Our First Journey

Happy arrival at Peddocks Island.

I wanted to share a little more about our first trip under our "own" power last week.

As Alice told you, we had to be towed out and piloted back into our slip.  While its a drag I'm not good enough at the controls to manage that tight space in the marina, it was almost worth it to see our skilled dock master Sebastian tow our giant boat out through all the twists and turns. I haven't found pictures of it yet, but hoping someone has one.  Sebastian tied the lines from the 15' skiff to our bow, and brought us out there without a hitch.  (Actually there was a hitch - literally. Because I was taking a short cut with our stern lines, one of them almost got stuck on a neighbors anchor!)  Yikes.  I won't make that mistake again.

Alice has already told you about the equally amazing pilot back into the slip by Bond, Howie Bond.

This was the first trip we took without a hired captain who was training us.  But it wasn't without help!  I was smart enough to ask Sean and Sandy, who have been liveaboards with a similar boat to ours for the last 4 years.   Sean started learning to drive a boat with roughly the same experience as I have, and now is very competent.  He let me drive the boat, but he was there to look over my shoulder.

Both Sean and Sandy were a big boost of confidence, and very calm, despite a few interesting moments.

The harbor was very crowded that day, and I had an issue with our hand-held VHF radio.  At that moment there was plenty of open water in front of us, so I looked down briefly to the cabinet where the built-in VHF was.  Then I heard Sean say, "maybe we should turn."  I looked up to see a large sail boat about to get broad-sided by Betty.  That'll teach ya.

We had such an awesome time out there. Jen, Kevin and Pam and Ed joined us for the trip too.  What a blast.  We went first to Portuguese cove at Peddocks island.


There's a regular course that way through what's called "President Roads", which is the channel most boats take out of the harbor out into the open sea.  This is near an area what a sailor friend of ours calls the "washing machine", because all of the choppy water where several channels meet.

Part of "President Roads"

 But as it turns out, pretty recently they took down the dilapidated bridge from Quincy to Long Island. So now, if you're a little careful, you can cruise right through the middle of what used to be a bridge.

What's left of Long Island Bridge in Boston 

When we started heading toward this, Jennifer said nervously, "Chris, I think you're going to do great getting us right through there!"  As we got closer she repeated this a couple times.

When we were finally through Jen was very happy.  Ok, relieved is a better term.

Here's Peddocks Island:

The anchors on the map tell you its a good place to put an anchor down.

The reason we went to Peddocks, about 7 miles from the marina, is that there is where our friends had gathered in their boats the night before.  Its great for overnights.  Bill and Cathy and Tanya and Aaron and Ron and Ruth and others were there in their sail boats.  They took this picture of us coming in.

Unfortunately, we couldn't stay long in the cove there with them for long.  The windlass (motor that raises and lowers the anchor) is broken on our boat.  Ed, Kevin and I got a real workout doing a dress rehearsal of doing it by hand.  The boys worked hard - hard enough to convince me that it was a terrible idea.

So, we said our goodbyes to the sail boats and went over to Spectacle Island.

Spectacle is a place a lot of people visit on the ferry.  Its got a nice beach and walking trails, and bathrooms.  And something new and awesome this year:  MOORING BALLS !!  Thanks to Sean and Sandy, we learned how to tie our boat to a mooring.  Very exciting. Its easier than docking, and both easier and more secure than "dropping your hook" (anchoring).  Very cool.

One embarrassing thing about the mooring procedure:  Sean kept telling me to steer closer in, and I kept making the boat go the opposite direction.  It was a few minutes before I realized I was running the props correctly, but had the rudder going the other way. Duh.

We hung out at Spectacle for an hour so and had an amazing lunch Alice had prepared.  It was a huge hit.

And of course, the bravest of our crew jumped in the sea for a swim.

A great day.  We learned a lot, and had more fun doing it than should be legal.

Cheers,
Chris