Moving Back To Constitution Marina

How many times have I blogged our move from Constitution to Winthrop, and then back from Winthrop to Constitution, in the past 5 years, I don't remember.



There are both sad and sweet parts to both of these trips. It always is a bittersweet occasion of leaving the summer life, the Tiki Bar, the Winthrop Sunsets and our summer vacations behind, and moving back into the town life.

Well, it was that time again. Danielle had been sick with a cough, so we had to delay the trip till Monday.
She drove over, and I took Waterdancer. It was a tranquil, lone trip. Quiet seas again, only interrupted with the excitement of undoing the dock lines only to realize that the boat, with engine running, was in gear.. (Talk about a leap of faith I had to do)
Waterdancer, Sailor, Sammy and I had a quiet trip around the airport and arrived in Charlestown mid-afternoon.




We tied her up at her new spot and went to have a sandwich at Sorrels, a little coffee shop in the neighborhood.
Afterwards, we jumped into Tapalong, which I had towed over, and rode back to Winthrop, It was time for Tapalong to be up on her trailer and brought over into her winter spot.

So here we are, looking forward for another winter season, shrinkwrapping, cooking, partying, and hanging out with our old and new friends here at the Marina.

Towing S/V Ruby to Admiral's Hill

My friend Bill's Catalina 30 had her engine pulled out because of some problems. So there was the daunting task on how to move the boat over from Winthrop to Admiral's Hill where she will be on the dry.

Well, good excuse for a day on the water. We grabbed TapAlong, our 13 Whaler Dountless, tied her to the aft quarter of Ruby, with many, many, many fenders, and had a nice 2+ hour trip through the harbor to Admiral's Hill. The weather was georgeous. We left around 3:30 pm and arrived there just about at sunset.

After securing the boat we jumped into the Tapalong and carefully powered back, in 20 minutes. We had to be slow because inner Boston Harbor is a no-wake zone, and there was a lot of debris in the form of railroad ties in the water.

But the deed was done, and we celebrated with sandwiches and beer at the clubhouse

Bonfire on Rainsforth Island

October 10, 2009

This is the third, and probably the last time that we sailed over to Rainsforth Island to have a bonfire. It was pretty gusty, W winds 25 kts gusting to 30. We had about 6 boats joining us.

I grabbed a mooring one of the Boston Harbor Island moorings for which I have a season pass..

I do admit that when I have a chance to grab a mooring, I do it, even though I trust my anchoring skills and Waterdancer's anchor. It is a 45 ft plow with about 200 ft of chain. We have never dragged... but then again, part of the reason is, because I grab a mooring if I can :)

It was a wet dinghy ride over to the campsite which was on the eastern cove. Every time I go through Quarantine Rocks, I slow down, even with the dinghy. They look intimidating at low tide. Worse, at high tide they are not visible, and you can go over most of them, but it is risky business.

We had a great night, boiling some lobsters, cows and fish. Danielle distributed her rum again :).

There was another group camping on the other side of the island, which is something that I always feel uneasy about, but .. nothing we can do.

The one concern I have with Rainsforth is that there is a group of people, mostly from the Quincy area, who live there pretty much through the summer. So I feel somewhat stepping on their turf when we take over the campsite. But up to now, whenever we encountered them, they have been nice and courteous, so there have been no issues.

All in all, it was a great night around the fire, many stories told, quite a few braincells killed.

We went back to Waterdancer around midnight and started up the generator.

Winter is coming. The temperatures dropped down to the low 40ies. Thank you reverse cycle !
I usually don't sleep that well with the generator running, especially if the winds die. You can smell the exhaust fumes as they sweep through the portholes and other small openings if not disbursed by the wind. I have nightmares of getting CO poisoning, even though I have 2 smoke detectors, and 2 CO detector's on the boat.

Next day, we motored back to the club. We did not sail, because we are whimps! . I did not want to deal with the sails for the half hour ride. If we had been on Harmony (26 Bristol) , ow Nomad (36 Catalina) we would have at least pulled out the jib. Oh well..

Speaking of winter ...
That day, October 11, was the annual Turkey Roast at Constitution Marina. That usually marks the beginning of the winter season. Just like last year, Paul on Venesaur opened up his boat to the entire marina. I estimate that we had close to 40 people on the his boat.

Let the winter begin....