Salem Hawthorne Cove, Misery Island

I feel guilty of not updating our blogs as frequently as I should. It is just pure procrastination. When we are cruising, I just don't feel like sitting at the computer and typing away if I can watch a sunset from my foredeck.

Friday, May 23, 2009

We motored over to Salem, Hawthorne Cove Marina to grab a mooring next to our friends Buzz and Marcy on Emeraude, and Jeff and Kristi on As You Wish . It was impressive that we left at 12:50 and arrived at 15:30. That is a little bit over 2.5 hours. We had the tide with us too, and were able to do over 7 knots without pushing the engine.

The weather was beautiful, late spring, and sunny.
That night the crew from the Marina, Marcy, Buzz, Jeff, Kristi Danielle and I spend the night on Waterdancer, had a great cookout, and just hung out and had fun.

Saturday, May 24, 2009

We went to Breakfast at Jaho's Danielle walked the town while I did the never ending boat errants. Our friends Jeff and Cheryl came over, they were in Salem for the weekend too.

We took a work dinghy that Buzz commandeered and went to the Salem River Bridge. From there we walked over to the Shanti to have a few drinks, had some late night pizza and then eventually stumbled back to the dinghy to spend the late hours on Emeraude.

Without going into details, I will state that it was sheer luck that we did not get into trouble, even though I was not drinking !

Sunday , May 25 2009

We walked to breakfast at Reds. Danielle and Marcy went grocery shopping

In the afternoon, we set sail for Misery Island. There is a beautiful cove with good holding, and several moorings. We tried to sail a bit, but eventually ended up motoring to the anchorage.

Although we were going to anchor separately, it turned out that we ended up rafting together, with both anchors down... not a smart thing, but for one overnight on a calm day it was o.k

We had brought a lot of great food. Another perfect day for a cookout. Being rafted together, we were able to mass-produce the food by running both grills simultaneously.

Hence we were enjoying a beautiful sunset and great food with good friends. How better can life be ?

That night they threw a surprise Birthday Party for me. It was fun to be rafted up at the island. Even though my cold came back and I started coughing like there is no tomorrow, I very much enjoyed the party with Jeff, Kristi, George, Sandy (Kristi's parents) Marcy, and Buzz.

The girls then decided to have their own private dance room in the cabin of Emeraude. So by midnight, the guys were passed out in the cockpit, while the girls were dancing away downstairs.

It was funny, because Buzz had the remote control for the music and was changing the tunes without them knowing it. hey did not seem to mind, whatever was playing was good dance tunes for them.

Monday, May 26, 2009

We took the dinghies ashore and walked with the dogs all around the island. I had my cold/flu at full force, so the walk was a bit strenuous, fortunately, I was not alone in my misery since we definitely had a few leftover victims from last night's party.

In the afternoon, all went their own way. Buzz and I had to deal with a little bit of anchor line entanglement, which was to be expected, and my anchor switch broke. But I was able to haul my anchor out by hot-wiring the relay )

We sailed out east from Misery Island, then tacked south towards Boston. The winds were not that well, so we were doing about 3 knots. Eventually we pulled in the headsail and motorsailed in, because Danielle did not want to be in too late.

We grabbed my mooring off the Winthrop Yacht Club at 18:30
It was our first real cruise with Waterdancer, everything worked well.

We still need to get the boat into cruise mode and secure things. We will be staying on the mooring for a while to give the generator a workout, and enjoy the piece and quiet.