Well, Well, Wellfleet…

We arrived on Thursday in Wellfleet, MA, on Cape Cod, after an eventful voyage through the Cape Cod Canal from Marion, MA.  The canal offered a good opportunity to start teaching navigation to Bryson.  We allowed the favorable current to sleighride us under bridges and passed a number of barges, which kicked up such a violent wake that you would have thought we were in the middle of the Southern Ocean.  We breathed a sigh of relief when we got through and enjoyed a pretty motorsail (more motor than sail due to the wind direction being right on our nose) all the way to Wellfleet.

We dropped the hook (anchor) in the Outer Harbor using 100 feet of rode (chain) because, on the charts, the Inner Harbor looked tight and shallow.  Chris took the dinghy in to check out the scene in town and came back over an hour later.  The dinghy ride in was really rough.  So rough that he didn’t think the kids would be able to do it.  Well, we didn’t come to Wellfleet to sit all by ourselves out in the middle of nowhere, so we rented a mooring from the Wellfleet Harbormaster and pulled all 100 feet of chain BACK into the boat.  The channel into the Inner Harbor was not as formidable as it seemed on the chart, and we had no trouble securing our mooring, once we found it.  The dinghy ride in was so short we probably could have thrown a ball to the dinghy dock (well, I couldn’t have thrown a ball to it.  Has anyone ever seen me throw a ball?)

We got to the waterfront and had a delicious dinner at Mac’s Seafood, right on the beach.  Reese and I enjoyed steamers and brothy clam chowder.  After dinner, we walked into the town of Wellfleet.  We don’t know anyone in Wellfleet, but our good friend’s cousin lives there and we were told to look her up.  Janet runs the cultural center in town, so we found her there and introduced ourselves.  Janet and I felt an instant connection and it was lovely to be greeted by such a lovely presence in such a beautiful town.  The cultural center was hosting a disco night, so we all danced the night away and then walked across the street for….wait for it……ice cream:)  It seems our freezer’s lack of freezitude will be more than made up for by the presence of ice cream shops at every seaside port we visit!

The next morning, I tooled into town to take a yoga class at Quiet Mind Yoga.  Zack, the instructor, is Iyengar based, and the class was amazing.  I felt two inches taller when I left.  Zack gave me some insights into gainer better alignment in several poses, which was fantastic.  Check it out if you are on Cape Cod: http://quietmindstudio.com/.

After picking up some groceries at the local market, we moved the boat back to the outer harbor for the night.  We wanted to check out the beaches on Great Island, and our mooring was reserved by another boat for the night.  After anchoring with 100 feet of chain, again, I took the dinghy into town to meet up with Janet.  Janet’s husband Paul was playing with his band at a beachside restaurant and I was keen on spending some more time with Janet.

Chris warned me about the dinghy ride, and he was right.  It was rough and bumpy.  As soon as I got to the NO WAKE bouy, I slowed way down and the engine died on me.  I couldn’t get it started for the life of me, and the current was quickly sending me out of the channel, towards the beach.  Once at the beach, I got out and dragged the dinghy up on the sand so that the incoming tide didn’t wash it away.  I unplugged the gas tank and hauled it across the waterfront to the harbormaster’s office.  I asked David for help and he drove out to the beach to take a look.  Unfortunately, there is no way to play around with an outboard motor unless the propeller is in the water, but the engine has to stay raised so that the prop doesn’t get stuck in the sand.

David decided to go back to the dock and bring his boat around to tow me in.  While he did that, I attempted to row my way back into the channel.  No way.  The current was too strong.  So I got in the water and walked the boat out as far as I could stand and then jumped in the dinghy.  That got me far enough to throw a line to David in his boat.  We motored in and he started to take a look.  As happens in Cape Cod towns, along came John, a local and a fisherman.  He was amazing and took over without making me feel like the dumb broad I’m sure I looked like.

He got it going and I started off only to have it die AGAIN- this time, right in front of some rocks.  I fended off the rocks as the current drove me toward shore, but I ended up having to jump out of the boat to guide it as it headed for the boat ramp.  As I stepped on the slimy, slippery concrete of the boat ramp, my foot went out from under me and I slammed down into the water onto the rocks and concrete.  My whole left side was a mess and I was now completely soaked!  John said something very Cape Cod-ish, like, “You probably want to just stay in the boat next time.”  I would have been mortified, but the whole thing was just too funny, except for the throbbing in my foot, and I could already smell a blogpost coming on, so I was pretty psyched.

We messed about with the outboard for awhile longer and eventually John got it all better.  I got some gas for the tank and decided to walk on over to the restaurant to catch the last 10 minutes of Paul’s band.  It had taken over 2 1/2 hours since I left the boat and I had missed most of their set.  I was drenched and looking not-so-spectacular.  I’m sure I smelled like the harbor.  But it’s a fishing town for crying out loud, so I went for it.  I found Janet, who was with some friends and family and we ended up having a very special time, talking, listening to the band, sharing the story of our voyage, and connecting with our hearts.  I left Janet and her beautiful life with thoughts of seeing her again someday and having lots of time to talk about life and dreams.

The rest of the night was uneventful.  Seems Wellfleet had thrown everything it had at us and we passed some sort of test.  We were accepted and loved.  I even had a quick swim in the heavy current before bed!

whalewatching past provincetown

Today, we sailed all day and are safe and sound in Marblehead, Massachusetts.  Chris worked on the head, we looked for whales, I worked on the teak (yes, still), and the kids worked on homeschooling.  It was really cool to see the Boston skyline appear on the horizon after seeing nothing all day.We already met some crazy sailboat racers who pointed out our Boston Yacht Club mooring among the thousands in the harbor and some really lovely sailboat racers who welcomed us to Marblehead and made us feel very much at home.  I remember the close-knit feeling of the boating community from our racing days, but it is turning out to be even more gracious, helpful, and supportive than I expected.