After a quick trip to Europe (because we needed to make life more complicated) we were finally ready to leave on September 23rd. It was a sunny day to leave and we had a loud send-off from friends at Fort Sewell! Our log read 14070 nautical miles. What will it read when Persephone comes back to Marblehead?

We had an uneventful trip over to Provincetown. The town and the harbor were quiet, but there were lots of seals hauled out on the beach at Long Point.

The next day we made our way over to Cape Cod Canal, with light easterly winds and steady rain. It wasn’t great for views! However it made for very calm conditions coming down Buzzards Bay. The rain eased as we came into Hadley Harbor, and we had a peaceful night. After a busy time in Europe and several weeks of rushing around we are finally starting to unwind.

With a worsening forecast, we left Hadley Harbor early the next morning in thick fog, with the sound of ferries sounding their foghorns as they came into nearby Woods Hole. The fog soon cleared but the weather turned squally and we had a damp passage over to Newport. There was plenty of marine traffic around as well as IC 37’s racing out of New York Yacht Club as we came into the harbor. To keep things interesting, I managed to drop our brand new expensive boat hook overboard while picking up the mooring, so we had to do a quick rescue mission. Jeremy then had the nasty task of doing a head (marine toilet) rebuild and then I did a quick trip ashore to dispose of the resulting horrible trash. He was glad we remembered to bring latex gloves. Newport felt damp and out of season, so we will happily stay on board tonight and forego the nightlife. We are comfortable and settling in nicely to our boating life, but we could do with a sunny day to dry things out a bit!