Provincetown-Cape Cod, MA, Aug.2,08

When we left Dutch Harbor, Rhode Island on Friday August first, the speedometer was not registering the knot speeds. Gordon put on his boots, raised the boards in the cabin and starting scraping the speedometer. We have had to do this many times after a day or so anchorage.


This is a picture of the tiny sea creatures that clogged up the speedometer. They look like little crabs. We motored out of the harbor and headed for the sea. No wind, very calm sea conditions. Later that morning we heard on the VHF radio that a tugboat was on fire. When we were in the shipping channel abeam of New Bedford, Ma. we saw three tugs and a coast guard cutter in the distance around the site of the distressed tugboat. In the afternoon we heard that the tug was being towed into New Bedford harbor.



As we headed up Buzzards Bay we saw this fleet of about 40 boats racing around the set race markers. Earlier we heard on the VHF radio someone trying to get a mooring in one of the harbors on Buzzards Bay and he was declined because of all the boats in the Buzzard Bay race.

I stood on the deck and tried to capture the excitement of the race. These colorful spinnakers are a delight to see. Not far from this fleet we saw another racing fleet. Although there were very light winds, it looked like a great race day!
We anchored at Mattapoisette harbor on Friday night.



We headed out of Mattapoisette harbor at 6:15 a.m. to catch a favorable tide in the Cape Cod Canal. This is a great picture of the canal. If you look closely you can see the tidal whirl pools. We zoomed through the canal at about 10-11 knots. Even though it was early Saturday morning, we saw walkers, skateboarders, and bike riders on both sides of the canal. As soon as we were out of the canal into Cape Cod Bay, we were in thick fog. We traveled the 20 miles to Providence Town outer marker in mostly in fog. However the last 5 miles the sun warmed the sky and the fog lifted.



Province town Ferry. It came speeding past us as we were approaching the harbor.

The sand dunes of Cape Cod can be seen in the distance just before entering the town harbor.