Next morning we were up at 5:45. We hoisted the dinghy and secured it for travel, then hauled anchor and headed out into the Atlantic, our next destination Block Island. The wind was light to start with so after a short while of sailing between 2 and 2.5 knots we decided to run the motor until the wind started to behave a little more favorably. Our excitement for the morning was practicing man overboard drills. In the space of 30 minutes we fished 7 mylar balloons out of the water about 15 miles off Atlantic City. To a turtle these balloons look like it’s favorite food, jellyfish. They eat it and it kills them. We “rescue” mylar balloons whenever we see them out on the water, regardless of where we are. By early afternoon we had collected 14 balloons, one plastic shopping bag and a Clorox bottle. The wind finally came up enough for us to turn the motor off and we were able to sail at a comfortable 5.5 to 6 knots under sail alone. It was nice not having the motor running.

We passed through the traffic lanes for the Port of New York City and by sunset we had already covered over 70 mi. It was a little chilly but the wind held up and we were able to make between 5 and 6 knots for most of the evening. There was a dry cold front forecasted to pass through which would switch the wind to the west from the south. With our wind direction we were almost on a dead run so when it was time for bed we changed course a little to make the ride downstairs for the off watch person a little more comfortable. We zigzagged across our course during the night, maintaining roughly a 5 knot average in speed but as before, the wind slowly died until around sunrise we were only traveling at 2 knots. We switched on the iron genny and motored across a flat sea towards Block Island. There was just enough of a swell along with the following wind to make sleeping down below a challenging task. Neither one of us got much sleep although I think I may have gotten the better watch as the wind was dying and so the rolling was not as drastic towards morning.

At sunrise we were off the coast of Long Island, near Southampton. We motored up the coast towards Block Island and with sunrise came our balloon chasing again. The previous day had netted us probably 20 mylar balloons and by 10 in the morning we had already added six more to that. It was demoralizing to see so much human waste out in the ocean where it could harm nature. There was never quite enough wind to keep us to going and we ended up motoring all day until we finally reached Block Island around 6:30 p.m. The sunshine weakly warmed us up a little bit but it was still quite chilly on the water.

Once anchored, we dropped the dinghy and headed in to shore. We took a walk and on the recommendation of someone we met, went back and had a great tasting banana mudslide at one of the bars. Then we went to the Oar, the local sailing hang out and bought a couple of appetizers and glass of wine and watched the sun set over the water. We were only a couple, maybe 20 yards from the water but we were 50ft up and the view was spectacular. There was one very large sailboat in the harbor, almost look like one of the J-boats that we saw in Newport. There must have been a regatta because there were tons of sailboats; on mooring balls, anchored, and tied up at the docks – all flying their race flags. After our snack we came back to the boat, watched some Netflix and then hit the hay. We slept well.

Next morning we were up, hauled anchor and out of the harbor by 7:30 and on our way to the next stop which was the entrance to the Cape Cod Canal. As usual there was a light wind but it was blowing from the direction we were trying to go so we started off motoring. We ended up motoring all day. The wind was very light and the ocean was like glass. We motored up into Buzzards Bay and found free mooring balls across from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. We tied up and then Melanie hoisted me up to the spreaders to fix our flag halyard. After that we watched some movies and went to bed. Tomorrow was an early day because we needed to catch the current to go through the canal between 5 and 9 a.m. The current runs at 5 knots and with our top speed at 5, it would have taken hours to go through the canal if the current had been going the wrong way.

We woke up bright and early at 5 a.m. in order to catch the favorable current through the Cape Cod Canal, dropped our mooring and by 5:15 we were motoring out of the small cove where we had spent the night and into the canal. The current was swift; our engine was barely at idle and we were already doing five knots. At half to 2/3 throttle we were doing between 8 and 9 knots! The land moved by swiftly on both sides, there were numerous eddies in the water that would shift our boat from side to side but the surface was smooth, no waves and we made a very quick time through the canal. We shot out the other side of the canal and into Cape Cod Bay in just under an hour. The wind was favorable but light, so we hoisted the sails and headed for Plymouth. We made quick progress and arrived around noon. We tied up on a free mooring ball and spent the day cleaning and then went into shore and walked to the grocery to do our shopping, then caught an Uber back to the boat. Then we packed everything away.

We left Plymouth early the next morning and sailed North toward Boston. Winds were 20 to 25 knots and we made good time up until we had to turn into the harbor. We dropped the sails except for the stay sail and turned in to the secondary harbor channel and the winds quickly increased to 30 to 35 knots. We slogged upwind until we reached Boston Harbor and then started to look for a place to anchor. There really was no where to safely drop a hook so we found a mooring ball field and picked one up for 2 days. It was very quaint, there were sailboat races in the harbor, jets taking off from the airport, and we arrived right at sunset so the lights of the city came on and bought it to life and it looked really beautiful.

We dropped the dinghy into the water and then went to shore to take the dog for a walk and to have an appetizer. Next day we walked around the North End which is the Italian section, then came back so I could do some work and we could prepare for the arrival of our friends Michelle and Steve. We tried watching a movie but ended up falling asleep so we will have to both watch it again – so it goes when life is full….