It’s that time again. The house is turned over to the renters and we’re on the boat for a month. Where are we going? There is no Itinerary!
Departure Date: 29-June-2025.
Engine Hours at start: 1403
Nights at Anchor: 5
Nights on paid mooring: 5
Argon’s latest 48 hours of position. (or open the full viewer app to look at any period of time)
First Stop – Potter Cove, Jamestown.
We didn’t depart the dock until around 1700 and we still have to get back into the house one more time. So the plan was just a short hop to Jamestown to anchor at Potter and then over to Newport for a Reserved Mooring on the 30th. This give us a chance to try out our brand new windlass right at the start of the trip. Thumbs up on that.
Next Stop: Home (Newport)
We both did a bit of work in the morning from Potter Cove and Linda hooked up with some folks from her ocean swimming group for a swim around the cove. About 1400, we sailed home – not the boat’s home but our home: Newport. We had to get ashore and do a few more logistics with the house to get it ready for renters coming in and we also had a few todos to take care of around town. As we headed into shore, we could see some fog rolling in. By the time we got back to the boat, it looked like this
The Plan from here:
Motor-Sail upwind out of the bay and sail to Third Beach for a night at anchor. Then depart 0500 for Cuttyhunk (to arrive in time for work)
1-July Next Stop: Third Beach Cuttyhunk Island
Engine Hours: 1406 (Bless me father, for I have sinned)
We departed Newport at about 1200 with the plan to motor-sail out of Narragansett Bay and tuck into Third Beach for the night. And then leave at 0500 for Cuttyhunk on 2-July. We expected the sound to be very intense with building winds and four foot seas. Once we got out there and got the boat sailing with a reefed main and Jib, she was sailing beautifully. For about the fifth time, we evaluated if we should just continue on to Cuttyhunk directly. This time, the answer was yes. This is the true spirit of no-itin sailing. We had no idea what availability would be like with the holiday weekend approaching so we played it safe and reserved an “outside” mooring.
The sailing was some of the best buzzards bay sailing we’ve ever had. It was a bit lumpy (as usual) but winds were constantly between 15 and 20 knots and just behind the beam. We had full main and jib and were doing mostly high-6s to mid-7s in speed over ground. We got to Cuttyhunk fast.
Early the next morning, (2-July) we departed our mooring and anchored nearby. Unlike last time we tried to anchor outside of Cuttyhunk, we grabbed nicely on the first try. The winds are supposed to be consistent and not too high for the next several days so we will be happy to save some money for a few nights.
Sometimes the weather does not follow instructions and we had quite a storm blow over the evening of July 3. It was a good ol’ fashioned New England squall with winds hitting high 30s and turning us toward the north-northwest. That exposed the whole anchorage to a long fetch from the bay and things were a bit exciting for a while. We put out another 20 feet of chain just in case and monitored or swing on the arc carefully.
Mayday, mayday, mayday!
During the storm, we turned on the VHF and monitored 16. I heard those words from a remarkably calm skipper as his boat lost power and was pushed aground nearby. So nearby in fact that we could see him. The Coast Guard sent a vessel but it had too deep of a draft to get in and help. Finally it was the Raw Bar Boat that came to the rescue (they are also a Tow-Boat US contractor).
After that excitement, we enjoyed three nights of relative calm at anchor. Got lots of swimming, kayaking and paddleboarding in.
The plan from here:
Depart Saturday for… Edgartown? Provincetown? Quissett? Onset?
5-July Next Stop: Sagamore Beach Anchorage Provincetown
The plan was to depart on Saturday 5th of July late morning when the wind was forecast to fill in a bit and sail downwind to the Cape Cod Canal and anchor on the other side just off Sag Beach. Then early the next day make Provincetown before some forecasted high winds. On the way up the bay, we started doing some what-if calculations on timing and realized that we could probably just make it to Provincetown before sunset (20:15). We deferred that final decision until we left the canal and could evaluate conditions in Mass Bay. We decided to go for it. It would mean needing to keep an average speed around 6kts. It was more straight downwind sailing like most of the day already and we put out all three sails to maximize speed. At first we were in the 7s, but the wind started to soften a bit and we found ourselves in the low 5s. So – yuk- we motorsailed for a good chunk of the 20 miles across the bay and picked up our mooring at about 20:05.
