Know when to sail hard
Thanks to our determined push to Chesapeake from the Bahamas we made our daughter’s wonderful wedding on time. Cornwall, as ever, embraced us with fun, friendship and family. I was also able to nail a tonne of work to top up the cruising cash sack. A fantastic but brutal schedule returned us to America exhausted and in need of what turned out to be an elusive rest. We wanted to get on the move and try to catch up some cruising time poached by our extended visit home. We landed at 2100 and as the sun rose the next morning, we found ourselves under the good ship Pearl as we prepared for launch. Pearl was floating by 1030 that morning, a record.
It was at this point that we crashed into a Chesapeake heatwave with temperatures matching those in Death Valley. Never have I experienced heat like it, exacerbated by 100% humidity. If I looked down, my glasses pooled with sweat and we looked like we’d walked through a shower. Fish were being cooked alive in ponds, lifting bridges jammed, and with sleep impossible on board, we checked into a hotel. A few days later, with no reprieve, we headed north.
The weather here is volatile and seems to revel in extremes. We anchored in Delaware River having motored through an atmosphere akin to hot, cloying soup. Pregnant with energy, a shattering boom heralded a thunderstorm of biblical proportions. 40 knots machine-gunned a deluge of rain at us as perpetual lightning crashed to earth, our hair dancing with static. It was both terrifying and thrilling as this electrifying rift in the weather wrestled its way south. The other side of the storm was the soothing balm of a cool north-westerly that carried us forth, dressed in thermals – extraordinary.
Our 2019 ambition had been Newfoundland but, short on time and drained of energy, the prospect of further grind was robbing life of its polish. Pushing hard to the north-east only to be turned back by the coming of winter seemed daft, Particularly as it would mean rushing past Maine, one of Tracey’s ‘must-haves’, declared at the bottom of the fateful bottle of wine that launched this adventure. Opting to keep the pressure on until Maine, we sailed hard for nine days, up before dawn and pushing out between 75 and 110 miles a day. We had some lovely anchorages and fine settled weather, which necessitated more motoring than we would have liked. A magnificent blackfin tuna was caught, making a tasty BBQ on the south side of Long Island, accessible thanks to flat seas.
Cape Cod canal proved an amazing piece of engineering that magics you from a rugged granite landscape to a world sculpted in sand. At the end of it, Provincetown nestles in the curling tip of Cape Cod. The town, the Mayflower’s first landfall, would shock its prudish early settlers; it’s a joyous place made colorful by a large gay community whose nightlife is something to behold. The sea teems with wildlife here; huge shoals of fish sparkle as they roll away from the bow, dense and oily enough to be smelt. Innumerable sunfish, huge and of the oddest shape, flop along in their ungainly way. One, out of the blue, makes a great leap to land on its side. We are thrilled by a distant fluke, some whale spouts and hope for a closer encounter on our return. Weirdly, 15 miles offshore we are inundated by what looked like house flies but these buggers can really bite and so we find another reason for our pilothouse from which we can steer. We’ve since bought fly swats, which keep us fully occupied as we leap about like ninjas.
On the water, the surface is festooned with colorful lobster pots, 3 million in total; it’s as if a giant has spilled a packet of M&MS. Deep below us creeps a hidden industry. At times it is hard to see a way through. The harvest is worth the hassle though for there is nothing like a Maine lobster. Sweet, succulent flesh and a crisp white wine toasts our arrival in Maine. Another chapter in our adventure begins to open up as we look down on a bustling harbour that blends echoes of both Cornwall and Norway. We’ve found a place to explore, rejuvenate and enjoy.
We sailed hard for nine days, up before dawn and pushing 110 miles a day