June 15 - 30, 2025 Onset MA to Gloucester MA

Sunday June 15th (Father's Day)

Up at 0820. Chatted with C'est Si Bon , a 34' Beneteau, while waiting for the fuel dock to clear. Got fuel and pumpout, off the fuel dock by 1000 and headed to the CCC.

Whee! Up to 4 kts of tide with us going the Cape Cod Canal! This picture shows +3.6 but we definitely got to +4.

It was a bit chilly so we had full foulies, wool base layers and more layers over that.

A view of Sandwich and some of the cliffs behind us. The wind was 4-8 kts, E then ENE and sometimes NE so we knew we were going to tack to go to Ptown.

Virgo going the other way from us. It was chilly out in Cape Cod Bay. Since the wind direction was not what we hoped, we decided to go towards Plymouth instead. We were able to sail 60° and go a bit faster. It was still chilly though.

The view of Gurnet Point as we turned into the channel for Plymouth.

There are some beautiful homes on Gurnet Point and Saquish Head.

We anchored at 1530 behind Clark's Island and Saquish Head with Cowyard shoal to the West. Let out 150' of anchor line in 21 ft (an hour after high tide with 10' tides).

A lovely Dragonfly trimaran sailing by us. (Combine photos into Gallery when back on laptop) This is also a favorite spot for fishermen. Lots of Dad's and kids out today. Ben and the kids called Laz to wish him a Happy Father's Day and I called my Dad to wish him the same.

A view of Duxbury Pier Light and the channel to Plymouth harbor.

Our view of Clark Island. We had chips and salsa and some nuts for a snack.

Leftovers for dinner. Swordfish, ribeye, burger, risotto.

Sun is setting behind the clouds that rolled in.

Brilliant colors after the sun went down. We are off for Manchester by the Sea tomorrow. The wind will be from the East, which makes more of a challenge to get to Stellwegan and back to Boston in time. Also the predicted weather is some showers and thunderstorms later this week, so we shall where we go before getting to Boston on Thursday.

Monday June 16th

Up by 0800 but then fell back asleep. Chilly morning. Our temperature gauge shows a low of 60° in the cabin and 56° outside. Lots of blankets but we did not use the generator for heat. Woke before 0800 but snuggled back down and got up at 0910. Baked a Wildgrain buttery English muffin to split, out sour cherry spread on it, and had my usual yogurt with blueberries and granola. Opened a new bag as I used up the last of Stacie's granola yesterday. Up anchor at 1020. Warmer out here than yesterday.

Duxbury Pier Light at lowish tide. That’s why there is a lighthouse there. The wind was initially 8-10 kts from due East and added some S components as the day went on. It was a beautiful sunny day and warmer than yesterday.

We were going 6-7kts of boat speed with the code-0 out. My view from the mast looking forward and aft.

Gorgeous view of water and sky. Once we passed Provincetown the waves built and were 2-3 feet.

Some videos of our perspective sailing in an amazing breeze.

Watching Boji ride the waves

View from inside.

View of the gentle ocean rollers

Boston in the mist beyond looking very ghostly.

Boji riding the waves. When the winds built to 12+, we furled the code-0, having hopefully learned our lesson, and put the jib out. Our speed dipped down to 6.5 kts instead of 7+, not too bad. It does show how nice the code-0 is, when the wind is right.

I thought this was a lighthouse but when I tried to find the name of it, I discovered it's actually a WWII watchtower which is on a multimillion dollar ($9.5 to 11.4 million) estate. The watchtower has been converted to a living space.

We docked at the town dock in Manchester by the Sea by 1700. No electric, but an easy short walk to food and provisions. A beautiful view from our spot.

We were hungry, so went over to Bravo by the Sea which has excellent thin crust pizza. We got onion rings to start which were crispy and delicious. Artichokes, mushrooms and bacon on the pizza and a kale salad with corn, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and mozzarella with a light ranch dressing. Took home some of the pizza and the salad so we could finish up by splitting a classic Nightingale ice cream sandwich. Nice to find that in this neck of the woods, as it's a Richmond, VA product.

After dinner we went to Crosby's for some provisions. We brought the grocery cart right down the dock as there were sodas and other heavy things. Just like in Plymouth a couple of years ago. Laz returned the cart while I stowed the provisions. The dockhand did our pumpout while we were shopping, but left a bit of a mess on the deck, which Laz cleaned up. He also refilled the forward water tank. Shower night!

No sunset photos as the sun was going down over the buildings, but a gorgeous view of the harbor. Tomorrow we are headed to Gloucester and Turtle Alley, a favorite chocolate shop.

Tuesday June 17th

Didn't have far to go today. Rain expected around 1500. Tried some of the cinnamon coffee cake loaf from Crosby's, the Henry's brand, along with the usual yogurt, blueberries and granola. Put some of the strawberries from the strawberry shortcake in there as well. Talked to the harbormaster about the best approach out at low tide. He pointed out where not to go (across the channel by the fishing boats, and that if we stuck to the channel we would be fine. And there is shoaling if you stray too far. We were off the dock by 1030. Dead low tide with our depth gauge reading 5.5 feet. One of the fishing boats came in at some speed so I had to dive between floating platforms towards, you guessed it, the low spot. It was never below 7’. I ducked back into the channel and went out. E winds. Sails up, with winds shifting to SE. We had a lovely sail to Gloucester.

Boji happily trailing along as we sailed along the coast.

Hello Gloucester harbor!

Ten Pound Light. Tide is rising, but still pretty low here.

Sailed almost all the way into inner harbor. Furled the jib by Ten Pound them dropped the main just after passing the red and green beyond Ten Pound. On the mooring at 1320. I checked our engine hours: 1057.3 hours after getting on the mooring. Only 1 engine hour used since we left Manchester by the Sea, but the battery is at 99%. Great new system!

Took the Gloucesterman launch into town. There were two dogs aboard, one named Sailor and the other Skipper. Even the Assistant Harbormaster has a dog, a 14 week old puppy he was trying to acclimatize to the floating docks. That puppy was not sure about the movement. We went to our favorite chocolate shop, Turtle Alley. Bought some delectable things there. I found a store called Sample This, with lots of great women's clothes, including beautiful $128 and $98 sweaters on sale for $20. I may or may not have bought multiple sweaters as it's been so chilly. I expect to see more chilly weather as we go north. Having said this, there will be a 85°-90° heat wave next week. We also went to Mark Adrian shoes to see what there was to see and I found a great pair of Pendleton waterproof boots on sale. Laz got new laces for his sneakers and we picked up more wool socks. The folks there are so nice. We commiserated over the loss of Passports restaurant across the street. The gentleman driving the launch knows the former owner and said it was just too difficult to reopen with the renovation into a boutique hotel above them. A shame.

Back aboard baji-naji with our purchases, we saw the Thomas E Lannon come in under full sail. Gorgeous!

It was raining cats and dogs by the time dinnertime came around so I roasted some zucchini with onions and heated up a Nomadic Pies steak and gruyere. Turtle Alley for dessert.

Our mutual favorite is the Hugo, a dark chocolate raspberry truffle. Dark chocolate dried cherry clusters are a close second. And the caramels are out of this world. The cherry almond apricot caramel with dark chocolate shown above is also fantastic. If you're ever in Gloucester, Massachusetts and you like chocolate, you have to stop in. No sunset pictures tonight, just a rainy night. Tomorrow we will wander over to Marblehead. We saw lots of sailboats when we sailed by last time. Will be fun to see what's there now. I forget that it's still the beginning of sailing season in New England, so some boats are still on the hard or are getting spruced up.

Wednesday June 18th

Slept in, partly because Marblehead is close by and partly because it was socked in fog when I got up at 0800. Dozed til 0915 then got up to make breakfast.

Made a Bay’s English muffin to go with the Irish Benny leftover from Pierview. Read the paper, aka all the electronic news feed from the Post, Times and my Substack subscriptions. It is so nice not to worry about recharging the battery all the time, much more relaxing. I checked the system before we set out and there was 77% left. Amazing! This new LiFePo battery and Victron charging system is the best. Thanks to Nate Horton and his team at Horton Marine Services (and Mom Lasley) we are really enjoying being on a mooring or at anchor without having to run the engine every 10-12 hrs to keep the batteries charged. We had the radar and regular chart side by side and decided to venture out when we could see to the docks across from us. It was 1130 or 1200 when the fog had lifted enough to see.

It wasn't too bad out there.

The Beaufort was just parked in the outer harbor. No anchor line visible, but she wasn’t moving. You can see the haze behind her.

We could barely make out the Gloucester lighthouse behind us. Not as foggy as the day behind Charles Island in Milford though!

Passed Bakers Island and Bakers Island light. You can see how rocky it is. All the little islands around are rocks.The wind was 6-8 kts from the E and SE so we were able to sail one tack from Gloucester Harbor all the way into the Marblehead area. Had to tack around some of the rocks there. But Laz sailed all the way down the harbor to our mooring. We picked up H5 because my Dockwa app crashed right before we got there. I thought we were on H2 but could not confirm. After radioing the Harbormaster, he said H5 was fine and changed our assignment in Dockwa.

Besides, H2 was clearly occupied. We took Jordan's launch into town (launch is included in the mooring price) and walked around.

Many of the buildings are from the 1600s and 1700s and have plaques telling you who lived there back in the day. The Old North Church is a Congregational church had a parish in 1635. I am pretty sure the church is newer, and likely renovated a few times, including now. Marblehead is where the Continental Navy was established. We went to FL Woods, a cute nautical shop with clothing and other great items. Their logo is a stylized buoy. I got a tea towel, one that can actually dry things, that says Captain Cook on it, with a buoy. Tried to buy Laz some CBY logowear but the color and size he wanted wasn't available. CBY=Cheap Bastards Yacht club. Love it! We walked around the rest of town and found a lot of historical buildings and a few shops. We picked up a few more provisions at Crosby's, a bigger and better stocked Crosby's than in Manchester by the Sea.

Fort Beach low tide tidal pool with waves across the rocks. You can see the beginning of the harbor moorings. It goes even further than I could pan.

The beautiful sign showing when Marblehead was incorporated by the Harbormaster’s building.

A view of baji-naji and the rest of the moorings field, maybe 1/2 of the total, from the dock where we waited for the launch. There are 1800 moorings in this harbor. It's nice and deep everywhere.

Took the launch Finn (the other one is named Huck) back to H5. Put away our provisions and had a small snack of trail mix that I bought. It's a beautiful harbor with cormorants, a loon and a Mama mallard and her ducklings.

After permission from Mama, the ducklings beelined it to H2 to eat some of the grasses along the bottom. We got dressed for dinner and took the launch back to town for dinner at The Landing.

Just outside The Landing were what looked like giant asparagus. I had to look it up, but they are agave.

It's been so chilly I have not ordered a summer drink but their virgin Pina colada sounded wonderful, and it was.

Appetizers of charred broccoli with a lemon cheddar cream sauce and fried leeks, clam chowder and grilled oysters were delicious. I will add in our dinner photos when I have computer access. I had a lobster roll which was excellent, fries that were crispy and hot and Laz had spaghetti bolognese. Dessert of a surprisingly light and almost fluffy flourless chocolate cake with house made whipped cream and strawberry puree was a perfect ending. Portions were generous and delicious and I took home 1/2 of the soup, lobster roll and cake.

We saw a beautiful 50’ sailboat who stopped at the dock to pick up a couple of passengers. Back to baji-naji on the launch, Finn. This time we tipped our young lady driver for her help all afternoon/evening. I have so many beautiful photos of the moorings field that I will add in gallery form when I have computer access.

Sunset views. Tomorrow we are heading to Boston.

Thursday June 19th Juneteenth

Took the shuttle to Tucker's Wharf and walked to the Driftwood for breakfast. There was a line outside, but all the locals assured us it was worth the wait.

My broccoli cheddar and mushroom omelet with rye and their famous fries dough. Laz had pancakes which I can't make easily aboard. Plus sausage, which I don't like, so he gets to have it all when we are out. Back to baji-naji on the launch and prepped to leave. It was just a little too breezy to sail out of a harbor we don't know we'll, but we thought about it. Once we were out of the harbor channel we put out the sails and off we went!

The wind was 8-10 kts from due S then switched to SE and built. If you squint you can see Boston in the distance. We had a lovely sail into and through the North entrance channel and then into Boston Harbor. It got a little challenging when the wind switched to SW and due W when we were trying to go that way, so I had the engine on briefly, but then once it settled we were able to sail again. It was 15kts+ coming into the main part of the harbor with gusts to 20kts. baji-naji handled it well as we kept adjusting the sails to meet the changes in direction and strength. With the buildings , one minute it was 4 or 5 kts and the next 15kts. We furled the jib just before the turn to Charlestown Marina and dropped the main. Slip A3 is our home for the next few days. With the wind, I had a less than graceful docking, but the dockhands and Laz kept baji-naji from hitting the dock. Note to self, pay attention to the direction and strength of the wind when docking!

Boji fits neatly in front of us, it's a big dock, but clearly on the port side Boji wants to be a boy.

We look positively miniature next to the 82’ Oyster! We were hoping to meet Jerry, Casey and the kids here, but their flight was quite delayed and had a cracked windshield when they finally took off, so had an emergency landing in Hartford. They're driving the rest of the way and hopefully we will see them tomorrow. In the meantime we did two loads of laundry, mostly cold weather clothes that have been worn again and again, and the new ones I bought in Gloucester. Crazy to come off the water where it was 68° and we needed jackets for the cold breeze off the water to 90°+ in Boston. It made for some crazy wind in the harbor for sure!

A lovely view of our part of Boston Harbor from our slip.

Gorgeous sunset pictures from our slip.

Tomorrow we are hoping to show Jerry, Casey and the kids the boat before I take off for Washington DC. Laz will remain here for the family gathering for Barb's Memorial service and burial at sea. I'll be heading to DC to meet my parents for Dad's ISTH meeting where he is being honored for his contributions to science. A lifetime achievement award.

Friday June 20th

Finished the last bit of packing and was ready to go. Stacie and Cam got to baji-naji just before 0930 and brought 8 lifejackets, including some for the kids. Jerry, Casey, Jaxton and Colbie showed up a few minutes later with Jacqui and it was so nice to have them all aboard.

I didn't get a picture of everyone, just me and Stac and Cam. Cam was good about going down the stairs carefully. We had to leave for the airport at 1030; Stacie drove me. Laz will write the part of the log for when I was in DC.

June 21 -24 Washington DC side trip for Laura

Laura headed to DC for a trip with her parents. Dad is being honored at the ISTH meeting (I was at the first one when I was 9 years old!) for his contributions to the field. Kind of a lifetime achievement award. There was a private dinner celebration, a poster session with some young colleagues and a more public recognition during the scientific section that Dad has been part of for decades. We made some time to sight see as well. Pix below:

Our cab driver, Simon, was awesome in driving to a great place to see the different sights, and allowing us to take pix there. He then took us to Whole Foods then back to the hotel. A great way to see DC when you have limited mobility and it’s 90 degrees outside!

Some pictures from the meeting, including the international group celebrating Dad at the private dinner.

Of course no log of our trip is complete without a smattering of food pictures. The first is from the restaurant RPM Italia that we had Dad’s celebration dinner, over 2 nights. The last is at a great Chinese Restaurant Da Hong Bao where we treated our host and two of the research doctors to a feast.

Tuesday June 24th

Up early to get take out breakfast, a decaf cappuccino, two hard boiled eggs and a croissant for Mom, a half calf latte for me, and yogurt parfait for Dad. I had the last of my Chobani yogurts from Whole Foods to finish, plus 1/2 a croissant from the previous day.

A last tourist picture of the Jefferson Memorial from our taxi to Reagan National Airport. A few airport selfies, a picture of Mom & Dad’s plane, which I watched leave to make sure there were no mechanical issues or delays I would need to help them with. I’m having a club soda to celebrate a job well done. The aerials are of NY harbor and as we descended to Logan. We’ve sailed by the ‘eggs and acorns’ as we go in and out of Boston. Jacqui was able to get a gate pass to meet her grandparents, with the hilarious seat assignment of GPAS!

Home on baji-naji, to be greeted by 100 degrees in Boston. To be fair, it was the same in DC.

It was so warm, we spent the day in the air conditioned cabin. We heard 4 horns at some point, rather loud, so we poked our head up to see this behemoth making it’s way out. Too hot to cook, so we had leftover bagel sandwiches. I did ‘toast’ up the bagels in a pan on the stove. Tomorrow we’re heading back to Manchester By the Sea.

Wednesday June 25th

Not a far trip today, so up leisurely. Took out the garbage and recycling and returned the keycard. Still quite warm, though not as bad as the previous few days. Motored out of the harbor. It’s amazing how cool the wind off the water is, once you are away from downtown Boston.

Bye bye Boston! A view of Bunker Hill as we left, and the rest of the city. We went by the spot where the family gathered to scatter Barb's ashes; Stacie saved me a couple of stems of flowers that were a little worse for the wear in 100 degree heat, but I was able to have my own moment at that spot and put in the flowers.

Classic Barb, right as we were pulling up, Godzilla, a large speedboat from Boston which takes people out for a ride, came by, circled us and created much wake. As well as creating many screaming passengers. This was in contrast to the beautiful Tall Ship, full sails, that crossed our path while exciting Boston Harbor, where there were many content, non screaming passengers.

There was a good breeze in a useful direction so we were able to put up our sails up after I did my final farewell to Barb. We sailed out into Massachusetts Bay. Since Manchester By The Sea is not far, we decided to sail a bit before going in.

As we changed tack, we saw a large ship, Savona, heading in, rather closely to us. We were hailed by the pilot boat Mystic, on the left, who thought that if we kept our speed and heading, we would not be in the way of the transfer of the pilot to the Savona. As he put it "if this was an intersection you'd be the traffic cop". Possibly a little closer that we wanted. The wind chose to soften at that moment, but we managed to go past the path of the pilot boat and Savona without being in their way. We did not get to see the transfer, as it was on the other side of Savona. Still, a fun interaction, and the pilot boat pronounced baji-naji correctly! We headed into Manchester By The Sea after our encounter. There was another sailboat at the dock. Luckily, even at low tide, there was enough depth for us.

Dinner at 35 Beach. Amazing zucchini sticks, a decent Thai chicken salad, which was too much and will feature in a future meal and Laz had the shrimp fajita bowl with all kinds of yummies. We then walked over to Captain Dusty’s ice cream shack for desert. The Dutch Chocolate is pretty good. Provincetown tomorrow!

Thursday June 26th

Up early to go to Provincetown. Laz tried to fill the water tanks from the dock hose, as we did the previous time, but it would not reach with us a little farther forward. He was unable to take off the spray handle to attach our hose, so we took off without filling the tank. We still have one full tank of 40 gallons, so I think we’ll be fine for a few days. We can always fill up in P-town.

Before we took off, we noticed the ducks and the egrets at low tide. Beautiful! It was a long way to P-town, the waves were bigger than the wind and it was a bit of a rough ride for me, especially after I went below to put my foul weather gear on for warmth. I rallied, after chumming for sea life (shades of our 1980s charter from Long Beach to Catalina Island in CA) and was sorely disappointed that no whales popped up to say hi. Got into Provincetown around 6:30pm and Gene on the launch showed us to our mooring ball #504. Did not realize that the launch stopped at 8pm; it is usually ‘til 11pm, but that does not start ‘til tomorrow.

Gene got us to the dock on the launch, we walked up to Lobster Pot Express window for take out. There are lots of Portuguese flags everywhere; it's the Portuguese Festival with a blessing of the fleet on Sunday. Back to P-town Marina, where Gene got us our key fobs, then back to baji-naji for dinner. We had lobster grilled cheese sandwiches and soup. I had the clam chowder and Laz had the lobster bisque. All excellent, with large chunks of lobster in the grilled cheese sandwich! At 2020 I heard a sound that I thought was our bilge pump going intermittently. Checked the bilge, no problem. The sound was outside! Another sailboat came in and was having difficulty getting on the mooring and was using their bow thruster. Even though it was past his work hours, Gene made sure they were OK. Very nice of him. Laz and I were both tired from the long sail over, so off to bed soon after dinner.

Friday June 27th

Slept in as we are in P-town for a few days. We headed over to the Portuguese bakery for breakfast. Had a nice bacon, egg and cheese on a Papa Seco roll to split with Laz and got a mocha latte. Stocked up on some pastries: raspberry turnovers, meat pie, 1/2 dozen Papa Seco rolls for sandwiches and a couple of brownies. As with many bakeries, their food is delicious but I find it a little too sweet. Laz headed back to baji-naji to do some computer work and I stayed in town to do some shopping.

A lovely view of P-town tower from the marina. I was surprised at how empty the streets were. You can see the Portuguese flag in the last photo and the sign advertising a drag queen, Todd Alsup, performing Madonna. That could be fun! As I passed a cafe that featured drag queens, one came out singing and I managed a nice high five before s/he ran back into the cafe. I was hunting for long sleeved SPF 50 shirts for Laz and I found 2 nice ones after going into many many stores. As a bonus, I got myself one, as well as a nice P-town t-shirt. I bought a nice sweatshirt for Laz that looked like a sweater with a Provincetown Stellwagen logo on the front. It’s been chillier than anticipated, so more warm things are good. I found a pair of warm sweatpants for me with a nice Cape Cod logo; my Germany sweats are much lighter weight. As part of the Portuguese Festival, there was live music. As I walked back towards the turnoff for the marina I heard a Beatles Tribute band. They were pretty good. I walked over to check them out and they were dressed as early Beatles, wigs and all.

Back to baji-naji with my purchases. A beautiful view of the mooring field, much less crowded than later in the season. There was a lovely wooden sailboat coming around to pick up a mooring ball in front of the Pilgrim tower. Reading and relaxing on the deck. It’s warm in the sun, but chilly in the shade.

Beautiful clouds all around us. We had dinner aboard: leftover Thai chicken salad from 35 Beach and some cheddar chive biscuits from the Portuguese Bakery.

I heard a loud engine and turned around to see this huge cruise ship pull up to the outside dock. From the cockpit we had a great view of the sun setting over P-town.

The Pilgrim Tower is spectacular all lit up at night. Moonrise was pretty as well.

Saturday June 28th

Rained all night with a very rocky night due to the wind direction. Woke me up a few times.

I made a late brunch 1030ish of French Toast, Becky’s bacon and blueberries. Accompanied by the usual mini omelet with the leftover French toast egg. Today is laundry day!  I took my laptop up to the Captain's lounge to work on the log while laundry was running. The wi-fi was wonky, until they reset it. Unfortunately the cold water setting on the washer was actually hot water, any my new P-town pink T-shirt got stains on it. Oh well! The plumber was by to fix the broken washer, so the hot and cold on the washer I used will get switched back to normal. The wi-fi was pretty slow, so after the laundry was done, I gave up on the log. You can get some wi-fi at the boat, but not quite enough for this log.

We decided to go into town for dinner. We dressed in our new warmer clothing, all freshly laundered! When we got on the launch and to the marina, the top of the Pilgrim tower had disappeared in fog.

Dinner was at Local 186; they had excellent burgers. Laz had the Frenchie and I had cheddar and wild mushroom burger. Their onion straws tasted just like the ones from Moon’s Landing in Cumberland RI some 40 years ago. We shared a delicious chocolate pot de creme for dessert. After dinner, we walked all over town, down Commercial St. to the west end, up to Bradford then cut back to Commercial on Central. Walked east until there were no more shops or restaurants, just homes. Back to the marina and the launch. Glen is our night launch person. Ran the generator for the first time for 1.5 hours to charge up the battery; it was down to 72%.

Sunday June 29th

Today is the Blessing of the Fleet!

Up at 0800, it was quite foggy, so went back to bed until nearly 1000. Fog over land had burned off and it was a beautiful day! Walk to Kohi for breakfast. I had their NoLa latte with house made brown sugar and chicory as well as a yogurt parfait. Laz had a corn muffin. Excellent latte.

Bought a 2025 Portuguese Festival with Blessing of the Fleet on the back T-shirt for me. Went to the fuel dock for fuel, to refill the water tanks and pumpout. We were charged $15 for water! However the fuel price was less than 2 years ago.

Then we got in line for the Blessing of the Fleet. So many boats! The commercial fishing boats are the first to be blessed, and they were all decorated. It was pretty much a melee out there with boats every which way. No one ran into anyone else, but there were large boats, sailboats, dinghies, you name it, if it floated it was waiting for a blessing.

We were by Bloodhound and Hindu, beautiful large wooden sloops, for a while but they peeled away when it was too crowded once we got behind the breakwater. Dark Star was under sail, which did not exactly give her right of way in a crowded field. There was a person on the white sailboat between Bloodhound and Hindu who had a conch shell horn and she was intermittently blowing it. We later met a couple who had been in their sailboat trying to get in line near us, then peeled out with Hindu and Bloodhound because it was just too crowded. Saw our boat mooring neighbor on her dinghy with her dog; she waved a cheery “Hi neighbor! “

The priest was on the Provincetown II ferry boat. You can see the line of small power boats. We were supposed to be single file, but the assistant harbormaster was having a tough time trying to corral the boats in a single file line. It was definitely a case of herding cats. We got our blessing and went back to the mooring ball. All in all, we were out on the water from 1200 til 1430 jostling for a spot in the line to be blessed.

We went into town for lunch and got some excellent tacos at Rosie’s Cantina. I had an al pastor and a chicken and both were delish! We stopped at the Bank of America cash machine for a little cash, and it was out of $20s! Got a bunch of 10’s instead. We walked out the public dock, which we have not done in a very long time, and saw where Hindu and Bloodhound are docked. The Provincetown II had not yet left the face dock. We were hoping to get another Portuguese Festival Tshirt as mine was accidently bleached when the water tanks got refilled. Unfortunately the Tshirt stand was closed. Back to baji-naji to read and relax.

Went to dinner at Front Street which was excellent! We started with fried artichokes with a lemon aoli, so delicious. I had the halibut with olive oil and basil and Laz had a veal saltimbocca. We finished with sharing a key lime pie which was excellent and tart, with a creme brulee like caramelized sugar topping.

The fire pit in the Captain’s lounge was inviting but we opted to go back to baji-naji. A beautiful sunset with a crescent moon rising. We are off to Gloucester tomorrow.

Monday June 30th

Up at 0800 as it is a long sail or motor back to Gloucester. We had a nice chat with Gene before leaving and left him our key fobs and a nice tip for him, Scott and Glen, the launch drivers. We were off the mooring by 0900

Our view of Long Point light station as we sailed out of Provincetown harbor. As we approached the green leaving the harbor we saw a grey seal pop it’s head up, look around, and stare at us for a bit until it heard one of the ferries coming in and went back into the water. It happened so quickly I didn’t get a photo. It was quite cute!

Multiple views of Long Point Light as we went around Long Point.

As we went by the juxtaposition of Long Point Light and Pilgrim Tower changed, making for interesting photos.

Race point Light. I always forget how far this is from Long Point. It’s quite beautiful.

Unlike the journey to P-town, this was a much friendlier sail. There were the ubiquitous lobster pots showing us the way. Boji was happily towing behind us and we were able to put out the code-0. Once we were in Stellwagen, I saw a dark brown torpedo shape in the water which was most likely a harbor seal. I doubt it was a whale, as that should have come up for air or something if that close to the surface. The wind was from the E, around 5-6 kts, but then softened so we had to put the engine on. The wind came back nicely as we neared Cape Ann, so we were able to sail into Gloucester harbor again.

We saw one of the schooners that sail from Gloucester having a great time out there. A beautiful day to be out sailing. We furled the jib just past Ten Pound Island, then dropped the main. The mooring field was a bit more crowded than a couple of weeks ago, but we had our spot. Our launch driver told us a horror story about a fishing boat who’s engine died and plowed right into a brand new Sabre motorboat on the first set of mooring balls. Ouch!

Leftovers for dinner! It’s cool enough that I was able to throw everything in the oven to reheat.

Another beautiful sunset.

Moonrise is lovely as well. Tomorrow we are staying in Gloucester to meet up with a friend for lunch.