A wet ride to Onset Bay

The wind which was promised howled in the rigging all night, but we Bears and our two humans slept well as we had all had a long hard day yesterday! Both humans were awake at 07:00 hrs, but turned over thinking, “ I don’t want to go out there!” 

They finally surfaced at 08:00 hrs and Brec made a cup of tea for all. The men then discussed the plan for going forward. We then dropped the mooring and moved to the fuel dock to top up with diesel, get blocks of ice and top up with water.

On the dock the humans met two Polish guys called Mark and Al on a large yacht called ALRUNA. They were trying to close the circle on a voyage which started in Newport went via Chicago, down the St Lawrence and they had left from Halifax a few days ago. A light lit up for us as this must have been the yacht that was following us on our first two days out of Lunenburg! They too wanted go through the Cape Cod Canal today. 

                                    ALRUNA

After filling with fuel OTTER was put back on the mooring and our humans went ashore for breakfast at the Post Office Café. 

 A big breakfast of French Toast with bacon an egg defeated Brec, but our BBF licked the platter clean! 

Back at the dock Brec agreed with ALRUNA how to stay in radio contact! ALRUNA left first but Brec being the good navigator that he is tuned it all perfectly! 

Here you see him in his armchair position at the wheel. The day was grey, overcast with light rain and poor visibility.

Outside the harbour Brec rolled out a well reefed Genoa and we were able to turn the engine off as we were making 5 knots. There was a following sea and with wind and rain from behind. 

Our BBF sat in Brec’s armchair and kept watch all day while Brec navigated. As we progressed towards the canal, ALRUNA called and had got there too early, their wind over tide situation made the entrance very lumpy and they thought OTTER would have difficulty with the situation. 

Brec, however, had timed the passage well slowing down or speeding up as necessary. As a consequence we arrived at just the right time to go through with the current. Our BBF with his Eagle eyes spotted the buoys well before Brec could and then hand steered through the canal taking only a break to use the heads when Brec steered.

As the unseen sun went down visibility deteriorated. Our BBF on his iPhone has an App called iSailor and has now bought the charts for this area. He has discovered that it works well as a navigation tool and now used it to good effect to steer the boat into Onset Bay in the dark.

You can see here the track we took to get out of the canal at the bottom right of the picture to the  blue arrow which is the boat at anchor.

Once Brec put the anchor down our BBF went below dried himself off and cooked the evening meal. The two men shared a beer to celebrate another successful passage.