David’s Voyage Blog

Publish Date: Sunday, May 29, 2011
Locagion: Nantucket Island, Massachusetts
Coordinates: 41° 17.168′ N  70° 04.776′ W

When we decided to spend the summer in Rhode Island we committed to ourselves that we would try to do as much weekend and week-long cruising as we did this winter in Puerto Rico. Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Long Island (New York) each have wonderful weekend cruising destinations, and we’re looking forward to exploring as many of them as we can.

This weekend we decided to kick off the season with a cruise to Nantucket Island, where we will stay this week, and then cruise back to Rhode Island next weekend. I am fortunate enough to have a job that (when I’m not traveling) allows me to work from anywhere, as long as I have good Internet and good cellular phone coverage. Nantucket fits that description, so I’ll be working in Nantucket Island harbor this week — sweet!

Our voyage over here, however, was not as relaxing as we had envisioned it. This time of year there is a lot of fog in Rhode Island Sound and Nantucket Sound, and we had our hands full yesterday and today as we made the 82-mile journey. Yesterday we cruised from East Greenwich to Cuttyhunk Island at the mouth of Buzzard’s Bay, and today we completed the cruise to Nantucket Island, going around Martha’s Vinyard on the way.

For much of yesterday and most of today we had less than 1/4-mile visibility. That means that by the time we can see a boat we are already within about 10-12 boat-lengths of it. And that may sound like a lot, but when two many-ton boats are cruising towards each other in the soup, it’s NOTHING! Our radar and AIS systems are invaluable in these conditions, and we are often on the radio coordinating our position with the other vessels. Out of the dozens of boats we passed in the fog, we had only three close encounters:

• Yesterday, as we were crossing the entrance to Narragansett bay, a high-speed ferry from who-knows-where came barreling up the channel at 25 knots, surprising us on our starboard beam. We were doing a good job watching for contacts ahead of us, but not as good a job watching for contacts from the side. A last-minute turn on our part kept us several hundred feet apart, but it was unnerving.
• Today, while traversing Nantucket Sound with the many fishing boats trawling around, it wasn’t always clear which direction a boat was moving. Fortunately they were moving pretty slowly because they were dragging nets, but we had to avoid them upon sight. To be clear, we were tracking them on our radar (none of the fishing boats have AIS), but as they got within a half mile we had to open the doors and watch for them to emerge from the fog. Ayla and Kathryn were both champion spotters! This happened to us twice, and both times the fishing boat was heading straight toward us! I suspect they knew they would clear us at the stern, but it’s still uncomfortable.

As we swing lazily on our anchor here in Nantucket Island harbor, we are grateful that we had an uneventful transit. We are looking forward to going into town tomorrow to explore. In the mean time, I couldn’t resist penning the following:

There once was a man in Nantucket,
Who cruised there on his Nordhavn bucket,
He encountered much fog,
Which made it a slog,
But as trips go, he was still glad he took-it. 🙂

Let’s keep the comments clean, folks.  Enjoy the Memorial Day weekend!