Yes, this is out of chronological sequence but we were quite tired when we arrived yesterday and, by the time we had tidied up the boat, taken showers and taken a (too brief) nap, Anne's sister and her family arrived (they live just outside Boston) shortly followed by Anne's father who is in town for some seminars. By the time we had dinner and got back to the boat, nothing was going to happen except sleep!

Although tiring, the passage here was very enjoyable. The strong winds that had blown us to Tenants Harbor softened during the night and, when we dropped our mooring and headed out Saturday morning, we put up our sails as soon as we cleared the harbor and sailed in 10-15 knots of northerly wind. Of course, the winds had shifted so that our course was almost directly downwind and we slowly went through many tricks to try to make good speed downwind; reefed the main so it wouldn't blanket the headsail, poled out the headsail, replaced the headsail with our asymmetric spinnaker, sailed off-course and "tacked" downwind. We made steady progress but the forecast was right in that the wind slowly died away in the afternoon: By mid-afternoon, we had furled our headsail and were proceeding under power.


If you look at the chart you'll see that from where we were in Tenants Harbor to Gloucester, Massachusetts, the coast curves away to the west: Following the coastline is more than 50 miles farther than simply cutting striaght across. Also, my experiences in Maine as a land-based tourist, combined with the opinions of our experienced cruising friends, suggested that, apart from Portland, there wasn't all that much worth seeing/doing between Tenants harbor and Boston. So combined with a favorable wind forecast, we decided to simply take the direct route and make an overnight passage to Boston: We were sailing along the direct route when the winds died away to 1-5 knots and we began motoring.

On these overnight passages, we divide the time into watches so that some of us are "on-watch" and driving the boat, while the others are resting. This summer, we've found that we like having two people on each watch so Anne and Leslie took the watch from 6pm to midnight and then Evelyn and I got up and took the midnight to 6am watch. The wind forecast continued to be accurate in that the wind did fill back in from the east during the night and, when my watch started at midnight, I was able to pull out our headsail and shutdown the engine. For the next six hours, Evelyn I sailed a beautiful beam reach in 10-15 knots of wind on almost calm seas while Anne and Leslie went to sleep belowdecks with the quiet gurgling and swishing sounds of the water sliding past our hull replacing the much louder engine noise.

Our quiet nighttime sailing watch ended with a spectacular sunrise and the wind dying away to nothing, forcing a restart of the engine for about half an hour before the wind built back just as we rounded Gloucester and started heading down the bay towards Boston.

Forecasts are great, but they are imperfect, news that should shock nobody. The wind forecast called for the winds to build back from the East at 10-15 knots all Saturday night and Sunday and they did except that what built back in on Sunday morning as we headed for Boston was a steady 20-25 knots of wind with gusts peaking near 30 knots. This quickly built 3-5 waves and we spent the final four hours of our passage in a screaming downwind ride! In daylight, with the prospect of putting into a harbor in a few hours, these conditions were fun and Anne and I thoroughly enjoyed them, although Scourge was decidedly unhappy and yowled ceaselessly...

After months of tiny harbors and fishing villages, to see the city off Boston rising up over the horizon, the morning sun on it's towers, was a real thrill. Once we were in the harbor, the pandemonium of hundreds of boats, from little sailing dingys, to big, fast-moving catamaran ferry boats, all with low-flying jets screaming overhead was amazing. But, with some help from the marina via radio, we found where we were going and tied up without any problem.

Now we're here and we'll be enjoying the city for several days, I'm sure. But for me, the valued memory is of the quite pride I felt as we sailed silently through the night during our passage. A boat underway at night is a remarkable world unto itself, surrounded by darkness and cold water, it is a moving island of warmth and respite. Dozens of inter-connected systems that provide power, heat, food, shelter, propulsion, water, sanitation, navigation, etc. all working together...It is this wonderful self-contained set of systems working together that originally inspired our boat's name: Symphony. And, just as with a musical symphony, the instruments are all worthless without a crew to play them. As the winds gently propelled us through the night I thought about how all four of us worked together with each other and the boat to make our passage and thought "Yes...this is *MY* family". A nice feeling on a cold night...