First of all, let me just say that I am very tired of wearing layers. If we weren't planning on attending the Head of the Charles in Boston this weekend, we would have turned south days ago.
The anchorage last night was sweet. After showers and breakfast, we pulled up anchor before 10 a.m., motored out of Onset Bay to the western end of the Cape Cod Canal and went with the flow through that. Unfortunately, sailing is not allowed in the canal, because the weather was perfect to set sails (if you ignored the cold!) We had nearly 20 knots of wind from the west. After leaving the canal, we set the main with two reefs and the jib on a port tack at a beam reach. Even with the reefs, we were heeling over a bit, particularly when the wind gusted to 25 knots. When we arrived at the entrance to the meandering channel into Plymouth Harbor, we doused the jib and followed the red nuns and green cans. The anchorage to the east of the channel is narrow and not very deep, but we found a good spot on the second try.
The wind picked up after we had lunch, with gusts up to 40 knots for a while. I was resting (actually, trying to get warm) under the covers and it felt like I was in a washing machine, and not on the gentle cycle. We ran the space heater for about a half hour before dinner, so now the temperature in the boat is maybe around 60 degrees.
Peter prefers to anchor rather than dock when the wind is strong and gusting, but I think that we will need to tie up in town tomorrow for the day and night despite the predictions that the wind will not abate. The weather forecast also is predicting a high of 46 degrees tomorrow afternoon. The combination of low temperature, chilling wind and slapping waves is enough to deter me from using the dinghy to get to town. In addition, with shore power, we can run the space heater as much as we want.
My brother Terry has forewarned me that Plymouth Rock is not much to look at, but it is right on the shore in town, so we will take a peek. I just don't understand the hype (despite reading the sketchy history of how it came to be revered). When I was growing up, in school we learned (and the story was repeated every year at Thanksgiving, so it was hammered in) that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, and there were even illustrations to show the momentous occasion. I swallowed it hook, line and sinker. (I was such as conpliant student!) Growing up in West Virginia in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, I only saw the coast in the summer during vacations to rock-free, sandy shores. I think I imagined that the rock, in addition to being sacred to Americans, was a unique feature. There are so many fallacies here. First of all, the coast of New England is littered with rocks varying in size from pebbles to promotories and monoliths, relics of the moraines and erratics deposited by glaciers. Sighting one from a ship would not have been difficult at all; the challenge would have been, and still is, avoiding them, particulary the ones that are beneath the surface. In addition, I cannot imagine the captain of the Mayflower gazing toward shore and turning to his helmsman and saying, "Steer straight for that rock on the shoreline." No mariner steers toward a rock. Another discrepancy is that the Mayflower, carrying passengers intending to arrive in Virginia, about a third of whom were self-righteous, zealous and foolish Puritans, did not first arrive at Plymouth but on the eastern side of Cape Cod Bay at what is now Providencetown. They came ashore there on November 13, 1620; they tried to cope on this sandy, windy spit jutting out into the Atlantic for over two months. On December 21, they arrived at Plymouth, where they settled.
It is cold and the wind is biting here in mid-October, and we have plenty of provisions, fresh water, good clothing, a water-tight boat and even a heater at times. The voyagers on the Mayflower, who made an ill-advised decision to leave Plymouth, England, in September after several delays (the trip was originally planned to begin in July), were short on provisions, sick and without proper clothing for the bitter winter they faced. Only slightly more than half of the original passengers survived until the spring.
Was life in England really that bad?
The anchorage last night was sweet. After showers and breakfast, we pulled up anchor before 10 a.m., motored out of Onset Bay to the western end of the Cape Cod Canal and went with the flow through that. Unfortunately, sailing is not allowed in the canal, because the weather was perfect to set sails (if you ignored the cold!) We had nearly 20 knots of wind from the west. After leaving the canal, we set the main with two reefs and the jib on a port tack at a beam reach. Even with the reefs, we were heeling over a bit, particularly when the wind gusted to 25 knots. When we arrived at the entrance to the meandering channel into Plymouth Harbor, we doused the jib and followed the red nuns and green cans. The anchorage to the east of the channel is narrow and not very deep, but we found a good spot on the second try.
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| Plymouth Lighthouse |
Peter prefers to anchor rather than dock when the wind is strong and gusting, but I think that we will need to tie up in town tomorrow for the day and night despite the predictions that the wind will not abate. The weather forecast also is predicting a high of 46 degrees tomorrow afternoon. The combination of low temperature, chilling wind and slapping waves is enough to deter me from using the dinghy to get to town. In addition, with shore power, we can run the space heater as much as we want.
My brother Terry has forewarned me that Plymouth Rock is not much to look at, but it is right on the shore in town, so we will take a peek. I just don't understand the hype (despite reading the sketchy history of how it came to be revered). When I was growing up, in school we learned (and the story was repeated every year at Thanksgiving, so it was hammered in) that the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, and there were even illustrations to show the momentous occasion. I swallowed it hook, line and sinker. (I was such as conpliant student!) Growing up in West Virginia in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, I only saw the coast in the summer during vacations to rock-free, sandy shores. I think I imagined that the rock, in addition to being sacred to Americans, was a unique feature. There are so many fallacies here. First of all, the coast of New England is littered with rocks varying in size from pebbles to promotories and monoliths, relics of the moraines and erratics deposited by glaciers. Sighting one from a ship would not have been difficult at all; the challenge would have been, and still is, avoiding them, particulary the ones that are beneath the surface. In addition, I cannot imagine the captain of the Mayflower gazing toward shore and turning to his helmsman and saying, "Steer straight for that rock on the shoreline." No mariner steers toward a rock. Another discrepancy is that the Mayflower, carrying passengers intending to arrive in Virginia, about a third of whom were self-righteous, zealous and foolish Puritans, did not first arrive at Plymouth but on the eastern side of Cape Cod Bay at what is now Providencetown. They came ashore there on November 13, 1620; they tried to cope on this sandy, windy spit jutting out into the Atlantic for over two months. On December 21, they arrived at Plymouth, where they settled.
It is cold and the wind is biting here in mid-October, and we have plenty of provisions, fresh water, good clothing, a water-tight boat and even a heater at times. The voyagers on the Mayflower, who made an ill-advised decision to leave Plymouth, England, in September after several delays (the trip was originally planned to begin in July), were short on provisions, sick and without proper clothing for the bitter winter they faced. Only slightly more than half of the original passengers survived until the spring.
Was life in England really that bad?
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