Above photo: Thalia as we sailed out of Nantucket Harbor - One of many of Tom Dougherty's drone pictures and videos.

Larry's best friend growing up in San Diego was a kindred spirit named Tom Dougherty. The two of them have years of hair-raising stories to tell from their childhood, stories involving things like firecrackers in Coke bottles, a homemade Ninja star that ended up embedded in a neighbor's house siding, and bicycles with improvised parachutes flying down very steep hills.

The two of them were and are like brothers, still having fun after all these years. Tom and his wife Jan live on Nantucket Island year-round, so for the past three years we've made an annual pilgrimage there to spend time together. The first year we were on the east coast shopping for our boat, so we flew into Boston, drove to Hyannis, and took the high speed ferry to the island. But the past two years, we've had the pleasure of sailing there, visiting other nearby islands like Martha's Vineyard, Cuttyhunk, and Block Island on the way.

Each year, we've waited until just after Labor Day to descend upon the Doughertys, thereby avoiding the higher prices and crowds of summer, and enjoying some of the prettiest weather the island has to offer. These past two visits, my Mom and Al were also there, staying on Al's yacht Blue Star last year, and with Belvedere friends John Swain and Pat Montag this year, who rented a charming mid-18th century cottage right in town.

The island alone is well worth visiting, but the combination of its many charms and those of our friends have made it very special to us indeed. By the time we arrive in the harbor, it's usually after a somewhat harrowing passage (see last year's The Storm), or a lot of motor sailing in unfavorable winds and strong currents as we slogged down from Maine this year.

I grew up on Belvedere Island across the bay from San Francisco, so the touristy aspect of Nantucket doesn't bother me at all. After all, I'm a visitor there too! The town definitely has its share of bars, restaurants, and t-shirt shops catering to the crowds coming in on ferries every day - just as they do in Tiburon and Belvedere - but they're generally quite upscale and tasteful, and are interspersed with boutiques selling cute clothes, nautical housewares, and traditional island crafts. These include stunning sailors' valentines - each made of hundreds or even thousands of colorful tiny shells - scrimshaw, and the beautifully made island basketry.

The island's whaling history is evident everywhere. And the architecture - tightly controlled here by a planning commission - is wonderful. As west coast natives only recently spending time in the east, Larry and I find towns like Nantucket, Newport, and Annapolis tremendously charming, and are fascinated with their centuries of history, architecture, and unique culture.



Tom and Jan's house is a spacious, beautifully decorated, and comfortable oasis for these two tired sailors. This year we stayed ten days, anchoring Thalia out in the well protected harbor (we learned the hard way last year about the high costs of tying up to mooring balls in this harbor, with off-season rates around $2.00 a foot per night, easily as much as full-service marinas in many places.)

Once we've secured Thalia, we're treated to a stay in very comfortable quarters indeed, with unheard-of luxuries (to a sailor) like a large, soft bed, a bathtub, and a wonderful outdoor fireplace set in the corner of a sheltered patio. In this setting, we are able to really and truly relax after many months and thousands of miles of traveling on the waters from the Bahamas all the way up to Maine.

Projects



This year, in addition to entertaining each other and visiting friends, we tackled a big project: we brought our large hinged salon table ashore in our dinghy (I do wish I'd thought to take a picture of that being moved!), along with a clever folding cockpit table our friends Randy and Sharon gave us. We refinished both of them in Tom's spacious garage workshop. Thalia's salon table had once been quite beautiful, but someone had slopped thick layers of a urethane coating - or possibly some sort of epoxy - that was starting to crack, blister, and turn cloudy. It took us several days of very hard work with a heat gun, scraper, and an orbital sander just to get the stuff off. Then we began the long process of applying coats of spar varnish and sanding in between coats.



Another small project we do each year is to have Larry help Tom move and neatly stack a cord of firewood into the garage for the winter. Tom took a time-lapse video of this year's effort, which was pretty entertaining. And this year I brought ashore our own peripatetic sourdough starter to make English muffins, leaving some behind along with recipes so sourdough lovers Tom and Jan can make their own sourdough baked goods.

Wining and Dining
The island has a number of good restaurants, but our group loves entertaining, so we mostly enjoy cooking at home. As with any island, things can be quite expensive here - after all, most of the goods in the local grocery store have to journey over on a ship. But Nantucket is big enough and rich enough in land, water, and ocean resources to have an impressive supply of local food. We did most of our shopping at the local seafood stores and at Bartlett Farm, a large and impressive working farm and retail store.

We ate very, very well, as we always do on Nantucket. Tom made his wonderful eggs Benedict one morning, and Jan - who packs a very impressive picnic basket - made blue fish pâté as well as cured salmon to snack on. The first night Mom and Al arrived, we did a dinner of culotte steak in chimichurri sauce, pommes soufflés, green beans, and sliced heirloom tomatoes in basil walnut vinaigrette. Another night, we made homemade pizza with Italian 00 flour I'd brought clear out from Classic Foods in Oregon.



Our big event was a dinner for 12 one night, every one of us except for Jan (who's from upstate New York) hailing from California. Appetizers included the pâté and salmon, plus our friend Craig's dish of grilled goat-cheese stuffed figs wrapped in prosciutto and skewered with rosemary branches. We followed this with a Caesar salad and a paella with roasted local peppers, artichokes, and seafood including littleneck clams, mussels, lobster, prawns, plus Spanish chorizo and chicken thighs. Terry, one of our guests, baked a couple of gorgeous plum almond galettes for dessert. It was a wonderful evening, at least what I can remember of it.

Exploring



In between all that eating and drinking, we did manage to do some wandering around Nantucket, from the tiny cottages and hidden gardens of Siasconset on the east end of the island to a friend's lovely private beach on the north shore, where we had a picnic and collected shells. We walked the insanely bumpy cobblestoned streets of the town, and wandered with the dogs over acres of Land Bank open space. (Side note: It's interesting to note that nearly half the land on the island is designated as open space, which is wonderful from a livability and conservation point of view. However, it also exacerbates a significant problem on the island: the lack of affordable housing, particularly for those who come to the island to work.)

Back to the fun, though: We listened to two bluegrass bands and drank sangria one afternoon at Cisco Brewery and Triple Eight Distillery, securing a bottle of Gale Force Gin for our onboard liquor cabinet. We drove out to see our first cranberry bog, and the two overgrown kids flew Tom's drone to take aerial photos of a client's house (the first image on this post was also taken by Tom using his drone as Larry and I sailed out of the harbor).



I couldn't resist buying Larry just one souvenir, which then piqued my curiosity not about limericks but on the color Nantucket red. That color is everywhere on the island, from the ubiquitous preppy trousers at that fabulous store, Murray's Toggery, to the painted trim on shingled homes (it's one of only 12 approved colors for buildings). Turns out, there are many stories about the color's origin, some silly (Mr. Murray fell into a cranberry bog in his khaki pants?!?), and some rather wonderful (sailing scallop boats a hundred years ago flew red sails to distinguish them from the motorized scallopers. Exposed to salt water and sun, the sails faded to a pinkish red). I think I'll go with that story. It fits the whole Nantucket experience so well.

Moving On
Finally, we had to leave. The nor'easters are starting to blow with more and more regularity, and the night air has been getting chilly. With Tom's help we wrapped our newly refinished tables in moving blankets and ferried them back across the mooring field to where Thalia lay patiently at anchor. We loaded up on good island vegetables and other provisions, packed up our clean laundry and the various treasures we'd acquired, and sadly said our goodbyes.

The weather forecasts have not been particularly encouraging. The good news is, brisk fall winds from the north and northeast allowed us to sail west, first to Martha's Vineyard, then to Block Island, and then along the southern edge of Long Island and all the way down the coast of New Jersey. The bad news is, those winds have been strong enough to create some very large and uncomfortable swells, particularly when we left Block Island on the 44 hour passage down to the mouth of the Delaware River. Conditions weren't dangerous, but it was certainly uncomfortable. Neither of us was able to sleep much at all when not on watch at night, so when we finally arrived at our anchorage at Cape Henlopen, DE very early yesterday morning, we were more than a little bleary.

We could have stayed longer at Block Island - which we love - but forecasts out over the next week to ten days predicted much the same, if not worse. Now that we're here - ready to head up the river and back into the Chesapeake Bay in another day or so - we're happy to have covered so much ground (er, water). But it did cause us to question just how much distance we want to continue to travel. Our perspective is starting to shift toward the idea of covering less territory and spending more time in places. As my brother Dan put it, it's like comparing your first trip to Europe - when you feel you have to hit every city you can in two weeks - with later visits in which you learn to spend more time in places you've come to like. So that's what we're considering in planning our next year's travel.