Crew Log for September 21st - 24th, 2022
Trip Summary:
Provincetown to Onset
Trip Distance of 31.3 NM, Total Distance To-Date of 904.5 NM
Departed at 0630 hours and arrived at 1200 hours
When travelling south in the late summer or fall, the main challenge is how to deal with the strong gulf stream currents. There are basically two schools of thought for avoiding the gulf stream. Leave mid to late summer, before hurricane season, and hop your way down the coast and eventually take the intercoastal waterway. The second option, is to leave late, after hurricane season and sail off shore away from the gulf stream.
We opted for the first option, coastal hopping and the ICW, for a number of reasons. First, we don’t really have a boat which we feel comfortable with cruising off shore. Secondly, neither of us is terribly interested in doing 5 – 7 day passages. And finally, there are a lot of places to see along the way. For us, that old saying “it’s the journey not the destination”, suits us just fine.
While the trip to-date has been all coastal cruising, the Cape Cod Canal, would be our first experience with a small (7 mile / 11 kilometer) section of the Atlantic Coastal Waterway. The canal links Cape Cod Bay to Buzzards Bay on the mainland. It reduces the distance around the Cape by approximately 135 nautical miles and supports an estimated 14,000 users per year. The canal is also used by whales and dolphins, including Right Whales, whose presence has caused temporary closures of the canal to boat traffic.
Construction of the canal dates back to the 1600’s, and started with a series of trading portages. Over the next 300 years, there were several failed attempts to expand the canal by private interests. The US Government took over control of the canal’s construction in 1918 after a German U-boat shelled the tugboat Perth Amboy and her string of four barges. In 1920, the government purchased the canal and created a free public waterway. Between 1935 and 1940 the canal was widened and dredged, and became the widest sea-level canal of its time.
I had been studying tide times, currents and any other relevant information I could find related to the Canal passage for months. I even walked to a marine store at the far end of Gloucester Harbor to pick up the last remaining copy of Eldridge’s Tide and Pilot Book, based on the advice of some online expert who said, “anyone who passes through the canal without Eldridge’s Guide to tides and currents is a fool and is putting themselves, their crew and vessel at risk”. Who won’t get a copy after that!
Cape Cod Bay is a giant mass of water, which is open on one end, which I suppose is why it’s called a Bay and not a lake. Daaah. As the tide recedes, all the water in Cape Cod Bay has to squeeze out through the opening. This creates a height differential between the east side of the Canal and the West. Why Eldridge’s Guide is so important is that simply knowing the times of high and low tides isn’t enough since the force of the water due to the height differential, counteracts the force of the tide. So, you need to know what time the flood and ebb tides are.
The Eldridge Guide will be a very useful resource as we continue down through Long Island Sound, the East River and Hell’s Gate, the Chesapeake Bay and so on. However, Navionics has all this data built into their “phone versions” of the mapping software. You can see the rate of the current, whether it is increasing or decreasing and the exact times for flood and ebb tides. I had used this to plan when we had to be at the east end of the canal, in order to get to the west end before the current flow changed. And while I appreciate that just like charts, the electronic versions are no substitutes for paper versions, the tide and current information in our electronic charts is just as accurate, and frankly easier to interpret, than the information in the Eldridge Guide.
After a very quiet night on anchor in Provincetown Harbor, we woke early, in anticipation of getting to, and through the canal before the current changed. It was slightly overcast but improved throughout the day, making for a beautiful day to cross Cape Cod Bay and travel through the canal. There were 2 other boats in our anchorage, a very large motor yacht from Florida and a ketch rigged sailboat. The motor yacht left before first light and was halfway across the bay before we raised the anchor. The ketch would eventually follow us through the canal and continue on past us on the other side.
We made it to the entrance of the canal and dropped the sails at about 1030 hours, having made really good time coming across the Bay. You are permitted to keep the sails up, but must motor through the canal. There is however a 10 knot per hour speed limit for the canal which, considering our top speed under motor is around 5 knots and 6.5 under sail, didn’t seem to be an issue. However, at one point, we saw 8.4 knots, speed over ground, with a current of over 2.5 knots. It was generally a smooth ride, until of course we hit Buzzard’s Bay where the current hit the opposing incoming coming tide. Judy described it as being like tidal bore rafting, which I suppose when you think about it, the dynamics are very similar.
Right after we exited the canal, we made our way into Onset. It was still early, but we were going to get brushed by Hurricane Fiona over the next few days, and Onset was very protected from winds from any direction. There was also easy access of stores for provisioning, restaurants (not that we eat out a lot) and opportunities to go for a walk.
I’d like to think I am a pretty good planner, based on the hours / days of research I put into to every part of this trip. I am however, quickly finding out that some of the information I was using is dated and as a result, what was free, isn’t any longer, or anchorages that used to exist are now filled with mooring balls. We ended up on the Onset Town Moorings but would eventually move when the weather improved. While they were ideally protected and close to town, there were better options for a similar price. Another lesson learned.
We spent the rest of the day exploring Wickett’s Island with some fellow Canadians. They happened to be geese and were slightly stand offish. Judy baked some delicious cookies and I made bread.
We had a pretty quiet night but the following day (Thursday) the wind started to pick up and we experienced torrential rains throughout the day. However, it is worth noting, that while many people back home we concerned about us, what we experienced was insignificant compared to what our fellow Atlantic Canadians experienced. We were well to the west of Fiona, and while the weather wasn’t great, it would hardly be described as “devastating”, as Fiona was in Atlantic Canada.
Judy passed the time fixing the dinghy seat while I worked on catching up on a few of our trip reports. We were really happy to have the full cockpit enclosure on a day like today. It almost doubles our useable daytime living space. As with any fall storm, you are usually treated to the most amazing rainbows and sunsets as it comes to end. The evening sky was like nothing we’d experienced before. The shapes and textures were spectacular. I am sure the phone camera didn’t do justice to capturing it.
On Friday we moved the boat over to the Point Independence Yacht Club, which was just on the other side of Wickett’s Island, to take advantage of their shower and laundry facilities. We then ventured into Onset to check out the town’s highlights including: a seniors’ pickleball match; the local market, which was basically a liquor store with expired food; the local post office, which was the same age as Judy; the Onset beach; and, Marc Anthony’s famous pizza place.
We had met Marc Anthony earlier in the day as he was decorating the inside and outside of his restaurant with skeletons engaged in various activities. Inside, the music was loud, and included everything from Sade to the Rolling Stones, all of which was accompanied by Marc Anthony on background vocals, when he wasn’t yelling something randomly incoherent to whoever might have been listening. It was “the” most fun I ever had eating pizza. I don’t know why anyone would ever do takeout.
Fortunately, as it turned out, the weather had us pinned down in Onset for another day, so we were in town for the Harvest Moon Festival, an annual event that had been cancelled the last few years due to…you know what. Onset on Saturday, bore little resemblance to the quiet little town we ate pizza in the night before. This was a full on celebration. Antique cars, hundreds of pop up tent vendors, food trucks, live music and an amazing fireworks show to cap off the evening. For us, watching all the people was just as entertaining as a formal entertainment.
We were in Onset for 4 nights. Our planned stop here was one overnight. However, it was the perfect place to wait out some bad weather and our timing, with the first Harvest Moon Festival after Covid, was an added bonus. That said, we were preoccupied with what was playing out at home related to Hurricane Fiona. It was forecasted to be a bad one and as we would find out the next morning, it was one of, if not the most, devastating storm to hit Nova Scotia. The images that trickled in the next day were heart breaking.
There was a break in the weather, or so we thought, so we are off to New Bedford. But more about that, next time.
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