21 Aug 16

It was another glorious morning, with a fresh breeze out of the SE cooling the boat. After a leisurely breakfast, we filled up the solar showers (the brand-new expandable hose burst during the process and is now trash) and, after more friendly chats with the YC members, finally got away from the wharf just after 10:00. We motored and sailed and motored out of Rockport, turned right past the Strathmouth I. lighthouse, passing inside of Thacher Island and rounding Cape Ann head. The wind was in a good direction, but too light for a good sail, so we motored most of the way to Gloucester, where we picked up a town mooring inside Tenpound I., there being no moorings available in the inner harbor, just after 13:00. After lunch we rowed about a mile into town to do a bit of grocery shopping; later we did manage to secure a reservation for an inner harbor mooring tomorrow, which will hopefully be a bit less rolly. Back on board for happy hour and dinner. I ran the generator for a bit to charge up the batteries, but the cooling water inlet plugged up almost immediately with eel grass, so I spent 15 or 20 minutes unplugging the filter and lines.

42-36.323’N, 070-39.780’W

22 Aug 16

The front came through at about 02:00; the wind got up and it rained pretty steadily for about 3 hours, as we discovered at 05:00 when I got up and found one of the hatches had not been sealed - but the cabin sole is really clean now, as a result. After that fun, we slept in until about 08:30. The wind was still up, so we sat tight on our Tenpound mooring until noon, when a mooring ball came available in the Inner Harbor, which is MUCH less rolly. After we got settled in the Inner Harbor, we rowed ashore and visited the Gloucester Maritime Museum. Afterward, we went up to the Cape Ann Museum, but it is closed on Mondays, so we headed up toward the AT&T shop at the mall to get a new MiFi Hotspot (the failure of this piece of equipment is the primary reason for our long delay in updating the blog). But they don’t have one in stock, so we turned around and walked over to the iconic Gloucester Fishermans Memorial; it is very touching and they have the names of all 5300 fishermen lost at sea since about 1780 - some years they lost as many as 159 men in one season, which must have been a huge proportion of the working-age men in this town. Back at the boat for happy hour; one of our mooring field neighbors came over to offer yet another compliment on our PT11 rowing dinghy - I’m gonna have to ask for a commission from Port Townsend Watercraft for all East coast sales.