Long Trip, Long Story

By the sheer will of my superhuman husband we made it to Cape Cod, but it was far from the ideal first overnighter we were hoping for. We left Rockport around 6:30am on Tuesday while the wind was blowing hard and the waves rocked us around. Since the weather was supposed to improve, the plan was to travel into better conditions. I hadn't been expecting quite such jarring conditions, and the anxiety I had been suppressing about making the trip reared its head and told me that I, in fact, was not at all ready. But not wanting to spend a year in Rockport, we at least needed to get moving South and would decide whether we could make it to our destination after we got to Monhegan Island.

By 9:00am things were looking up and as I steered us downwind at speeds I was formerly uncomfortable with, my outlook also improved. To aid our decision about how to proceed, we obsessively listened to the radio weather forecast which had morphed into a small craft advisory for everywhere along the coast we could possibly be headed starting early the next morning through 8pm. After talking it to death we ended up turning West to a protected harbor where we could wait it out. Though once we turned toward land, we both had a strong feeling that it was not the right move and that we would unnecessarily miss our window and get ourselves stuck waiting around for ideal conditions that might never come. From where we were we could just day-hop slowly down the coast, but that might mean we skipped Cape Cod altogether. A depressing concept since we had been looking forward not only to being in Cape Cod but to making our first long voyage. We decided to just get some sleep and take off again at midnight, which would give us just enough time to make it to Cape Cod before dark the next day.

The stars and moon were completely obscured by clouds, making the motion of the waves a mystery until they swept beneath us, and each lobster pot on our way back out to sea was a surprise we barely avoided as Jon stood at the bow and waved me around them. In the darkness we motor-sailed along leaving a wake of green bioluminescence as we careened around the glowing red compass dial, concentrating on keeping the arrow pointing at 206 degrees. The closer we steered to the correct course, the further into daylight the GPS estimated our arrival time. For a while it was looking like we would make it to Provincetown around 5pm.

The only distressing moment was when our depth-finder sounded its alarm and showed that we were in 8 feet of water. The chart said we should be in 600 feet. After triple checking the chart and wondering aloud what could be happening - umm, are we on top of a whale? - the depth slowly started to increase to 24 feet, then 30, and finally 218. Jon remembered that the device can only read up to a certain depth and after that will show only erroneous readings. Because Jon had already gone over our plotted course to make sure there were no shallow spots along our route, we didn't really need to be too concerned. But it still about gave him a heart attack and in the moment of panic we managed to back wind the main. Luckily we had a preventer rigged, avoiding an accidental jibe.

After green torpedos speeding through the water alongside and underneath the boat alerted us that we had an entourage of porpoises making the journey with us, the hours quickly ticked by and soon it was morning. Once again things were looking up. Being able to actually see the water was helpful so we splashed into the waves to reef the main to help manage the increasing wind. With no land in sight the only sign of civilization was a light from the sole ship we would see, which had passed us by 7:00am.

 

For awhile it was semi-smooth sailing though the wind and waves continued to build, but we were feeling confident despite the number of hours yet to go. After that, things took a turn. I was getting sea-sick and Jon was beyond exhausted, having not gotten any sleep or much of a break from the helm. It had been our plan that I would take the wheel for a few hours during the more manageable wind and waves so that Jon could sleep. But those favorable conditions never came and Jon had to work hard to keep us on course and at the right angle to the wind and waves. So, that is how we spent the next incredibly tense and distressing eight hours as the rain started to fall. A bright spot came for Jon when a little finch landed on our boat. It was certainly not a water bird and must have gotten swept out to sea by the wind. It happened upon our boat where it stopped to catch its breath. Landing on Jon's leg, it allowed him to hold it to warm it up. Jon tried to shuttle it underneath our spray dodger where it would be dry, but instead it flew onto one of our reef lines on the boom and there it stayed for hours. Though it abandoned ship long before we found land, hopefully the finch managed to make it to a safe port as well.

Our predicted arrival time had steadily been downgraded from around 5pm to closer to 8pm. Despite reaching speeds of 9 knots at times as we surfed down the faces of large waves, we were no longer able to steer a steady course, taking away any chance of being safely anchored before dark. We finally reached the tip of the cape just as it became dark and the 8 foot and larger swells from the East were mitigated by land, but there was no change in the wind gusting to near 30 knots.  Somehow we got the sail down and made our way toward the lights of Provincetown. For the second time in so many days we were in a situation we knew was dangerous, heading into an unfamiliar port in the dark. But staying out at sea was not really an option as the conditions were supposed to get worse throughout the night and next day. Luckily our chart plotter did not choose that hour to inexplicably shut itself off as it has in the past. We expected to find ourselves among hundreds of boats moored inside the breakwater, but instead we could only see two or three ship-shaped shadows against the bright lights of the town. We wondered whether a hurricane was coming and all of the well-informed and wise boat-owners had taken their vessels to more protected waters. But with little energy left to worry about anything more that night, the only challenge that remained was seeing through the rain to pick up the first decent-looking mooring we found. After seven or eight tries we had it. And at 9:30pm, soaked and completely spent, we climbed into a rocking and rolling berth that never felt so welcoming.   

Had it not been our very first crossing overnight and if we hadn't been sleep deprived, it probably wouldn't have felt as extreme. But as it was we rightly freaked ourselves out by consciously ignoring a lot of the good advice we'd taken care to gather. I knew that Jon had been afraid he wouldn't be able to keep going when he started making me all kinds of promises that he would never so endanger my life in the future, apologized for ignoring my protests and putting me into such a situation in the first place, and said that we could do all kinds of boring stuff when we got to Provincetown, like sit in a coffee shop and go shopping and to museums. And even if the conditions may not have been all that bad in retrospect and wouldn't even touch the chaos that others have sailed through, it was a lot for our first try and we are both relieved to know that we won't be repeating that experience for a very long time. Or ever, hopefully.

What else did we learn? Don't choose glasses over contacts when you're sailing at night in the rain and are nearly blind without them. Also, as much as I do not wish to be the weakest link in our sailing equation, there is something to be said for the chivalrous experience of being rescued from sea misery by my husband-in-foul-weather-gear.