September 4, 2018 back to Cuttyhunk, MA

Dave called Fairhaven Shipyard as soon as they opened at 7:30.  No one answered until after 8:00.  The person answering the phone said she would give the message to the dock master about the short haul and have him call Dave back.  We didn’t hear anything for a couple hours, so Dave took our fuel jerry cans in to refill them and talk to someone in person.  In the office, the receptionist pointed at a guy and said “I gave him the message” with a little frustration in her voice.  They guy had basically blown us off.  After checking a few things, he said he could do the short haul a week from Thursday.  Dave made the appointment and left frustrated and didn’t like their attitude. 

We cancelled the haul out with Bayline and decided to go back to Rhode Island where we had several recommendations for boatyards. 

We talked to the surveyor to cancel our appointment today.  He gave us a few places that he has worked with in Rhode Island.  After checking with a few on their haul out system and availability, we left a message with Hinckley Yachts and decided to motor over to Cuttyhunk to check for water again.  We decided to call it the “port of indecision” after a Jimmy Buffett song.

On the way over, I decided to make spaghetti from scratch.  If I didn’t have something ready, Dave would want to call the Raw Bar for delivery of oysters or clams again.  Hinckley called back and said they could possibly haul us out on Friday and would call back in the morning.  Dave liked their attitude, much more professional. 

We anchored in the same spot we did when we were here last week.  There is a channel marker with a bell that is soothing.  Dave said it reminds him of a school bell from his childhood.  We had gone into the harbor to look at anchoring, but it was a little too crowded for us.  The mooring balls were $75/night.  And they had their winter poles on them.  I had read something about them in a review, but didn't know what they were referring to.  I guess it keeps the line from freezing on the surface of the water.

September 3, 2018 New Bedford Harbor and fishing boats

Dave has been having second thoughts about having Bayline boat works haul us out on Tuesday.  He thinks the ramp is too shallow.  And he doesn’t like the system of using a trailer instead of a lift.  He has too many night mares of hauling out our C&C and Catalina with a trailer. 

We decided to take our dinghy to the Fairhaven Shipyard to check out their approach for the lift.  There wasn’t anyone around to talk to, so we decided to call them tomorrow. 

It was a nice day on the water, so we decided to tour further up the harbor.  We could see a seafood market from the water, but no place to tie up our dinghy and go to shore.  After we went under a highway bridge, we saw a fence that came down to the shore by a 7-11.  We decided to tie up there, at least we could lock it to the fence.  We asked at the 7-11 how we could get to the seafood market.   We ended up walking about a mile to get to the market.  We had to go a few blocks inland to be able to get crosswalks for the highway.  We made it to Kyler’s Catch Seafood Market and Kitchen.  Their boats were tied up on the water.  Doesn’t get any fresher than that.  We each had their scallop dinner since this area is known for it’s scallops. 

the boats behind Dave brought in our scallops for lunch

 

the McDonald's sign in the distance was near the 7-11 where we tied up our dinghy.  It was worth the walk

As we came back we checked out the different fishing boats.  The water taxi driver had pointed out the herring and scallop fishing boats to us.

side view of the scallop fishing boats

scallop boat with chain that picks up the scallops off the bottom

the holes in the chain/rake are sized to let the smaller scallops go through and return to grow larger

herring boat

BIG ice plant for the fishing boats

Back at the boat, we made water with the water maker.  Hoping Fairhaven Shipyard would be able to do our short haul tomorrow, we got the fenders out and tied into place to dock the boat.  The surveyor wants to see the inside of the boat while it is still in the water.  Then the boat is hauled out just long enough for him to look at the outside and put back in.  That’s why they call it a short haul vs hauling the boat out and putting in on stands for long term.  Dave spent some time making room in the aft cabin for the surveyor to see the area where water is coming in. 

While we have been on the mooring ball in this harbor, we have been near the docks where fishing boats unload their fish.  The water taxi driver also does tours of the harbor.  She told us that the fish are off loaded 150 lbs at a time.  And they usually carry a couple thousand pounds.  Then they have to take off any remaining ice.  Sometime during every night we were here, it would get noisy and STINKY. 

September 2, 2018 Fairhaven and the SSB repair

We took our dinghy to Fairhaven on the east side of the harbor this morning.  As we were looking for a public dinghy dock, we saw a couple whaling boats on the water.  It looked like they were training for a competition.  We use the Garmin app with Active Captain on it for directions.  We didn’t see the dinghy dock right away, so I looked it up on the app.  It said “difficult to spot but just south of the rowing whaleboats at the Fairhaven Shipyard”.  We got a good giggle out of that since we just saw the whaleboats. 

 
 

After tying up, we walked to Margaret’s for breakfast.  It had been recommended by Ted and Judy.  It was a little diner type of place with an awesome menu.  I had a Vermont omelette made with Vermont cheddar cheese, bacon and apple.  Dave had the 3 Greens omelette with Portuguese Linguica meat, goat cheese, spinach, basil and scallions.  We swapped half and half.  Very good.  The Linguica was more like a cured meat than a sausage.

After breakfast, Dave headed back to the boat and I walked to St Joseph’s church.  I walked through the historic downtown area.  They had several beautiful buildings that were built  in the late 1800’s as gifts from the Standard Oil multi-millionaire Henry Huttleston Rogers, who grew up in Fairhaven and spent his summers here with his family.

Town Hall 1894

Millecent Library 1893

Unitarian church dedicated 1904

cool house

St Joseph's church

After church, I walked to a public boat launch and called the water taxi to take me back to the boat.  Pretty handy. 

Dave had been working on the Single Side Band radio-SSB.  Last fall, during hurricane season, he had disconnected the antenna and the meter from the radio to protect it from lightning.  It hadn’t worked right since he put it back together this spring before leaving Georgia.  With some trouble shooting and tracing through the system, he found two problems.  I will try to describe them for those that are interested.

The grounding sheath on the male coax connector had broken.  Dave made a new connector, but the radio still wouldn’t tune.  Dave had 50 feet of coax wire for emergency replacement.  He was glad he had taken it out of our storage unit and brought it along.  He used it to bypass everything and the radio tuned.  He even heard someone from the Black Hills of SD, where we used to live.  That made him review the whole system to find the “weak link”.  He remembered reading that the SWR meter made by MFD electronics was cheaply made. He took that apart and found 2 loose screws that connected the coax connectors on the meter to the circuit board in the meter.  He tightened those and put it back together.  Everything is now working!!  He said it really felt good to take the time to chase down the problem.  We don’t use the SSB much in the US, but we did when we were in the Bahamas.  There are nets where you can check in.  Dave would like to do more of that. 

September 1, 2018 Dinner with new friends

Dave worked on the water maker today.  He wanted to “pickle” the water maker.  That hadn’t been done in a long time.  We usually do that if we are not going to use the water maker for a week or more.  It keeps organisms from growing in the lines and membranes.  After he started the process, he noticed water wasn’t flowing through the system.  There is a valve that changes the system from making water to pickling.  The handle moved, but he valve didn’t open.  He took the valve apart, cleaned it, and replaced it.  Once again, everything was working.  Since the valve hadn’t been working properly, Dave will have to check that it opens each time.  So, he ordered 2 new valves.  The one that changes from raw water to fresh water is sticky, too.  They will be shipped to our mailing service in Florida and forwarded to us when we will be in one place for awhile.  You never know what you are going to get into when you start a project.

This evening, we were invited to dinner at the home of the couple we met taking pictures of our boat a few days ago, Ted and Judy.  They thought we might enjoy a home cooked meal on shore.  We met them on shore in New Bedford.  Then they drove us to their home in South Dartmouth/Padanaram area about 15 minutes away by car, 1.5 hours by boat. 

They had a lovely home on the coast near where we were anchored Wednesday night.  I wish I would have taken their picture or one of their home.  Ted is a retired physician, gastroenterologist.  They have a racing sailboat named Gut Feeling, hee hee.  They also have the power boat they were on the day we met them.  They have chartered boats in the Caribbean several time for many years.  But they just bought a sailboat in Puerto Rico that they will do some extended sailing on.  They were anxious to talk boats with us.  It was a great evening.

view from Ted and Judy's house

Being boaters, they offered to stop at a grocery store for us on the way back to the dock in New Bedford.  We just picked up a few things.  That was so thoughtful.  We used the local water taxi tonight.  A power boat picks you up at your boat and takes you to shore anywhere in the harbor for $3/person/trip.  It’s a great service. 

We were back at the boat in time to listen to Alabama’s first football game of the season.  They are rated #1 and won the game 51-14.  ROLL TIDE!!

August 31, 2018 New Bedfore Whaling Museum

Since we had a long weekend to work on the boat and get it ready to haul out, we decided to be tourists today.  Plus we thought it wouldn’t be as busy as on the weekend. 

I have been fascinated with the whaling industry since I read Heart of the Sea about the whaling ship Essex.  Melville based Moby Dick on the true story of the demise of this ship.  New Bedford has an amazing whaling museum, which we spent the day touring.  You are greeted by the skeleton of a sperm whale.  They had a replica of the heart.  I happen to catch a child playing inside a vessel.  It helped visualize the size of it.  They also had a 66 ft blue whale skeleton.

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braided human hair as a family tree

 They had many fascinating exhibit halls.  There was an exhibit on Joshua Slocum, the first person to circumnavigate the globe singlehandedly in 1895-98.  He built his boat, Spray, in Fairhaven, MA (across the bay from New Bedford).  He left from Boston, but returned in New Bedford.  He wrote a book, Sailing Alone Around the World, which Dave has read and is recommended by many sailors.  We no longer have a copy of it, but it is on my reading list. 

There was an exhibit dedicated to Herman Melville and Moby Dick.  Living in New Bedford inspired him to write the book. 

Other exhibits included replicas of whaling ships and the boats used to harpoon the whales, one on knots and all the uses, beautiful Scrimshaw, the diversity of this community due to the whaling ships traveling the world and bringing people and customs back with them, artwork depicting the whaling era, the history of the textile mills, and much more.

The museum admission also included two buildings across the street, the Mariner’s Home and the Seaman’s Chapel.  The Seaman’s chapel was in the movie Moby Dick.  Since the sailors lost at sea weren’t buried in a cemetery, many families had plaques mounted on the walls in their memory. 

Seaman's chapel

We had lunch at the Quahog Republic Whaler’s Tavern in an old building on cobblestone streets.  The Quahog is a local clam pronounced ko-hog.  Then we had happy hour chicken wings at Rose Alley Alehouse, another old building.  It was good to get back to the boat by dinghy while there was still daylight.

 
We decided to watch Moby Dick at the boat, just to round out the day.

our boat is to the left of the white power boat by itself on the right

August 29-30, 2018 Padanaram and New Bedford, MA

Wednesday
We motored to Padanaram, MA, back across Buzzard Bay.  It is just west of New Bedford.  There is a marina here that Dave talked to for a possible haul out.  The guy Dave talked to sounded like a teenager.  And whenever Dave mentioned our shaft, he would repeat rudder.  So he didn’t have a good feeling about the place.  Maybe we’ll check it out by dinghy first. 
We had water in the main bilge and a little in the aft area.  So may have a combination of things still going on.  The rest of the day was spent waiting for the surveyor to call, and always some cleaning or small project to do.

Thursday
As we were enjoying our morning coffee, we heard a boat circling our boat.  When we looked outside, they were taking pictures of our boat.  So we went outside to see what they were up to.  We met Ted and Judy, on their power boat.  They just bought a sailboat and liked the way our solar panels were mounted.  They lived on shore near where we were anchored.  We asked them what they thought about the local marina for having boat work done.  They wouldn’t recommend it.  They gave us the name of a few places in New Bedford, MA and Narraganset Bay, RI.  Since we wanted to keep moving northeast, we chose to move to New Bedford.  They also gave us their phone number and told us to call if we have any more questions about the area. 

We called Bayline Boatyard in New Bedford to reserve one of their mooring balls.  We headed there about noon.  It was only about an hour away. 

New Bedford has a very impressive hurricane wall.  It is 26 feet high and controlled by a gate.  They have the largest active fishing fleet in the US in this bay.  The wall was built after a couple hurricanes damaged the fishing fleets in the bay and parts of the town. 

Once we were settled on the mooring ball, we went into the office for Bayline.  We had to tie up at a public dock and walk less than a block to their property.  We talked to them about hauling our boat out for a survey-a short haul where they put you right back in the water.  If by chance we needed to stay out of the water, we didn’t want to do it before the long Labor Day weekend.  So we planned to haul our boat out on Tuesday.  Our surveyor wants to see our boat in the water before it is hauled out.  They thought that would be possible at the public dock as long was we stayed out towards the end.  That way others could still use the dock.  That worked for our surveyor, too.  So we were all set for Tuesday.

We took a tour of the bay by dingy.  This is an industrial port.  It was difficult to see where we could tie up to go ashore.  As we were passing Pope Island, in the bay, we asked another boater about being able to get a beer somewhere.  They directed us to Fathoms Restaurant on Pope Island that had their own dinghy dock.  We enjoyed a scallop ceviche and a couple drinks at an outside bar and were back to the boat for dinner.

Fort Tabor at  west entrance to New Bedford

entrance through hurricane wall

 

Fort Phoenix at east entrance to New Bedford

August 27-28, 2018 Cuttyhunk, MA

Monday
We decided to move on north and check our water leak as we go.  At some point, we will have to have it repaired.  We left our anchorage and it still took an hour to get out of the bay.  This is a huge bay and great for sailing. 

Castle Hill Inn south end of Newport, RI

Beavertail State Park from the water

We decided to just do day trips as we moved north.  Our first stop was Cuttyhunk, MA.  It’s the island at the end of the chain south of Cape Cod called the Elizabeth Islands.  We were able to sail 3/4s of the way.  Dave looked at me and said “we’re sailing in New England!”. 

After anchoring, we called the Cuttyhunk Shellfish Raw Bar to order seafood.  They deliver to your boat!  We tried their clams on the half shell and their clam chowder.  We’d never had raw clams, and they were pretty good.  What a great business.  They said they have been doing this for 37 years.
 
 
 

Dave checked our leak and we do take on more water when we are at sea.  So we decided to call the insurance company tomorrow and get moving on this. 

Tuesday
We spent the day making calls and returning calls to our insurance company and marinas.  To get things started, they had to e-mail us forms to fill out and return.  Well, it would have been easier on the main land.  The wifi wasn’t very strong on this island.  It took forever to open the e-mail, download the forms, and print them.  Things you take for granted on land. 

We also started researching marinas that do repairs in this area.  We had some ideas in Narraganset Bay, but we don’t really want to head back there.  We want to keep moving north (actually east before north in this location). 

Dave removed the water from the area in the aft of the boat, again.  We’ll see how that goes.
I made an awesome shrimp scampi dinner.  Otherwise Dave would have called the Raw Bar to deliver to our boat again.

Cuttyhunk form our anchorage