One Sunday towards the end of May we headed out for a sail with our friends Jenny and Andrew. They have a monohull that, at the time, was out of the water for painting. Jenny grew up sailing, she has a pretty good idea of what she's doing, and Andrew's been sailing a lot longer than I have, and they've both learned from sailing with some pretty experienced people. They're good people to take on the boat because when you say, "Can you trim the jib?" they know what you're talking about and it makes for a lot less work. We had a great, fast sail out to Rockport - our first trip around the island! We anchored in the harbor there, ate some lunch, hung out. The water was freezing! We'd talked about swimming to shore for ice cream but no one really felt like getting wet. After a couple of hours we pulled up anchor to head home.
As we were coming across the tip of the island between Rockport and Halibut Point the wind really started kicking up. At first it was fun! We were cruising! I was sitting out on the upwind outrigger when Cody said, "We need to reduce sail." The wind was blowing so hard out of the southwest that he had let the main all the way out so we could hold our heading. We decided to just drop the main (we'd never tried to reef our sail before) and sail on the jib. At this point both Andrew and I were out on the ama, and Cody handed us our nice offshore lifejackets to put on.
The swells picked up as we went further around into open water and the wind kicked up even harder when the landmass wasn't blocking it. It was a rough ride. As we'd crash down after each gust me and Andrew would get soaked. This honestly went on for probably 45 minutes. I was pretty unhappy at this point - freezing and scared and thinking that I could pretty well take a pass on the ocean and be just fine thankyouverymuch. The swells probably weren't that big, but between them and the gusts heeling us over there were times when our ama felt like it was a good 6 feet out of the water. I'm a mountain girl, right? The ocean is full of sea monsters and scary things, and it's unpredictable. My level of experience with it was nonexistent.
We weren't making much headway and decided to come back towards shore so we might be a little more protected. We pulled into Folly Cove to talk about what to do and to put up the storm jib. Heading out again, we weren't able to make much headway staying close to shore, and we ducked back into the cove. This time we decided to try motoring close to shore. Our little 8 horse wasn't cutting it, though, and we were burning through fuel too fast to make it anywhere. We returned to the cove a final time.
At some point in all of this I'd told Cody that I was concerned and freezing and not having any fun and I didn't want to try sailing in this. After a bit of an ego struggle, we convinced the guys to anchor the boat in the cove and call for a ride. The cove has a nice sandy bottom to anchor in, but the swim to shore was ridiculously cold. I was so ridiculously happy to be off the boat at this point that I didn't even care. We got a ride home from Andrew and Jenny (Thanks for coming out on the boat, guys! It was . . . fun . . . ) and packed up out belongings to go back out to the cove and sleep aboard to make sure she didn't drift into any rocks or break free. The only hiccup in the plan was that it was Sunday evening and we had to go to work the next day.
The swells picked up as we went further around into open water and the wind kicked up even harder when the landmass wasn't blocking it. It was a rough ride. As we'd crash down after each gust me and Andrew would get soaked. This honestly went on for probably 45 minutes. I was pretty unhappy at this point - freezing and scared and thinking that I could pretty well take a pass on the ocean and be just fine thankyouverymuch. The swells probably weren't that big, but between them and the gusts heeling us over there were times when our ama felt like it was a good 6 feet out of the water. I'm a mountain girl, right? The ocean is full of sea monsters and scary things, and it's unpredictable. My level of experience with it was nonexistent.
We weren't making much headway and decided to come back towards shore so we might be a little more protected. We pulled into Folly Cove to talk about what to do and to put up the storm jib. Heading out again, we weren't able to make much headway staying close to shore, and we ducked back into the cove. This time we decided to try motoring close to shore. Our little 8 horse wasn't cutting it, though, and we were burning through fuel too fast to make it anywhere. We returned to the cove a final time.
At some point in all of this I'd told Cody that I was concerned and freezing and not having any fun and I didn't want to try sailing in this. After a bit of an ego struggle, we convinced the guys to anchor the boat in the cove and call for a ride. The cove has a nice sandy bottom to anchor in, but the swim to shore was ridiculously cold. I was so ridiculously happy to be off the boat at this point that I didn't even care. We got a ride home from Andrew and Jenny (Thanks for coming out on the boat, guys! It was . . . fun . . . ) and packed up out belongings to go back out to the cove and sleep aboard to make sure she didn't drift into any rocks or break free. The only hiccup in the plan was that it was Sunday evening and we had to go to work the next day.
In spite of all the stress and waffling and not being sure if we had made the right decision Cody and I ended up having a really nice night. We got some food from the Lobster Trap, a little fried seafood place within spitting distance of where we were anchored, and had a nice night hanging out on the water. (The wind had actually died down to a very pleasant level by 6 or 7, and we briefly considered sailing home before realizing that we'd each had a couple beers with dinner and it probably wasn't a great idea. Good to remember, though, that in the summer when it gets gusty in the afternoon it often dies down in the evening.) We'd brought our dinghy with us so we didn't have to swim again. There are some insane mansions on the water along the cove and we were tickled to think that we were getting the same view for free. 4 AM came way to soon, and we had to paddle back to shore so Cody could make it to Boston for work on time. I got to go home and squeeze in a few more hours sleep before heading to the shop.
We had to bring the boat home that night or spend another night, and early morning, on the water. Our crew from the day before wanted to help, so after work we loaded up and had a gorgeous sail back to West Gloucester. It felt good to finally make that trip, and reassuring to have Tri-oomph back on her mooring.
(The not-so-funny lingering reminder of our crazy day on the water was the ridiculous sunburn we all ended up with. Too many hours of sitting on the outrigger with my legs dangling over the water netted me the worst sunburn I've ever had on my shins. Ouch.)
Couldn't be much prettier, huh?
Sailing home!
Thanks to Jenny for this super cute color coordinated one.
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