In Provincetown, ready for the overnighter to Maine!

We came out of Marion with good wind but with only 5 miles to go to the canal, we just motored. The closer we got to the canal, the rougher it got! We had 15 kts of wind against current and the boats coming out of the canal were taking spray over their upper decks (the power boats). Things settled down as soon as we enter the canal proper. The current was just changing in our favor as we entered the southern end. The first sight was the raised railroad bridge, a canal landmark. We had a passenger for most of the trip, a dragonfly.

We saw a strange progression about halfway through. A person was in a rowing boat of some strange design and paddling furiously with a support crew of a small motor boat and a larger power boat along with a canal police boat in attendance. He must have been trying to set some record? If anybody can find out more, let me know.

Once clear of the canal, we put up the sails and had a fantastic sail for 20 miles to Provincetown with 15 to 20 kt winds doing wing on wing all the way! I did notice that the motor was varying in rpms and when put at full throttle, it almost died, a sure sign of a dirty fuel filter. So Leathem and I changed the filter once at a mooring ($45/night). We had to get clean diesel from the local station that was filling a 1000 gallon tank in a big powerboat. Unfortunately, the nozzles were about 15 feet below the station, only reachable by boat and we were on land with our 1 gallon container. Fortunately, the guys filling their boat took the time to give us our one gallon! The small bucket was used to lower our gallon container to the level of the boat. The big decision comes Monday morning on whether to leave for our overnight passage to Maine or not. If we do, we'll leave around 11:00 am to reach Tenants Harbor around 6:00 am or so. Leaving later involves playing with some bad weather. The winds should be behind us all the way per the forecast. Wish us luck.

Follow our progress at Maine Cruise