Sunday was a happy day as we tossed the lines and backed out of our slip.  The plan was simple, a short six-mile run to Jewell Island in Casco Bay.  We used the time to test the engine after her long slumber.  And I’m happy to report she did great.

It took a couple of hours to get to Jewell, and rather than anchor in our usual spot, we decided to go into the cove a bit deeper than we usually do.  Anchor down and then we found ourselves in 14 feet of water at high tide with an estimated tidal drop of 12 feet on the way.  So up came the anchor and we moved a bit.

This is on of the reasons that I now believe that a working windlass is a critical safety item.  Pushing a button to get the anchor up to safely move is much better than letting your exhaustion convince you that you’re fine and not moving.  Yes, we went years without a windlass and moved on occasion, but these days.  The windlass makes it much easier to be safe.

Shortly after arriving at Jewell, it got drizzly and cold so we just spent the first afternoon and evening on the boat.  Monday was the real day to explore the island.

We made our way to the tower, where I climbed 7 stories up for the view, and then, after coming down 7 stories, I discovered that I had dropped my sweatshirt on the way down.  Four stories back up, sweatshirt in hand, then four stories back down.  So I ended up doing 11 up and down.  Not bad for being so out of shape.

Then we continued our walk to the underground bunker, and eventually to Buoy Beach with it’s Buoy decorated walk to the water.

Upon returning to the dinghy, we discovered that once again I’d  not taken enough care with the tides.  The dinghy was floating in about 7 feet of water and the anchor was under about 3 feet of water.

Liam braved the dangerously cold water to grab the anchor and pull the dinghy do us.  It was still two hours to high tide, if he hadn’t done that we would have had to wait those two hours to high tide, two more hours to be back where we were, and a third set of two hours for the water to go down enough to let us walk to the anchor.  Needless to say I was very grateful.

Then home and a good dinner for Liam.

Tuesday brought 20 knot winds with gusts to 30 so we stayed on the boat.  I was grateful for the direction of the wind which came from the land through the cover so there was no fetch at all.  Just the wind.  I was also grateful for our Rocna which held firm through the night.

Wednesday morning brought another wind shift and this time a super-2-foot tide, making the total tidal drop 14 feet.  And so we ended up sitting on the bottom for a few hours.

Knowing that we’d have to raise the anchor and move, ironically to the spot we usually anchor at and had I not wanted to take advantage of having the island to ourselves, we would have anchored… anyway.  Knowing we’d have to lift the anchor and move, I decided to check the weather,r and we discovered that if we left at noon on Wednesday instead of Thursday morning for Provincetown, we’d have a much more pleasant sail.  So that’s what we did.  We spent three days at Jewell, and we only had one day to spend on the island.  And while it would be nice to spend a week there again, we decided to take advantage of the wind and sea state to make our 100 NM run south to pTown.