We are still in Woonsockett, trying to try to try to start cleaning up the house so that we can go back to Constitution Marina.

For those who don't know... Danielle's mother, Nancy, passed away February 8th. She left the rental house and their belongings of 32 years.

It has been very hard for Danielle. She lost her father last year and her mother this.

We are hoping that life will get back on track by late April.

Vets That Do House Calls

Last summer, Danielle made a great discovery. There is actually a vet that is doing house calls. HarborVets is a pair of local veterinarians who come to your place. Regardless if it is a boat or a house. They are very compassionate, competent good doctors, and I can highly recommend Dr. Emily Neenan & Dr. Maija Mikkola Curtis.

Here is Dr Maija "Dr Mik" with Sammy. I have no personal benefit but like to support the efforts of people who I believe are doing a good thing.
Maija was recently the runner up (to Angell Memorial Hospital) as the Best Vet in 2008 by the Readers' Choice Awards of Beantown Tails Magazine!

Shrinkwrap Is All Done

Well, we are here at Constitution Marina with Waterdancer completely shrinkwrapped. A friend mentioned one day, that there is a devious satisfaction of playing with a shrink-gun that can instantly combust anything in it's path if brought too close. 300,000 BTU/hour is a lot of energy.

We have a new door this year. It is a screen door but I am planning on getting a Plexiglas cover for it. When it gets cold and windy, it is amazing how much heat a good wrap with a solid door can retain.

There have been days when it was sunny and 20 degrees outside while we were warm and cozy in the cockpit without any additional heat.

Now I need to clean up all the mess and tools that are all over the cockpit. The boat actually provides for a nice social area in the winter time. Having the cockpit as a living area under the shrinkwrap is great.

I am glad that I was able to finish the shrinkwrap though. It is raining cats and dogs here, a huge storm moved up from the south. The winds are not too bad, but it is wet, very wet. Somebody posted that it had rained so much in the DC area , that the fixed docks got flooded, and some liveaboards could not get off their boats !

From weather.com

Last evening, the winds peaked with this storm as Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, Cape Henry, Norfolk and Oceana gusted to between 70 and 75 mph, causing many power outages. Into tonight, winds will gust to between 40 and 50 mph from Nantucket and Long Island to the Jersey shore and the Delmarva Peninsula. The risk for power outages will expand northward with these winds.
Strong winds will focus on southeast Massachusetts on Saturday, possibly gusting to over 50 mph on Nantucket.

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....

Whalering around

We spent the Saturday Whalering around, went to the Barking Crab for lunch (Way too expensive) then had a nice walk in Downtown Boston.
We also wnt to Constitution Marina and renewed our contract for the winter.

On the way back to Winthrop, we met up with Salacia and Windtalker, who had participated in the BHIR race.
It was nice to be able to get out a few more times on the whaler.
Winter is coming soon...

Winthrop Sunsets

We are really lucky that we have the most beautiful sunsets here in Winthrop.

Here are just some pictures we took from the aft deck of our home.

Vacation, Cuttyhunk

After Hurricane Bill left we decided to bolt to Cuttyhunk. We left Glochester at 9 am in the morning to make the canal with a favorable current, and arrived in Cuttyhunk right at sunset.

In retrospect, we should have stopped at Bassets again instead of doing a 10 hour dash, but I wanted to avoid the southwesterlies that were predicted for the next day. It turns out that Waterdancer would have easily made it. You can see Danielle's annoyance slightly on the video poster. It was a beautiful trip though.

Here is a great wiew from the top of Cuttyhunk.

We spent the rest of the week there, and yet once again got chased away by a hurricane. This time, Hurricane Danny. Our luck, two week vacation, two hurricanes.

We ended up sailing back to Bassets island, and spent the first day at anchor there, afterwards moving over to a mooring.

I like anchoring, and it is a matter of calculated risk, weather we drop anchor or grab a mooring.

Waterdancer is our life, our home. We are working, full time, so we don't have the luxury of full-time cruisers to work on the boat for repairs. If we were to drag and damage her, we would be in pretty deep shit. So I only anchor when I feel confident about the situation.

Things would of course be different if we were full time cruisers, since we could not afford stating on moorings all the time.

Regardless of the hurricane, we enjoyed our stay back at Red Brook Harbor.

The dogs, especially Sailor, because he is so expressive, hates it when someone goes swimming. He is ready to jump in and get us back onto the boat.

Well, Hurricane Danny came and went, and just like Hirricane Bill, it ended up going off to the east and just dump a lot ow rain onto us

The return trip to Bsoton was both bittersweet and eerie. The hurricanes had left back a mist, and we sailed back to Scituate under a hazy sky, observing whales (well at least I did) and all kind of aquatic creatures.

Vacation, Anisquam

The second part of our vacation tooke us into Salem, Hawthorne cove for the first night, and then to another on of our favorite places, Anisquam. This is a great place to go swimming from the boat (carefull of the strong currents, or from the beach.

We spent the rest of the week in Anisquam. We took the dinghy over to the back of Crane Beach, which was actually a pretty long ride. It was fun to explore, but we prefer Anisquam. The sand on the beach is impeccable, and the waters are nice.

(On the backside of Crane Beach)

( Waterdancer and the Anisquam Yacht Club)

Unfortunately, We got news that a Hurrican was coming, so we had to take cover in Glouchester.

Sunset at the Annisquam river, our traditional sunset glass of wine

(Crossing the Blyman Bridge)

We spent the weekend of Aug 22, 23 waiting out the hurricane and left for Cuttyhunk on the following Monday.