Day 314, Year 9: Battleship Cove to Cuttyhunk
Date: Sunday, August 31, 2014
Weather: Totally Overcast All Day, Winds 15-20 SW
Latitude: 41 25.487 N
Longitude: 070 54.811 W
Miles Traveled: 32
Location: Cuttyhunk Island, Massachusetts
After a motor back down the river, we had a great beam reach sail all the way to Cuttyhunk. We had 15-20 knots of wind, so Mark reefed the main and the headsail. But he also put out the staysail and we had a speedy sail across Buzzards Bay. Just before we got to Cuttyhunk it got a little rowdy, so Mark furled the headsail and we came in with just the reefed main and the staysail—still going 5.5 knots. Cuttyhunk is the little island at the bottom of the Elizabeth Island chain. We decided to pick up a mooring instead of anchoring and almost immediately Jed jumped in the water for a swim. And he jumped right back out. The water was too cold for him, but then Heather decided to brave it and she swam to shore following Sam and Ollie in the kayak. Behind them came Jed, Mark, and Jonah. And then Mark came back to the boat for me. Cuttyhunk is a tiny island with a spit of land extending northward from it. We are moored behind that spit and when we went to shore, we walked across to the south side. There we found huge rusting steel frames for what looked like remains of an old dock. As we walked the beach toward to the main island, the steel structures continued. Mark and Heather thought there might once have been a commercial dock along this shore, especially when they found gigantic cleats for tying off huge boats. We were so curious that we decided to walk on into town on the main island to see if we could find out the origin of these structures. The boys were enjoying the walk, but we didn’t have to go too far until Mark met a couple of women from the island that gave him the history he was seeking. At one time, the people of Cuttyhunk brought in old wooden barges with steel framing and beached them on the sand spit to build it up. It was too late in the day for us to visit the little The Cuttyhunk Historical Society and Museum of the Elizabeth Islands today, but we might stick around tomorrow morning just long enough to go visit and find out the full story. At some point in our walk this afternoon, Jed turned back to go get the dinghy and to get shoes for the boys and some money for ice cream-some things are more important than others. The rest of us made it to where the sand spit meets that main island before Jed caught up with us in the dinghy. We hopped in and went straight for the dinghy dock next to the ice cream shop. We bought their last ice cream of the 2014 summer season and sat on the dock and enjoyed it. There were also cooked lobsters for sale and they were very, very tempting. But we decided to head on back to Windbird to have Heather’s favorite camping meal from her childhood days—canned Dinty Moore beef stew with Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese and a salad. It doesn’t quite measure up to steamed lobster, but it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. And after all these years, it was a fun walk down memory lane.
As I write this log, it has started to rain. And Heather and Jed are out on deck trying to help a young couple who went out to dinner on another boat and got completely lost on their way home. Somehow they contacted the boat where they had dinner and those folks were going to get in their dinghy and shine a bright light on their boat. All in the rain. They wanted to hang onto our dinghy until they could see their way home. Finally their friends shined the light on their boat and they are on their way home. And while I’m on the topic of people who don’t know where they are, I have to correct last night’s log. I wrote that we were in Fall River, Rhode Island. Fall River is most definitely not in Rhode Island. It is Massachusetts—but right on the border with Rhode Island.
