Plymouth

fresh lobster
Originally uploaded by rosailither.

From Newport, it was a long day trip through the Cape Cod Canal to Plymouth, Massachusetts. We are now back into the realm of tides, which is almost nonexistent in the Caribbean. The waters of Plymouth harbour rise and fall by 12 feet (similar to the Exe).
We met up with our friend Colin who lives here but whose boat is currently in the Exeter Ship Canal. The weather turned incredibly hot for our stay and out came the barbeque and cold beers. Colin had just got himself a little boat and a lobster-catching permit and within two days of laying pots we were honoured with a taste of his very first lobster. Delicious!
Plymouth was the landing site of the original New England colonists - the Plymouth Brethren - and takes pride in celebrating its role in history. One of the exhibits is the 'Mayflower II', a working replica of the original vessel that landed here. It was a surprise to find that was she built in Brixham, Devon, in 1957 and was then sailed over here in 55 days. The boat still operates as a sailing vessel, now licensed for 75 persons - as opposed to the 102 people plus 25 crew who were originally squeezed on board.
It is strange to look at a chart and see such familiar town names on a new continent – over the next week or two we will pass Exeter, Dover, Biddeford, Portland and Bath!

Welcome to America

nice parking!
Originally uploaded by rosailither.

We arrived in America at the same time an unseasonal cold snap. So back on with the chimney for the first time in over a year and we soon had a lovely log fire roaring (with offcuts scrounged from the local building site).
Newport is a pretty town, based largely around the yachting industry and tourism. The first thing we noticed were the trees – huge, green and everywhere you look. The houses are mainly wooden construction, lots of T&G cladding and shingles. Some date back 200 years.
We met up with friends who showed us around by car - taking us to the out-of town shops and the second-hand boat store. We got new chains for our bikes, the old ones had seized solid after the Atlantic crossing! On the Cliff Walk we passed some of the enormous mansions or ‘summer cottages’ that were built along the waterfront by the newly rich in the late 1800’s.

People speak English in America but everything is slightly different.
The date is written backwards - 06/01 is 1st June not 6th Jan.
People are proud to fly the American flag.
You buy a phonecard but still need coins to use it.
You ask for chips and get a bag of crisps.
Even in a pub, you get waitress service...and are expected to leave a tip.
Cars are twice the size and boats have bigger hp engines.
Everywhere there’s a shop, there’ll be a ‘Dunkin Donuts’.
Traffic drives on the right-hand side of the road and navigation buoys are the opposite way round (red right returning).

We’re learning fast!

Six days at sea

IMG_4749
Originally uploaded by rosailither.

The forecast looked good when we were ready to leave Bermuda - light easterly winds for at least the next two days - so we checked out with customs, hoisted the dinghy aboard and headed out to sea. The first couple of days we were able to sail at between 4 and 5 knots in fairly flat seas.
We got straight into a watch system, splitting the night into four 3-hour watches, where one of us would sleep and the other was on watch, ie keeping an eye on the sails, watching out for shipping and recording conditions in the logbook.
It’s hard to describe how magical it can be out to sea on really clear nights. The stars are amazingly bright, with no light pollution from land to interfere. As the boat ploughs through the water, tiny organisms are disturbed our bow wave and produce bright green specks of light in the water, called phosphorescence, glowing briefly all around the boat. The propeller also causes turbulence and can produce a spiralling green trail in the water behind us.
The day was punctuated by four main ‘events’- the 9am radio net, where we tried to make contact with other sailing boats; the midday fix, to see the last 24 hours progress; the 5pm weather update from US radio ham ‘Herb’; and finally the evening meal – we made a decent meal each evening to keep together body and spirit. Otherwise, we mostly sat in the wheelhouse, taking turns hand-steering or leaving it to the autopilot and simply reading, dozing or watching the world go by.
You imagine the ocean to be teeming with life but it’s surprising how little you see once away from land. On the second day out we saw three whales about 100 feet from the boat. They weren’t the least bit interested in us and carried on their way in the opposite direction. Yet the following day, we had a school of smaller dolphins playing around the bows. We remarked how blue and clear the water was, as we could see the dolphins clearly up to 20 feet below the surface.
We saw what we thought were lots of empty plastic bottles drifting by, but on closer inspection, they turned out to be the ‘sails’ of Portuguese men-of-war jellyfish. As they drifted past the boat you could see their long blue/purple tentacles. Most were less than 10 inches long but we saw one enormous one the size of a plastic carrier bag.
The main hurdle of this trip has been to cross the Gulf Stream. This is a huge flow of warm water from the Gulf of Mexico that winds its way across the Atlantic to warm the waters of the UK. To the south of the Gulf Stream, the sea temperature is 22 degrees, and to the north it meets the cold Labrador current from the Arctic and suddenly drops to about 7 degrees.
At the point we would be crossing it, the Gulf Stream is about 80 miles wide and flows at around 2.8 knots. It is important to cross at the right point (where the current is with you) and with the wind in the same direction or you can face extremely nasty seas caused by wind-against-tide.
We had ideal conditions as we approached the Gulf Stream – light SW winds going with the current, but we heard over the radio that a low pressure system was developing right in our path. This would make the winds increase and veer to the north, clashing with the current. To avoid getting caught up in this, we started the engine and motor-sailed across the worst of the flow, getting swept along at over 8 knots (compared to our normal speed of 5 knots) in more turbulent waters.
Once clear of the Gulf Stream (noticeable by the drop in speed and more grey colour of the water) we went back to sailing and within a day, the weather took a downturn as predicted.
The blue sky turned grey and brought cloud and drizzle. The wind picked up, gusting up to 30 knots in squalls and we had to reduce sail. Eventually we had a wind shift to the NW and the barometer started to rise, indicating that we had crossed the frontal trough. The most noticeable thing was the plummeting temperature, we had to close all the portholes against the icy wind and dig out woolly socks, hats and duvets!
The winds slowly decreased as we closed in on land but we slowly sailed most of the remaining one-and-a half days, until the wind died completely as we approached land.
We were then treated to both the numerous lobster-pots and infamous fog of this coastline, but the sun shone down on us as we entered the attractive harbour of Newport, Rhode Island, (150 miles up the coast from New York).

So overall, in 6 days at sea (less two hours), we covered 700 nautical miles at an average speed of 4.9 knots, two thirds of it purely under sail. For a slow old boat that won’t sail upwind, Ros Ailither gives us a very comfy ride.