Cuttyhunk Storms

Last night we watched the NOAA radar website as the thunderstorms marched across the night sky. After the mad dash to get Hoolie ashore in an interlude between storms, things seemed to settle down and we opened the forward hatch for air. About 12:30 another storm hit and being groggy with sleep, I didn’t close the hatch fast enough and the bed got soaked. So around 1:00 am we got our act together and changed all the sheets. Nobody likes to sleep in the wet spot - I think there's a song about that!

In the morning, we were really rocking and going up top it was clear why. The predicted west wind was actually a northwest wind which is definitely not good for the outside anchorage at Cuttyhunk. There’s enough fetch in that direction for wave action to build up with the 15 to 20 kt winds blowing. So we hauled anchor and went inside to pick up a mooring at 6:30 am, there were plenty available. The harbormaster came by at 7:30 to collect a mooring fee thinking that we came in after he collected yesterday. When we told him that we came in a 7:00 am and not the previous night, he was okay with that but didn't look happy.

Later that morning we got a call from Leathem Mehaffey who had anchored out in Three Mile Harbor on Gardner Island. He was hit with the worst of the storms. At one point his dink was doing windmills in the air behind the boat, completely airborne. Another boat dragged on top of him and caused damage to his bow (the boat was unoccupied and had only 30 feet of rode out). They had four foot waves in the one mile across harbor. Being in Cuttyhunk, we missed all that. The brunt of the storms went south where Leathem was anchored.

To my surprise, Cuttyhunk is now jammed packed! The last mooring went around 2:30 and there are a dozen boats anchored in the anchorage area north of the mooring field inside the harbor. They can literally touch each other where they are anchored. Something must be going on we don’t know about. I’ve never seen Cuttyhunk so crowded on a Thursday night.

The “Lobster Lady” is still there but instead of buying lobster, we bought fresh swordfish. She gets the pick of the best six swordfish before the catch goes anywhere else. We grilled it out tonight and I can confirm that it was as fresh as can be. We planned on sailing to Block Island Friday. Nice sunset tongiht!