After returning from my trip, we rented a car, stocked up on
supplies, and spent a couple of nights with my friends James and Neil
and their respective families.

We ordered a new set of batteries for the boat, 8 in all and each
70lbs. Mark made the mistake of thinking he was 20 years younger
than he was: he moved all the old batteries out of the boat and moved
all the new batteries in. This involved lifting batteries on and off
the boat, maneuvering them in/out of the cabin and getting them into
their space below the pilot berth. Initially, Mark thought nothing
of all this work, only several days later to be knocked flat in bed
for a few days with a thrown out back.

After moving the new batteries into place, we discovered that the
posts were in different locations than the previous batteries and,
because of this, the solid bars of copper did not fit correctly with
the new batteries. Now really regretting not having someone else do
this for them, Mark figured that he would need to drill new holes in
the copper bars, which required purchasing a larger drill bit and
using his rechargeable drill. We had a great 220v drill that the
previous owners had left on the boat, but there were some
chicken-and-egg problems using it in this particular scenario.
Ultimately, all the connectors were replaced and the new batteries
worked great.

As soon as everything was packed, we headed out of Boston and over to
Provincetown for the night. It was smooth sailing and we anchored
shortly outside the cities jetty, but still within the arm of the
Provincetown cape. Dinghying ashore, we were somewhat surprised to
learn very quickly that P-town, as it is known, is the gay capital of
New England, with quite a bit of risque shops etc.

The next day we were to head out and around Cape Cod but instead we
chose to sail through the Cape Cod Canal as we were somewhat
concerned about the timing of entering Nantucket sound on the other
side and did not want to deal with the shoals and currents there at
night as they were quite tricky.