Exiting the canal, we headed to Mattapoiset Bay as it was getting
dark, figuring it was a good place to anchor for the night before
heading from Buzzards Bay and down to Hyannisport where we were going
to meet up with Neil again and stay at his sister Eileens house.

We woke the next day to fairly strong winds. Checking the weather,
we found there were high wind alerts that day, with gusts to 35
knots. We decided that we should be safe enough in these winds and
this was a good opportunity to take Northfork into more adverse
conditions without a great deal of risk. So we donned our foul
weather gear and headed out.

Things did not work out as we had expected, which is perhaps a good
lesson for us. We were not far out of the safety of Mattapoiset Bey
when the full force of the winds hit us. We stopped the engine and
had the sails out, but reefed of course. Mark was scratching his
head why in such winds we were only making 5 knots, when something
like 7-8 knots would be expected. That is when we noticed that the
dinghy had flipped over and was being towed behind us upside down.
Something about the fluid dyanamics of an upside down dinghy in these
conditions made it so that the dinghy pull itself underwater.
Effectively, our dinghy had turned into a sea anchor that we were
dragging through the water. Hence the slow speed.

This was not good. Something had to be done to get the dinghy
righted. Dana had the idea of attaching one of our mizzen halyards
to the dinghy so we could hoist it out of the water, where we could
then flip it over. We slowed the boat down as much as possible,
while maintaining control of direction, Mark clipped his tether onto
our jackline, and he headed to the stern.

Mark proceeded to pull in loops of the dinghy tow line every time it
slackened. After a few minutes, the dinhy was just behind the
Northfork. Mark then took the halyard and clipped it onto the Y
bracked on the tow line a few feet in front of the dinghy. At this
point, Dana winched the dinghy up and the wind flipped it over. Mark
disconnected the halyard, let the dinghy out, and came back to the
shelter of the cockpit.

Unfortunately, a few minutes later the wind grabbed dinghy as it was
going over a wave and flipped it again. We repeated the process of
righting it and left the dinghy somewhat hoisted so that it would not
become dragged underwater again. However, at this point he noticed
the extreme pressure from being dragged underwater had damaged the
dinghy where the tow rope harness attched to it. There were multiple
layers of thick fabric/vinyl that were starting to tear.
Furthermore, at this point Mark began paying for lugging batteries
around a few days earlier: when hauling on the tow line he pulled out
his back.

So, things were not going well. We decided that we had had enough
fun for the day and turned around to head back into Mattapoiset Bay.
If nothing else, there was the real risk that the dinghy would tear
itself off the tow line and leave us without a dinghy... or at least
in the predicament of having to recover it in fairly adverse
conditions. As we pulled into the bay, the shelter it afforded us
caused the winds to drop significantly and we tied onto a mooring.

We ended up spending 2 more days in Mattapoiset Bay while Mark rested
his back lying in bed and we waited out the high winds. We headed
out again and by this time were under a little time pressure as we
were supposed to be in Hyannisport that night. The only way we were
going to make it was if we went through Woods Hole.

From what we had read, Woods Hole is not a fun place to take a boat
through. It is mid-way down the southeast side of Buzzards Bay and
take you out directly to Nantucket Sound. Being fairly narrow,
shallow, and the only place for miles for water to pass between
bodies on either side, this makes for very strong currents.
Furthermore, the actual channels for boats are fairly arbitrarily cut
into the floor so in many places the currents are coming cross-wise
and in fact shifting directions: the recommendation was to keep the
engines going strong so you can fight the cross currents from pulling
you out of the channel. FINALLY, there are actually multiple
channels and all sorts of buoys and daymarks that may or may not be
visible because of the tide or the current pulling them under.
Altogether, not a fun place to be.

We decided to give it a show. We waited until about a half hour
before the currents slack, according to our copy of Eldritch. We
figured we drop sail as we were getting close and take a look and see
how we felt, possibly waiting on the near side for things to slack up
even more. The problem was that the charts of Woods Hole are very
large scale and when you are in what looks like a basin near the
entrance, you are really just in a large pool of water with a massive
current. So, as we pulled up we found we really didn't have a choice
to be to go through, as it wasn't clear if it was safe to turn around
given that the currents were pulling us into Woods Hole pretty
strongly. So we decide to go ahead.

Woods Hole lived up to its reputation. Even at fairly week tides we
had the Northfork pointed as much as 45 degrees off the channel to
fight the side currents. The buoys and day marks were a real mess to
figure out what was what. Even more intimidating was the way the
water swirled around: it looked like we were in a washing machine.
Paying careful attention to all the instructions we had read,
watching the buoys, keeping a close eye on the chart plotter, and
being quick to react to currents as soon as we felt them
grab... ultimately, we made it through safely.

Which is more than others can say. A few minutes after getting fully
out of Woods Hole, we heard a powerboat behind us announce on VHF
that it had hit a propeller and was taking on water. Apparently, a
big chunk of its hull was taken off when one of its propeller hit the
side of the channel and a lot of water was coming in. There wasn't
anything we could do as we were already well outside of Woods Hole at
this point, and -- frankly -- we wouldn't have been able to do
anything if we had gone back as our motor had enough trouble fighting
the current to keep us from grounding. So we listened as the captain
communicatd with various towing services and repeated the urgency of
the situation as his bilge was not keeping up. We were impressed at
how well he kept his cool in the whole situation. There was some
concern about the timing of the towboats, but ultimately they did get
there in time to stabilize his boat and get it to a marina where they
could look into repairs.

So we continued through Nantucket Sound to Hyannisport. We were
surprised at the large number of shoals in the Sound. Sure, we had
seen them on the maps before, but once we got out there you realize
how treacherous an area it is to sail. Places like that make you
appreciate GPS. Even though you could make it through there
following buoys and tracking your location via dead reckoning and
other means, it is nice to also have GPS as a backstop.