Martha's Vineyard to Nantucket

Maryanne Fishing, First Views of Nantucket, and Not all Nantucket Residents are rich.

[Maryanne]Despite spending 3 days in Martha's Vineyard, we only got to explore the island for one day - the other days were spent riding out some pretty rough weather, rowing to shore was not an attractive prospect. We did some maintenance on the boat, housework, read and just relaxed.

Kyle decided a bath was in order and despite the LOW sea temperature, and my calls of concern, he jumped in. He came out pretty quickly, but smells much better!

Eventually (Wednesday) the weather and wind was such that we could set off for Nantucket. We sailed for about 8 hours, and we had quite a range of sails and wind, we are both feeling so comfortable with the boat, reefing, changing sails etc was fun. For much of the journey we were sailing along at 8 knots just over 9 mph (very fast for our boat!). On other parts of the journey we were pottering along at about 2 knots. We were in no rush and enjoyed the ride.

I tried fishing again - several different lures, and still no luck. Luckily we have plenty of food aboard, if we were relying on my fishing talent we would be VERY HUNGRY. I suspect we will need to have a CPR team on hand if I ever do catch a fish. With my line out we passed a boat with 3 other fisherman, and I can't believe it, but as I passed they each pulled up a fish on their lines... That was just cruel! All I managed to catch the whole day was some seaweed.

Although still cold, it was very sunny, so we really enjoyed the scenery as we sailed along. There were plenty of trawlers in the area too (I know the fish are out here!). We also saw plenty of ferries again - I think on the Boston to Nantucket run.

So by early afternoon we arrived in Nantucket, my first visit ever. We passed another ferry leaving as we arrived at - as we entered the harbor we were amazed at the mass of mooring balls. It seems the public anchorage has been taken over here as in other places with the industry of making money. Very few boats were attached to these moorings (less than 1% occupied) - and we ended up over a mile away from the dinghy dock, which we have yet to row/sail to. The dinghy dock is hidden away, and hard to find, but apparently they have showers - and boy I really need a very long hot shower. We were quite disappointed to be so far away from the dock, and many of the obvious nearer landing sites are clearly private property - so Kyle will be getting a work out. We did however anchor off a beautiful nature reserve, and although miles from town, we plan to take the 5 minute trip to these beautiful remote beaches for a walk and explore while we are here in Nantucket. We spent the afternoon reading up on Nantucket in our boating and other guide books, and Thursday is expected to be a calm sunny day - perfect for exploring (and not too cold either).