Day 288, Year 8: Back on the Cape
Date: Sunday, August 18, 2013
Weather: Partly Cloudy Day, Light Rain in the Evening
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
We’re back on the Cape, but now for long. As my friend Leslie said in an email this evening, we sure are getting in a lot of windshield time this weekend. We drove the three hours to Greenland, New Hampshire, yesterday and then drove back here this morning to get Mark to work by noon. But when we got to West Marine, we found out that the schedule had been changed and that Mark wasn’t working today. What a bummer that we drove all the way back here for nothing and that now tomorrow we drive all the way back to New Hampshire—six hours on the road that could have been avoided. Even worse was that the schedule change has Mark working on Tuesday. But that is just not going to happen. We already have the U-Haul rented, so we are going ahead with our plans. I guess West Marine will just have to survive without Mark on Tuesday.
After last night’s birthday party on Pickering Point on Great Bay, we drove a mile or so back to the ‘twin’ point where Detta and Tom Porat live. The two points of land stick out into Great Bay and both sets of friends have telescopes so that they could actually ‘spy’ on each other if they wanted. Detta and Tom’s son, Matthew, who recently had gall bladder surgery while recovering from Typhoid Fever, gave up his bedroom so that we would have a place to stay. Thank you, Matthew. This bedroom is on the bottom floor of the house in the original cottage. This morning we found out that Matthew has been keeping a secret from us all. The view from his bed is truly spectacular. The wall on the water side of his bedroom is all glass and as the sun rises, you look out and feel like you are floating on the water. Those windows give the real meaning to ‘picture’ windows. The rest of the house has beautiful views of the water, but this was different. Because you don’t see land when you look out while lying on the bed, you truly feel like you are one with the water. Wonderful!
Detta fixed a fantastic breakfast for us and baked banana bread this morning to send home with us. And while she was at it, she baked banana bread for the guests at friend Sue’s home as well. We were giving her hard time about doing too much for other people when Matthew piped in and took up for his mother. He kindly reminded us all that there are a lot worse things than going out of your way to do special things for the people you love. What a wonderful compliment from one’s son. And Detta is not the only member of that family that gives freely to others. On Tuesday, Detta’s husband Tom is going to come help us load the heavy stuff from our storage unit to the U-Haul. Thank you, Porats, for being such wonderful, loving friends.
Tomorrow we will head back to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where we will pick up 200 feet of anchor chain at the West Marine there. The Falmouth store had none and when Mark checked the computers at work, he found that there was no chain of the size we need in the warehouse. So he checked the availability at stores in New England, and Portsmouth popped up. Since we had planned to spend tomorrow night with friends in Portsmouth anyway, this was fortuitous news. We currently have 300 feet of anchor chain, but we have rarely used this much chain. So we are cutting back to 200 feet which will weigh about 300 pounds. We haven’t figured out how we are going to get rid of the 300 feet of rusty chain we have, and nor do we know how we will install the new chain, but I’m sure we’ll find a way. Our old chain is at least 10 years old and has been used in anchorages all along the 40,000 miles we traveled around the world. It is WELL used and has never been re-galvanized. So this is a purchase that we have looked forward to for some time. After we pick up the chain, we will go to have dinner and spend the night with good friends Leslie and Rich Kole who live on the ocean side of Portsmouth. Their home is less than a mile from the Wentworth Marina where we kept our previous boat, Sky Breaker, when we first sailed her up here from the Chesapeake. It is a beautiful area and we look forward to revisiting the area tomorrow. Then on Tuesday morning, we will head to Concord early and start loading that U-Haul. Not looking forward to that, but we sure will be glad when the job is done.
