By 7:20 on Thursday, we were fueled and underway. What a morning: sunny and calm! We have been so lucky in that regard on this trip…the winds and currents can be pretty strong on these islands, and it could be a real challenge to single-handle in rough conditions. But it seems like it always calms down when we need it to!
Sea conditions are excellent: 1′-2′ seas, with low humidity. The sun is over the transom as we head due west for Martha’s Vineyard and Wood’s Hole.
Hadley Harbor at 9:35. Dug up some clams and mussels and boiled them in seawater. Had an early lunch and left for Marion at 11:30. We were on our mooring by12:30!
It’s the first time we were traveling for more than an hour outside the sight of land
Visibility was restricted by haze.
Seas were sloppy: 2′-3′ right on the port beam. Extremely uncomfortable.
And on top of everything else, an alarm went off telling us we were critically low on fuel!
Logic told me that we couldn’t be out of fuel, but it was still upsetting. Nothing to do but continue!
We finally made the breakwater at 1;15. Just 2 hours but it seemed a lot longer.
We’re staying at the Nantucket Boat Basin, a huge upscale marina in the heart of the harbor. There are a series of piers built out into the harbor, each large enough to contain cottages, restaurants and shops.
These are fixed docks with a significant tidal range, so the dockhand who helps you into your slip carries an electric drill with which he repositions the metal ladder so that it’s perfect for boarding and reboarding! Snazzy!
The boats here are huge as well. It’s our first exposure to megayachts; we simply don’t see them on the Chesapeake.
Even the sporsfishermen are huge. This one is a 70-footer with a 35-foot tender. His tender is bigger than my boat!
Today has been kind of quiet: shopping and laundry. It’s a good day for it: 66 degrees and cloudy. I hope it’s prettier tomorrow when we head back to Marion.
Martha’s Vineyard is a large island, with several harbors. We plan to visit two of them: Lake Tashmoo, and Vineyard Haven, on the way to Edgartown, the tourist Mecca!
Both Lake Tashmoo and Vineyard Haven looked pretty, but rather quiet, so we continued on to Edgartown, arriving around 11AM.
Here we are passing the iconic Edgartown Harbor Light at the harbor entrance.
This is so exciting! I can’t believe I’m here on my own boat. What a birthday present!
Since we plan to stay just a couple of days, we elected to pay an outrageous fee to tie up to a pier, rather than pick up a mooring. Glad we did. It gave us a lot of flexibility.
Spent part of the afternoon dealing with paperwork: the sale of my old boat was being finalized, The broker – Tom Lippincott – had to send some papers to the local notary, and I had to sign them and get the hard copies back to the broker in Rock Hall.
It seems he sold Whistler in 4 minutes. He had no sooner published the photos to Yacht World, than the buyer called! “Is Whistler still available?” I guess so, I just posted it 4 minutes ago!” “Well I want to buy her!” Hah!
Tuesday morning we were up early for a walk to the lighthouse and an early morning swim.
The harbor is foggy. I hope it clears up later…I’m hoping to leave for Nantucket if I get the paperwork done.
Here’s a great shot of a cat boat emerging from the mist:
The houses here are also gorgeous!
Well, it took just 30 minutes to complete our business at the bank! Unfortunately, it then took 30 minutes to walk to the post office. And then it took 2 hours in line at the post office! Gotta love Covid! Or maybe it’s always like this?
Here’s the cute little bank:
And here’s part of the line at the post office! Everyone masked and 6′ apart!
When we first saw Freedom, she was in an indoor storage shed, and she looked huge!
At 16,000 pounds, she has over twice the displacement of my last boat – Whistler – which was a 28′ Legacy. It’s weird: she is just 4′ longer than Whistler, but she has twice the interior space that Whistler has, and she has many more complicated systems that I’ve never had in a boat:
Generator
Inverter
Air Conditioning
Refrigerator
Freezer
Induction cooktop
TV
Fresh-water toilet
Bow and stern thrusters
240 volt power
Radar
The addition of 240-volt power means that this boat has three electrical systems:
12-volt (like your car)
120 volt (like your house)
240 volts to drive the AC
The inverter converts the 240 to 120, and she has 5 batteries to provide the 12 volt
No wonder these boats are so expensive!
To complete Freedom’s purchase, she had to pass a Marine Survey and a Sea Trial. Both took place towards the end of June, and she passed with flying colors. By month-end, the sale was complete, and we made plans to move aboard immediately after the Fourth of July weekend.
Our first task was to clean Freedom from top to bottom, and to ensure that she was properly fitted out with the proper gear. Since she was up in Massachusetts, we rented a truck from U-Haul, loaded it with cleaning supplies, charts, and other gear, and headed north.
Four backbreaking days later, the boat was clean to our satisfaction, and we were ready to set out on a weeklong shakedown cruise.
For our first trip we planned to head across Buzzard’s Bay to Wood’s Hole, the well-known passageway to Martha’s Vineyard. We learned from our cruising guide that there is a popular harbor (Hadley Harbor) just off the Wood’s Hole channel. The trip should take about an hour, Perfect for the first leg of our shakedown cruise.
Saturday we were totally fogged in!
On Sunday, July 12th [MY 76TH BIRTHDAY !!!!] we finally left.
It was blowing 15 knots, with 4-foot seas. Not unusual for Buzzard’s Bay, we’re told, but a tough test for Freedom. Spray crashing across the windshield. Towing a huge wake. We tried towing the dinghy, but it was impossible under these conditions, so w figured out how to use the stern davits to mount the dinghy on the swim platform.
Once in Hadley Harbor, everything was calm and peaceful. Played with the dinghy and the electric outboard. Generator working. Enjoyed some wine and a cigar. What a great birthday!
Rod & Guinness' Amazing Adventures 