So Thursday dawned bright, clear and windless.... So we motored straight across to Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod taking about 8.5 hours to do it. Coming out through the Harbor Islands was lovely and a lot less busy than when we had come into harbour on Sunday! The fortifications are quite something with batteries and forts of various eras on most islands. The islands are now administered by the National Park Service and many have moorings, we had hoped to visit but dogs are prohibited.....

On arrival in Provincetown we hailed the marina and were shown to a mooring ($55/night) by the tender (tender service is included in mooring fee). We got things settled, hailed the tender for a ride and headed into P'town for some shopping.

On top of being a tourist and beach town, Provincetown is a centre of LGBT culture, more rainbow flags than you can shake a stick at and the culture is brilliant and open. Lots of very cool shops and galleries, but we were headed for the supermarket. We had a good provisioning shop getting burgers and lamb and tuna and salmon and steak and oysters for happy hour! Back to the boat for oysters, beer and BBQ.

The wind came up quite strong blowing 15-20 knots from the west most of the evening and making the mooring field quite choppy. It calmed down aroun midnight and by morning was calm as a millpond.

After breakfast on Friday morning we hailed the tender and took the dog in to shore. We walked the whole if the main drag, checking out a bunch of stores on top of looking for the chart-book for the next section (Nantucket to NYC). We didn't find the charts, but it was a fun morning.

Back to the boat, we dropped the mooring about 11:45 and headed for Sandwich at the east end of the Cape Cod Canal. I had reserved a slip for the night the day before).

The trip across was I eventful with light winds, we did motor sail fora bit, but mostly it was all burning dinosaurs as usual. I was saying to someone recently that we might as well have done this trip in a trawler for all the sailing we've done....

Arrived at Sandwich Marina around 4pm, tied up and registered for the night($2.25/ft plus$12 for 30-amp power which we declined). Bought ice (finally a place that sells blocks instead of cubes!) and called CBP Sector communications to report our new location ( something we have to do every time we move so Homeland Security can keep tabs on us!

All our chores taken care of we grabbed the dog and went for a walk Sandwich Ship Supply ,just across the tracks from the marina, is a well stocked chandlery and they had the chart book we needed. (In spite of the GPS/Chartplotter on the binnacle and two handheld backup units, we still are required to carry paper charts. Occasionally we actually look at them.) Then we walked to Jon's Lobster, an awesome fishmonger across the shore road from the marina, and bought 18 fresh oysters. Happy hour was prolonged and tastey, followed by burgers on the BBQ, then bed...

Saturday morning we wanted to leave about 9:30 to make the best of the tidal current in the canal. We had a good breakfast, made a quick pit-stop at the fuel dock and were away about 9:15. The current was incredible, at times there were standing waves like whitewater rapids, the top speed over ground was 9.4 and we didn't drop below 8 until well past Onset, Massachusetts and into Buzzard's Bay.

Once in Buzzard's Bay there was, of course, no wind. We had intended to go to New Bedford for the night, but with the incredible current-assisted speed we passed there at noon, so we decided to press on and head for the Sakonnet River, the back way into Newport Sound. We have anchored behind a big sands put about 4 miles below Tiverton, Mass across the river from Newport, RI. It's lovely.