Summer came to an end when Liam had his last day of work. We’d said we’d stay till September 25th but the weather quickly changed our plans.

Our original plan was a leisurely sail out of Provincetown, but there was a Nor’Easter in the forecast and every time we looked it was predicted to arrive sooner and be stronger. Liam went into work on Sunday morning and his boss told him to go home and that we should leave.

I agreed.

We left about sunset on Sunday and tried to go as slow as we could across Cape Cod but even so we ended up going too fast and had to do a big circle in front of the canal.

The Cape Cod Canal is notorious for it’s current so our little boat MUST go with the current or we don’t have enough speed to make it through.

Monday morning the current and the sunrise were both predicted for 6:30am. And through the canal we went.

When there is a storm forecast anywhere near Cape Cod, we love to go hide away in Hadley Harbor. Which just might be the most protected little harbor in the world.

As a bonus, there is a series of well-maintained free-to-use mooring balls.

So we sat for a solid week. Getting into the harbor before the storm, waiting through the storm, and then waiting till the sea state had eased outside.

Social media was showing us images of boats tearing off their moorings and smashing on the rocks, and inside our little hurricane hole, we were snug with winds barely reaching 30 knot gusts.

So what in the end makes a good “Hurricane Hole”? It comes down to a single word. Protection. A good hurricane hole will give you protection from the wind and the waves. Everything else is a bonus. If you look at the image of Hadley Harbor, you can see just how surrounded by land this little spot is, and of course, it’s small, so if wind does get in, there isn’t much space for the wind to kick up any chop or fetch in the little harbor.

There are other things to consider, holding is an important one. Here, there are free-to-use moorings. And then how crowded you’d expect it to be. Hadley with the moorings is less of a concern since once the moorings are all taken, they’re all taken. If you’re at anchor, you’ll want to let out a bunch more chain, which means you, and everyone else, will be taking up more room, and the harbor will be able to hold that many fewer boats.

For us though, eight days was enough time to be on the boat. Once the sea was calm, we made a bee line to Newport RI, mostly so we could walk on land again and visit the grocery store for more snacks.