Plymouth, N. Falmouth, MA and Jamestown, RI

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

041-29.880 N
071-23.460 W

Ahoy from the few of the BlueJacket!

Once again I'm behind on my logs, so I'll try to get caught up. When I last wrote we were in Wellfleet and were headed to Plymouth, MA. We had a great sail to Plymouth, with 15+ kts on the beam. However we almost got t-boned by an inattentive boater. Sue was above standing watch and I was below trying to update the maintenance records. All of a sudden Sue says "Geoff, get up here! It looks like we're on a collision course!" I ran up and sure enough, there's a sailboat motoring along that's on our starboard (right) side that will hit us unless one of us alters course. We were under sail and as a result had the right of way. I kept expecting him to change course, but suddenly realized that there's no one at the wheel! I swung the wheel hard over and just barely avoided the other boat. There was a guy laying in the cockpit reading and when we yelled at him, he simply shrugged his shoulders and then sat down to keep reading! Wow, he should be shot!

As we approached Plymouth, the skies got very dark and the winds picked up to 25 kts. We got the sails down in preparation for the 4 mile winding channel entrance. Almost as soon as they were down, the rain hit and did we ever get a good washing! It rained for almost an hour, so I was well soaked by the time that we got in. The Plymouth Yacht Club (PYC) has 5 transient moorings which are available and we took one of their balls which was rated for a 45' boat. The mooring field is extremely dense and I had to shorten their mooring ball line with one of my own to keep another mooring ball off of my stern! I don't know if one of the moorings was out of place, but there's no way that you'd fit a 45' boat on those moorings.

 

I had an afternoon meeting and we headed into the PYC to find someplace to meet. The staff and members of the PYC are extremely friendly and we held the meeting sitting on the 3rd floor balcony overlooking the harbor. The PYC is a hopping place on Friday evenings with tons of people showing up for happy hour and extremely reasonably priced food. Sue got to know a lot of the members and considering that my meeting involved the marine industry, it was a perfect setting.

Saturday dawned with nice blue skies and low humidity, so we headed out to explore. Wow, is Plymouth a nice place! There's a ton of things to do that are well within walking distance. We made the normal rounds, visiting the Plymouth Rock, Mayflower II, gardens, grave yards, churches, etc and really enjoyed the area. Some areas are definitely way too touristy, but we just avoided those. In the afternoon we headed to the beach and was amazed at how many people take their boats to sand-bars (that disappear at high tide) and spend the day playing in the sun.

On Sunday we turned the boat around and headed back through the canal. There wasn't much wind and what wind there was, was on the nose. We decided to head to N. Falmouth, as it was supposed to rain that night and we had free dockage at another Brewer's marina. We also have a friend who has their boat in that area and were hoping to catch up with him. Well, we managed to catch Jeff just before he headed back to his home. We had a great time catching up.

On Monday we headed out on almost glassy seas and motored our way towards Newport. We wanted to explore Jamestown, RI, so we anchored in Dutch Harbor and walked into town. Somehow or another I had the mistaken impression that Jametown was going to be a lot more historic that it was. Perhaps there are more historic areas than we found, but the vast majority of the residential areas that we saw consisted of homes that needed a lot of TLC and general make-overs. I think we'll put Jametown on our "been there, seen that" list and not rush back.

Today we're headed back to the marina and then head home today or tomorrow. We hope that everyone is having a good summer and is doing well.

-- Geoff & Sue

For the cruiser: Moorings at PYC are $45. They claim to only have 5 transient moorings, but they say that they can almost always find a spare mooring. We anchored in Jamestown in Dutch Harbor in 18' of water. The anchorage has lots of wakes from passing traffic.

Log ID: 1351