Plymouth Harbor and Cape Cod 9/14/26
Rough passage out of Gloucester down towards the Cape. Our beloved dinghy Hei Hei's painter (tow line) broke and we had to fetch the drifting dinghy in pretty rough seas and high winds. It was very hard to reattach the tow line and I tied it onto a point that BROKE! Our dear rubber chicken mascot was lost at sea:( So again, we were rescuing the dinghy is less-than-ideal conditions. The term "Shake Down Cruise" was fully appreciated as down below on the boat looked like a bomb went off as the contents of our lives spilled out of the places we thought we had tucked them away! Whoops! Lessons learned. The summers we have spent cruising the coast of Maine had made us soft:) Let's just say we approached Cape Cod Bay yesterday with stuff very strapped down and the dinghy up and out of the water in the davits. We had to bail on our plans to make the Cape Cod Canal and pulled into Plymouth Harbor which was AMAZING. Beautiful entrance surrounded by sand dunes. Welcome mooring from PYC and much needed showers! Ben and I went out to celebrate our 24th wedding anniversary at Salt, which was delicious but I was SO exhausted from the crazy day at sea I wasn't much of a date (in fact a cranky exhausted!) Classic. It's like partying, I just can't do it like I used to... now I can't get my butt kicked offshore and then be a hot date at night like the old days.
Beautiful morning which we spent cleaning up the boat and putting things back together before heading ashore to explore the Mayflower II at the Plimouth & Patuxet Museums. Very very cool and we learned a lot. The large-ass end of the boat was for 2 reasons 1) harder for pirates to attack 2) in heavy weather when sails needed to be struck, the large butt of the boat acted like a stay sail keeping the bow of the boat pointed into the wind and waves. This was actually tested off during a story off the Carolinas that this amazing replica endured and the captain reported it worked very well. 2 babies were born abord the 66 day voyage... talk about hell. The babies lived! Passengers were not allowed on deck.
I could have spent MUCH longer in Plymouth exploring the beaches and ALL of the museums, seemed they had a strong indigenous presence at all of the museums. I can't wait to hopefully go back on our way home?!
Beautiful sail down to the Cape Cod Canal and into Megansett Harbor and into the welcoming arms of the Walsh Family! Dave scored us a sweet mooring in the very cute little picturesque harbor. We had a delicious dinner at their house and enjoyed beds, toilets and showers. We're here for a few days.
