Reunited in Newport, Rhode Island

[Kyle]We entered the Cape Cod Canal at the beginning of the ebb, which flows from Massachusetts Bay to Buzzards Bay. The still morning air turned into a light headwind which, of course, was just that induced by our forward motion.

Sailing through the Cape Cod Canal, and on to Rhode Island, there is plenty to see

On the other side of the canal, we tried a few times to raise the spinnaker, but each time, after just a few minutes, it ended up laying limp on the front of our mast. After the wind died even more, I finally conceded that we were going to need to use an engine for the rest of the day. At least the water was glassy smooth and the temperature was just perfect.

Based on our present speed and tomorrow's forecast (also for very light winds), my plan was to stop for the night in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and then continue the next day into Newport, Rhode Island. Our real immediate goal was to reunite with our friends Robin and Andy there.

As we were droning along, Robin texted Maryanne and asked about our progress. Maryanne asked me for an estimate and I told her we expected to be in Newport tomorrow. Then we had a bit of a communication breakdown. Robin's response was "Great! You can come with us on Sotito to Bristol for the Blessing of the Fleet!"

Uh, no we can't. By 'tomorrow', I was thinking we'd be lucky to be there before nightfall. Maryanne clarified things, but we were still several hours from meeting in the middle. Grumbling, because I just hate motoring, I looked at everything again and worked out that we would likely have to motor most of the way tomorrow as well on our way from New Bedford to Newport. Since it was basically the same number of engine hours, we might as well just keep motoring to Newport so we can get there today. Then all we will have to do to make sure we are at Sotito in time will be to not oversleep.

With the help of a favorable current, we actually made it to Newport before dark.

Newport Harbor is enormous (and full!). Technically, there is a space set aside, away from the hundreds of moorings, where it is permissible to anchor. We had a look at it, but it was so crowded that we both decided we wouldn't be comfortable letting the boat out of our sight for fear she would swing into something. We decided to suck it up and pay for a mooring for our stay. That plan also had the benefit of putting us way closer to Sotito, which should allow us to get through the whole week on one charge for the dinghy motor.

First thing the next morning, we took the dinghy over to reunite with our friends. As always, Robin was beyond welcoming. A whole elaborate breakfast spread was fanned out before us, including a bunch of stuff we knew she got just for us.

Even though it is much bigger than Begonia, Sotito is much more straightforward to prepare for a trip - no faffing with sail hardware required. Five minutes after Andy said he was going to warm up the engines, we disconnected the shore power and we were off. Within minutes, the giant, now-warm engines were out of the harbour and steaming us upwind to Bristol at fourteen knots.

A trip aboard the beautiful boat Sotito (with new friends and old) to see the Blessing of the Fleet in Bristol - where Andy and Robin throughly spoiled us - we loved it

The Blessing of the Fleet is a Bristol tradition, primarily for the Portuguese/American fishing community. We were front row as several boats in the parade passed under the Fire Department Boat's water cannons.

In reality, the event itself was rather anticlimactic, spread out over a few boats and lasting over an hour. Still, it was nice to see that the water cannons work and the main point was to hang out with our friends (plus others also visiting Sotito). Andy tells us that they are wondering if it is time to finally sell Sotito, so this trip with them to Bristol may very well end up being the last outing for all of us on a boat that holds so many fond memories for us.

With our Newport mooring being so close to Sotito's dock there, our best option for getting ashore in Newport was to tie the dinghy up under the flare of Sotito's bow and use their marina as a base. That was perfect for us, because even if we were busy doing non-socializey stuff, we always had an excuse to stop by and spend a few minutes, before getting on with the real business of our day.

Newport is famed for its luxury "cottages", which any normal person would call a mansion; this time we visited the summer "cottage" of Rough Point

And walked the scenic Cliff Walk

And other attractions of Newport

We spent most of our time with Andy and Robin, but we also managed to do the Cliff Walk, which Maryanne did once while I was away at work, but I have never done. On another day, Robin lent us her car, a beautiful powder-blue Thunderbird convertible, so we could run far-flung errands, as well as get in a lap of Ocean Drive. {Maryanne:We did so much, but mostly it was quality time hanging out with Andy and Robin. Robin had encouraged us to see the exhibit of the Great Elephant Migration which we manged to see multiple times, we were able to see their new home (and their next home) in Newport, and visit farmers markets, etc.}

During the week or so we were there, Andy and Robin had lots of other visitors besides just us. They know a lot of interesting people and we had great fun staying up too late telling and listening to stories over too many bottles of wine.

While we were there, I also got a very special visitor of my own. Ben, the First Officer I chose for my retirement flight back in 2016; he lives not-so-nearby in central Connecticut now. When I told him we were coming to Newport, he generously offered to bridge the gap by making the drive to see us for the day. He brought his friend, Sam with him and with the help of his car, and Robin and Andy's dinghy we all had a great day of Newport tourism together. Ben and I did have a few initial minutes of pilotey shop talk, but mostly it was good to catch up on what we have each been up to since.

Along the way, we of course stopped by Sotito to visit Andy, Robin and other friends they had visiting for the weekend to make introductions. All of us, old and new friends alike, sat around Sotito's big table talking and laughing. It was like we had all known each other from way back. Everyone gets the most amazing welcome from Andy and Robin.

Afterwards, several of them remarked to me that they really like Ben and Sam. Me, too. One of the downsides to Maryanne's and my lifestyle is that we are often on the other side of the world from the people we care about. Had we not lived on a boat, Ben is one of those friends that I would love living down the street from, so we could pop in and see each other all of the time. Of course, Connecticut can have some pretty rough winters. Perhaps we need to start lobbying our friends to all relocate to a village in Hawaii.

The night before we left Newport, we had one more big evening aboard Sotito, with yet more new friends added in. Luckily, we didn't need to leave our mooring until noon the next day, so there was no pressure to get to bed too early. We even had time in the morning to borrow Robin's car again for one last run to the market for fresh produce.

Enjoying great food and quality time with old and new friends in Newport

Our goodbyes understandably took a little bit longer when it finally came time for us to make the last trip to Begonia in the dinghy. Who knows how long and how many miles will pass under our keels before we can meet up again. We fudged our mooring depart time a little, but it was basically still midday-ish. Fortunately, we were only going a few miles to anchor for the night in a nearby bay closer to Long Island Sound, so we could get an early start. After all the recent activity, it seemed a bit lonely spending the afternoon with no exciting new people to meet.

[Maryanne]Newport is famed the world over in sailing communities (mostly for its racing sailors), but it is a beautiful desitnation for anyone and we were so glad to get to visit again (we'd previously visited in 2008 and in 2013). But primarily we were visiting to spend some time with Andy and Robin. Our sailing plans are likely to take us away from the USA for many years so this was our last chance for a while. They have been amazing friends to us since we met them back in the winter of 2012/2013, in Weehawken, where we shared a marina when Hurricane Sandy hit; we could not pass by without seeing them. It was an extra (and special) bonus that we were also able to meet up with Ben while we were there.

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Newport Harbour Moorings location >> On google maps

Mass-Hysteria

[Kyle]After our time in Biddeford, we spent another day on the Saco River town moorings to stow the carload of stuff we had brought aboard.

Then it was time for us to continue southwards. Looking at the map, it looked like there was a pretty big built-up area along the way. There seemed to be some disagreement as to the exact name, so we decided to play it safe and give it a miss. Instead, we sailed for a day and a half to the eastern end of the Cape Cod Canal.

A slow sail to Cape Cod

The sailing was mild and almost uneventful. I say 'almost' because just after we crossed the Massachusetts border with the rising sun, we were ghosting along at just over a knot, when the radio cracked to life.

Somebody out there seemed to be really upset with somebody else out there. The man on the radio let out a torrent of loud swearing in a thick Boston accent (Boston! That's it!). He followed that string with another that had fewer obscenities, but only because it was interlaced with graphic threats of violence to the offender. He seemed to be upset that someone was coming closer to his boat than he would like. Several others came on the radio and mocked him, which only seemed to upset him more. Welcome to Massachusetts! We are told that, locally (and elsewhere), these people are known as Massholes.

Based on nothing other than the signal strength and the fact that we were pretty far from land at that point, I guessed the altercation was coming from a group of fishing boats clustered over a seamount ahead of us. No one had arrived or departed the group for as long as I could see them (It was the end of my watch. Maryanne was awake, but had not yet climbed out of bed.), and they all seemed to be at least a quarter of a mile apart.

As we got closer to the group, I saw that most of them had three or four floats surrounding their vessels about 20 meters off, which could have marked anchors, nets, pots, or something else we didn't know about.

This was going to be difficult. If their gear was restricting these vessel's ability to maneuver, we needed to give way. If they were anchored, we definitely needed to give way. The struggle for us was that we were sailing under our spinnaker, with barely enough wind to hold it up. We were riding a fine line between it collapsing because we were sailing too close across the wind, or having it collapse because the wind was on the wrong side. Without gybing, that gave us about forty degrees of range in which we could steer without the boat drifting to a stop and losing steerageway. That would have then put us at the mercy of the current. Maryanne was getting up and right now I didn't have the time to be going forward and going through all of the motions of executing a gybe.

After trying to sail with the wind slightly on the wrong side to get around one end of the whole group, I realized the current was still going to take us closer to that boat's floats than I'd like. My second choice was to steer as far across the wind as I could to head for the biggest gap between boats, putting us about an quarter of a mile between floats on either side. The problem was that the wind was fluky. Occasionally, the spinnaker would collapse and I would have to make a hard turn downwind to refill it before the boat accelerated enough for me to use the rudders to ease my way back to where I was. It was a while before I realized this plan was going to work and I wouldn't have to resort to my third backup plan of calling Maryanne to come on deck in her underwear to help me do a quick gybe (the process takes about a third of the time with her help). Then we can get out of there sideways.

As we were ghosting through at just under one knot, which, for reference, is the speed that an elderly person who is recovering from surgery walks to the bathroom while hunched over a walker, we heard a noise.

"HEY!!"

A person on the vessel nearest us to port was hailing us with quite a pair of lungs. We immediately recognized the voice as the one we had heard on the radio earlier. That's when we realized it had been US he had been yelling at on the radio since we broke the horizon. It was MY brains that he was threatening to come aboard and roughly remove from my skull for pointing in the general direction of his still-distant boat.

Editing A LOT for brevity, and paraphrasing for our readers with more delicate sensitivities, he basically asked us why, with the entire ocean at our disposal, we needed to sail so close to his boat. He apparently needs a very large bubble of personal space.

"That's not how sailboats work!" I answered (Again, edited for brevity), "Plus, we're nowhere near your boat! You're so far away I bet you can hardly even hear me!"

"What!?"

"Exactly!"

"You almost hit my boat!"

What!? "We didn't almost hit anything! We're at least a quarter of a mile away! Besides, at this speed, even if we did, we would probably just bounce off!"

Another very long streak of threats and obscenities followed. Remember, we were going very slowly.

By now, Maryanne was up and ready to face the public. With a gentle touch of her hand on my forearm, she indicated to me that it was her watch now and that she would be taking over.

Maryanne undoubtedly looks cute and harmless, but remember, she grew up in rural England. There isn't an English primary school kid who can't out-swear a Southie longshoreman any day of the week. Also, she is obviously an accomplished sailor - an English sailor. Not only that, but her first University was in Liverpool. Her response is paraphrased as before, but went something like this:

"My good Sir, you could not possibly have been in any danger whatsoever from our measured course of action to avoid not only you, but even the vicinity of your gear! We're not even going fast enough to cast a ripple of a wake upon you! Furthermore, your threatening and, quite frankly, uncouth behavior (she says it with the extra 'u' in) is most ungentlemanly, indeed! You're are a cad, Sir, and an especially unpleasant one at that! I suggest you consider genetic testing, because it seems likely to me that there is an above average chance that your lineage may include some unwanted, and also very poorly behaved garden pests! Your primary care physician will need that information for any future treatment plans! I would have that person start with the very serious case of halitosis that I can detect from even this great distance! I'm sure it's NOT the fish!"

Or words to that effect.

He was so taken back that his parting shot to us was, "God Save the Queen!!" Oh, yes. That was a good one (and a bit late). We'll be crying ourselves to sleep over that one! I guess the moral of the story is that you never know what kind of day someone is already having when you innocently step into it.

By the time the far end of the same day arrived and the sun had just finished dipping below the western horizon, we were pulling up close to the beach at Sandwich, Massachusetts, to set anchor until the next day's favorable current to go through the Cape Cod Canal.

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Anchorage location >> On google maps

Pilgrimage to the Saco River, Maine

[Kyle]From Quahog Bay, we had a nice, easy, close reach in moderate winds to the entrance of the Saco River in Maine (just south of Portland).

The Saco River looks so different from everywhere else in Maine that we have been that it felt like we had already left the state. Granite rocks, pine trees and kelp had been replaced with grassy, rolling hillsides and big deciduous trees that has a constructed feel like the English countryside.

Most of the way up the river, we stopped for the night at the free Saco town provided moorings to enjoy a lazy afternoon/evening

At the head of the navigable river has a skinny channel that takes you through the moorings of a busy (private) yacht club and on to Rumery's boat-yard where we would spend our time.

At the head of the river (at least as far as us boaters can go) are the towns of Saco (on one side) and Biddeford (on the other). Biddeford is the new home of the Portland Pudgy, and so the one place in Maine that we had to go since we needed to replace our lifeboat exposure canopy, which has just spent too much time in the years since we first got it living in a corrosive salt water environment. I am confident Maryanne is skilled enough with a sewing machine to replace all of the necessary components, but she correctly points out that our inflatable lifeboat exposure canopy is too important to us to be something on which she wants to risk getting anywhere near a machine designed to punch holes into. Fair enough.

Dave Hulbert, who designed and built both of our Portland Pudgy(s), has recently retired and sold the company to Mike Metcalfe and family, Mike is an engineer/entrepreneur who loves to tinker with things. When we told Mike we wanted to stop by, he gave us recommendations on where to bring Begonia, and then told us to call and he would come pick us up.

It was a kind offer, but Maryanne and I were looking for an excuse to do a few miles of walking (exercise) and our sixteen-year, round-the-world path to Portland Pudgy could hardly be called a pilgrimage if we didn't at least show up on foot.

The new factory was quite interesting and much bigger than we had expected, knowing that the whole operation had basically started in Dave Hulbert's garage. The loft they had for making covers and exposure canopies (etc.) is way better equipped than our sewing machine/dining table. The rest of the building, where they do the finish work was equally well appointed. We picked up our new exposure canopy and after the tour, Mike offered to let us rummage around in one of their back rooms, which is reserved for discontinued spare parts and other experiments, to see if there is anything that could be of use to us.

Visiting the Portland Pudgy showroom and workshop in Biddeford, Maine

One thing that surprised me, because it just never occurred to me, was how they move and store the boats. For some reason, I was picturing a mass version of what Maryanne and I do on the beach when we need to lug the thing around. What they actually do is bolt them upright by their transoms to little wheelie platforms that roll around easily on the smooth floor. No lifting required. One person can move three or four of them at one time with one arm. The whole place is filled with good ideas like that.

One other thing I had never given much thought to is the Rotomolding process used to make the Pudgy. I guess I pictured the process looking like laying up fiberglass, except with no fiberglass mat and polyethylene instead of resin. They do that off-site, but for some reason, I have never bothered to look it up. Mike showed us a video of the setup. Basically, the mold sits on a big forklift-looking gantry in a steep attitude that you would never want to see on the actual boat because that would mean the wave that just hit you is about to flip you over. Then the thing goes into a big oven and starts a tumbling mode that causes the liquefied plastic to flow into the final hull shape. After the oven cools, still while tumbling, you're left with consistent thickness all around (there is even a video of the process in action.

Since he hadn't picked us up at Begonia, Mike offered us the consolation prize of lending us a car for a day. That way, not only could we get our haul home, we could make our whole list of errands even easier. I sense a giant watermelon in my future...

We were welcomed by Mike in his own boat as we entered the River Saco, and at his factory. Then he waved us off as we returned to Begoina

[Maryanne]We love our yellow Portland Pudgy, it gets noticed and starts conversations most places we go, and it has done a great job for us all around the world. Aside from the practical uses of getting ashore, we've also had a LOT of fun with the pudgy, sailing it in remote locations, using it for our snorkelling base and more. It was really nice to visit with the new owners, and see their enthusism for the boat, and their lovely premises. I'm so glad we've never needed it as a life raft, but having it there, and know it will work has been a huge peace of mind for us. Mike and his daughter were also extemely generous to us during our visit, giving us use of a car (which made laundry, and a giant grocery trip possible).

It wasn't all chores in Biddeford though, we did get some general exporing and relaxing time

The marina we used was a little on the pricy side (for us cheapskates) so we picked up a free town mooring ball in the river either side of our town visit (a little out of town, but perfect to then allow us the best use of our marina time).

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Saco Town Moorings location >> On google maps

Rumery's Boat Yard Moorings location >> On google maps

Quahog Bay, Maine

[Kyle]Quahog Bay was another one of our Maine favorites that we couldn't bear to miss (having visited previously in May 2008). A storm was forecast over the next couple of days, so the normally sparse anchorage was full of boats trying to find shelter from the approaching weather.

Before it arrived, though, we took to the kayak to explore all of the little inlets in the area, enjoying the blue skies and the pine-scented air.

Wildlife and scenery - Quahog Bay

And some socializing too when we were invited to join other cruisers at a sunset beach bonfire

We were somewhat glad to have a couple of days of nasty weather. First of all, our decks needed a good rinse of all of the salt accumulated during all of our recent upwind bashing. Secondly, we needed to do a bunch of boring, indoor stuff that has kept being pushed down the list by glorious sunny days. For example, Maryanne keeps asking me where we are going next, but I have barely had time to think of it myself. I know we're going south and I have an Idea how much time we have to get where, but as far as specific anchorages, I'm maybe staying only two or three steps ahead of the boat. I could really use the time to think up another half dozen or so. Maryanne's our administrator and she needs answers if she's going to get all of our paperwork in order in time.

I keep joking that we need to spend a winter in Nebraska to get caught up. That's obviously not a serious plan, but a rainy day or two in Maine (NOT on the plans) can't hurt.

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Anchorage location >> On google maps