The voyage to and living in Newport, part 1

By Sailor Keddy -
I should preface this post with the fact that I have no electricity on my boat. There will be no pictures for some time, at least until I can get the wind turbine and solar panels installed. I charge my iPhone at work and use candlelight and flashlights at night. This is actually pretty adequate, since I'm so busy with work and don't use a lot of electric appliances anyway.

We left Boston under calm, clear skies. The genoa was up and we were under full sail though the Narrows and out into Massachusetts Bay. We delt with shifty, light winds for most of the morning. I fixed the chartplotter and autopilot systems, Maria made some lunch and Christian and I reminisced about Gainesville and Gator football. It was leisurely. About 2 pm is when the first line of heavy winds hit us. We took down the genoa and put up the jib. The boat was heeled over about 20 degrees on a beam reach, at one point the GPS said we were doing 7.3 knots, impressive! At about 3, we noticed a large squall form behind us, which was starting to suck in air from all around it. We mentioned how fortunate we were to have left when we did. Within the next thirty minutes however, that one squall turned into three, and surrounded us 180 degrees. One was headed straight for us as it made it's way eastward from land. Over the next four hours we were battered with howling winds gusting to 30 knots, forced to change or put sails down twice, and dumped on by turrential rain.

After the final squall, we started the engine and made a b-line for the Canal. We had two hours before the current world change to an unfavorable direction and 10 miles between us. It was going to be close. It was all for nothing though, since the engine decided it was done for the day 45 minutes later. With our window to make the canal that evening closed, I decided it world be best to anchor near the enterance and try in the morning when the current changed again. Two hours later we dropped anchor near a beach two miles from the canal enterance. It was 9 pm, we had been sailing for thirteen hours.

More later tonight...


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