SV Rocinante - 2005
From Haverstraw, NY to Penobscot Bay, Maine. The trip is scheduled to last approximately 30 days, leaving Haverstraw on August 1st, 2005
tracking : 19 recorded positions
tracking : 19 recorded positions
| Last Position: 42°2'30.12 N 70°11'9.96 W on August 29th 2005 @ 18:57 |
Ship's Log:
Monday August 29, 2005
We awoke to gray skies and a forecast of afternoon thunderstorms... time to re-think our plans.
After a lot of soul searching, we decided we had truly enjoyed the trip thus far and we shouldn´t push our luck. As I think I had already mentioned, this next leg would be a 60 nautical mile sail about 50 nautical miles off shore... bottom line, no turning back! At our top speed, under optimum conditions, we´re talking a 10 hour trip... if the weather turned ugly, we´d have no place to hide and a hell of a long haul to make it to a safe harbor.
The weather was already looking iffy and with the forecasted worsening of the weather due to Katrina (little did we know what the true impact of Katrina would be) we decided that even Portsmouth was out of the question and decided to find a marina closer to home.
We asked around a bit and had several people mention that the marina in East Dennis Massachusetts, was probably most capable of handling our needs. A couple of quick calls secured us a slip for the next few days, assured us that they would be able to pull Rocinante out of the water early and reserved a car at a "nearby" airport.
This all worked out quite well... we readied ourselves and Rocinante for the trip ahead, cast off our mooring line and said farewell to P-Town!
As we came out from around the protection of the hook, it started... again, nothing awful, just a bit of a chop and a stiff breeze dead on the nose! It was going to be a long 18nm (nautical miles)
Slowly, but surely, we made progress towards our destination... 5.5 / 6 knots or so our average speed. Then right on schedule, the chop turned into waves that continued to grow... you know the story... two footers became three footers which became four footers which... actually, they stopped around the four foot range with the occasional 6 footers. This time however we were heading into them, so it simply slowed us down and showered us with spray... it seemed like we would never get there.
We would be cruising along through the waves at about 4 / 4.5 knots when a series of six footers would hit... we´d climb the first wave... 3.5... 3... slam down into the next and climb the third... 2.5... 2... slamming down into the fourth... 1.8 knots... we thought for sure we were going to start going backwards! Nevertheless, as surely as each series of waves slowed us down, Rocinante would gather herself and slowly pick up speed again awaiting the next onslaught.
As the day wore on, we lost sight of the only landmark behind us, the Pilgrim Monument, and anxiously looked for signs of land in front of us... a few hours later, we spotted our first of two buoys marking the way to the harbor entrance... within 30-45 minutes, we spotted the dual breakwaters extending out from the mouth of the river... we were almost there.
Once past the breakwater, we made our way up the tiny channel towards the marina and pulled into our assigned slip. I´m sure we´ll look back on this in the years to come and laugh, but for now, it had been yet another arduous trip...
We cleaned up and you guessed it, headed out for lunch at the marina´s café... I had the best lobster roll ever... for those of you that are not familiar with this delicacy; it consists of a hotdog roll, lined with lettuce leaves and then piled with lobster salad! The good ones, and this was by far the best, are almost pure lobster with just a bit of mayo to bind it together... to give you some idea, this one actually had the whole claw nestled in amongst the chunks of tail meat!
Satiated, we headed back to Rocinante to figure out next steps... we filled out the paperwork to have Rocinante hauled and stored for the winter, contacted a local cab company (John´s Taxi) for the trip to the airport to pick up the rental, and waited...
Sure enough John´s Taxi showed up, driven by no other than John himself with his lovely bride by his side... guess this was a true family business!
$40 and a quick trip to the Hertz counter later, I was on my way back to the marina... oh yea, stopped by Captain Crusty´s (or something like that) and picked up some fried oysters along with fish and chips for dinner. M-M-M! (yummy sounds)
After dinner, we took "Dapple" (yep, we finally named our tender) and headed out to explore...
First, we headed up river... lovely, until we went to far into the reeds and were attacked by vicious hordes of mosquitoes and no-seeums! We quickly retreated and headed down river towards the breakwaters... we pulled Dapple up on the beach and enjoyed the moonlit sky until... you guessed it mosquitoes again!
We picked up a few stones to add to our "beaches we´ve visited" collection and rowed back to Rocinante, were we had yet another lovely dinner of linguine with clam sauce...
We slept well, knowing we had a hard day ahead of us packing our unused provisions for the trip back home.
Till next time,
Carlos & Maria
SV Rocinante..._/)
We awoke to gray skies and a forecast of afternoon thunderstorms... time to re-think our plans.
After a lot of soul searching, we decided we had truly enjoyed the trip thus far and we shouldn´t push our luck. As I think I had already mentioned, this next leg would be a 60 nautical mile sail about 50 nautical miles off shore... bottom line, no turning back! At our top speed, under optimum conditions, we´re talking a 10 hour trip... if the weather turned ugly, we´d have no place to hide and a hell of a long haul to make it to a safe harbor.
The weather was already looking iffy and with the forecasted worsening of the weather due to Katrina (little did we know what the true impact of Katrina would be) we decided that even Portsmouth was out of the question and decided to find a marina closer to home.
We asked around a bit and had several people mention that the marina in East Dennis Massachusetts, was probably most capable of handling our needs. A couple of quick calls secured us a slip for the next few days, assured us that they would be able to pull Rocinante out of the water early and reserved a car at a "nearby" airport.
This all worked out quite well... we readied ourselves and Rocinante for the trip ahead, cast off our mooring line and said farewell to P-Town!
As we came out from around the protection of the hook, it started... again, nothing awful, just a bit of a chop and a stiff breeze dead on the nose! It was going to be a long 18nm (nautical miles)
Slowly, but surely, we made progress towards our destination... 5.5 / 6 knots or so our average speed. Then right on schedule, the chop turned into waves that continued to grow... you know the story... two footers became three footers which became four footers which... actually, they stopped around the four foot range with the occasional 6 footers. This time however we were heading into them, so it simply slowed us down and showered us with spray... it seemed like we would never get there.
We would be cruising along through the waves at about 4 / 4.5 knots when a series of six footers would hit... we´d climb the first wave... 3.5... 3... slam down into the next and climb the third... 2.5... 2... slamming down into the fourth... 1.8 knots... we thought for sure we were going to start going backwards! Nevertheless, as surely as each series of waves slowed us down, Rocinante would gather herself and slowly pick up speed again awaiting the next onslaught.
As the day wore on, we lost sight of the only landmark behind us, the Pilgrim Monument, and anxiously looked for signs of land in front of us... a few hours later, we spotted our first of two buoys marking the way to the harbor entrance... within 30-45 minutes, we spotted the dual breakwaters extending out from the mouth of the river... we were almost there.
Once past the breakwater, we made our way up the tiny channel towards the marina and pulled into our assigned slip. I´m sure we´ll look back on this in the years to come and laugh, but for now, it had been yet another arduous trip...
We cleaned up and you guessed it, headed out for lunch at the marina´s café... I had the best lobster roll ever... for those of you that are not familiar with this delicacy; it consists of a hotdog roll, lined with lettuce leaves and then piled with lobster salad! The good ones, and this was by far the best, are almost pure lobster with just a bit of mayo to bind it together... to give you some idea, this one actually had the whole claw nestled in amongst the chunks of tail meat!
Satiated, we headed back to Rocinante to figure out next steps... we filled out the paperwork to have Rocinante hauled and stored for the winter, contacted a local cab company (John´s Taxi) for the trip to the airport to pick up the rental, and waited...
Sure enough John´s Taxi showed up, driven by no other than John himself with his lovely bride by his side... guess this was a true family business!
$40 and a quick trip to the Hertz counter later, I was on my way back to the marina... oh yea, stopped by Captain Crusty´s (or something like that) and picked up some fried oysters along with fish and chips for dinner. M-M-M! (yummy sounds)
After dinner, we took "Dapple" (yep, we finally named our tender) and headed out to explore...
First, we headed up river... lovely, until we went to far into the reeds and were attacked by vicious hordes of mosquitoes and no-seeums! We quickly retreated and headed down river towards the breakwaters... we pulled Dapple up on the beach and enjoyed the moonlit sky until... you guessed it mosquitoes again!
We picked up a few stones to add to our "beaches we´ve visited" collection and rowed back to Rocinante, were we had yet another lovely dinner of linguine with clam sauce...
We slept well, knowing we had a hard day ahead of us packing our unused provisions for the trip back home.
Till next time,
Carlos & Maria
SV Rocinante..._/)
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