As with any long term cruise we plan, typically the period leading up to departing is a whirlwind of activities and the past month has proved it more so than ever. After riding out hurricane Irene in Seal Bay on the island of Vinylhaven I completed working on two decks at my grandfathers camp in Farmington, ME while also getting Makana ready for our winter cruise to the Bahamas. We departed Camden on the morning of Sept 17th and motored under clear cool skies to Boothbay Harbor for the night. The following day we motored and sailed to Portland with the next day spent motoring to Portsmouth NH in large swells courtesy of a hurricane off the east coast. Two days in Portsmouth we departed at sunrise and were abruptly met by a police boat advising us to alter course "immediately"due to the incoming navy vessel. Upon scanning the horizion I saw no such vessel in the immediate area just a bunch of vessels with flashing lights with machine guns mounted on their bows. It was then I realized that the light on top of a post which I saw eariler off our bow and couldn't identify on our charts was moving. We then motored right past an incoming navy submarine!
60 miles later we sailed into Boston harbor with 16 knots of wind out of the southwest with Makana flying along on a beam reach just under 10 knots. Today we're off to give Hoku a hands on lesson-tour on American history, she want's to see where they dumped all that tea, and where "that guy" called out "the British are comming, the British are comming"!