We made it to Newport from Salem just in time for the Newport Folk Festival! While this consisted of a handful of short, somewhat harrowing trips, it was marked by some special milestones that I wish to recognize:
(1) Brendan’s first solo cruise
(2) our first all-nighter aboard Creeky, and
(3) my first time driving through a mooring field (short-lived, as it was)
We were supposed to leave on Monday but the weather was not agreeable, so we put the trip off until Tuesday after work, stopping in Scituate (the Satuit Boat Club was great, by the way).
The next morning I headed out to work, thanks to the excellent Gatra bus system. If you are ever cruising in this area and need to commute to Boston (for work or otherwise), use the Gatra bus. These are connector buses that go from town to commuter rail stations. The Scituate one is called the SLOOP, and for $1 you can get to the Greenbush MBTA station from downtown Scituate.
That evening Brendan single-handedly moved the boat from Scituate to Onset, since I was not able to join due to work. I was able to rejoin in Onset, again thanks to yet another Gatra route!
After an early dinner of lobster rolls from Stash’s, we hit the hay early to wake up at 10pm in order to prepare the boat and set off around 11:15. The wind was brutal and blowing directly from where we were headed, so we motored for most of the night — straight into waves with 20-25 kts of wind (gusting over 30), with water from 4 ft seas splashing our faces.
Having learned my lesson from our crossing in Bermuda, I anticipated that I might get seasick, so I put on TWO motion sickness patches and took a couple doses of a “natural” Dramamine — a ginger pill. Not sure if these remedies ever worked or if they merely wore off but after about five hours, I ended up suddenly pausing mid-conversation to boot over the side of the boat. Finally, we were able to put up the mainsail and reef it a bit to steady the boat to head out of the shipping channel and in towards Newport. We arrived in Newport around 6:30am, fairly fatigued and eyes burning from the salt spray.
We enjoyed the folk fest, despite some difficulties setting an anchor among so many boats. A few days later we headed out to Wickford, RI for a night, then to East Greenwich for a few days to say hello to some old friends from back when Brendan was stranded at Norton’s Marina for a year with a busted engine.
We spent the following weekend bringing Creeky back from East Greenwich home to Salem. The wind was too light and in the wrong direction to sail for most of the way, so again we found ourselves motoring the majority of the trip. It was about 13 hours to where we stayed overnight in Provincetown, anchoring behind a bird-ridden breaker that smelled awful.
The next morning when it was time to leave, I had to drive the boat out of the mooring field as Brendan pulled up the anchor. I find this terrifying as I don’t have a good handle on Creeky’s dimensions and maneuverability. Miraculously, I managed to get us out without incident, and we were able to sail a good portion of the way, where we spotted some whales, a tall ship, and some fishing vessels.
