Colin
6 July 2006, At sea...

We are finally underway on the passage to Nova Scotia: With luck, the next land we see will be the southeast coast of Nova Scotia, sometime saturday....We started off about 1130 this morning, after letting a large area rain move off and, so far, we haven't had any showers since we've been underway. The winds are very light and we are motoring along with Tahu Le'a about a mile off our stern quarter. Evelyn and Leslie are on watch and Anne is finishing dinner so I thought I'd post a quick update. The big news is that we saw whales! Humpback whales, to be precise.....Leslie was ecstatic.

(42 17.052'N 69 30.698'W)

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Colin
5 July 2006, Provincetown, MA

Well, we are in Provincetown...The northernmost tip of Cape Cod. From here to Nova Scotia there is nothing but water. We arrived here at about 1000 after motoring across Cape Cod Bay in light fog and occasional drips, and Tahu Le'a came in a few hours later. We are both making final preparations for a departure late tomorrow morning for what we hope will be a quiet, 2-day crossing of the 250 miles between here and Shelburne. The weather outlook continues to look reasonable and so we continue to prepare...

(42 02.945'N 70 10.990'W)

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Colin
4 July 2006, Sandwich, MA

This turned into a rather short day: We covered less than 10 miles. On the other hand, we have traversed the Cape Cod Canal! We had intended to go to Provincetown but, as we came to the end of the canal, we were looking at the radar and watching a large set of thunderstorms heading east and estimated that they would arrive in Provincetown at about the same time we would...Not being too excited about entering an unfamiliar harbor on its busiest day of the year and looking for a place to anchor with a severe thunderstorm bearing down on us, we opted instead to come into the Sandwich Marina. Fortuitously, they had just had a cancellation and so had a slip available for us and, within a very few minutes were in the harbor and tied up...Tomorrow we'll head for P-Town.

(41 46.233'N 70 30.220'W)

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Colin
3 July 2006, Onset, MA

Well, it was a late start, but we finally got out of Wickford and left Narraganset Bay behind us. It was a rolly few hours as we crossed Rhode Island Sound with 3-5 foot swells rolling under our beam, but as soon as we turned into Buzzards Bay, the swell dropped away and we had a quiet afternoon motoring up the bay. Considering the sinister reputation of Buzzard's Bay for unpleasant chop, we were very happy to have a relatively calm trip up it's length. The windmill bears testimony to the winds that usually blow up the bay creating the infamous chop, especially when in opposition to the ebb tide rushing out of the canal.

Onset is at the southern end of the Cape Cod Canal, which we intend to transit tomorrow. This saves us a long slog through some treacherous waters which would be necessary if we had to go around Cape Cod. Instead, we just whip through the 10 miles of canal and presto! We'll be north of Cape Cod! The only hitch is that the tidal currents in the canal are quite strong so we have to time our transit carefully. The good news, is that tomorrows favorable tide doesn't begin until 1027 so we'll get to sleep late!

(41 44.299'N 70 38.857'W)

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