Another long day planned, and we woke up before sunset to raise the anchor. Nice light winds to sail off anchor for a nice start to the day. It was very overcast and a bit dreary.
The last two days of sailing had been a lot and we knew the winds were going to be lighter this one, but close hauled and we were kind of anxious about it. We had a bail out plan if the sailing was awful to go to Salem which was a short and easy hop away. However as we got going we realized the sea state way much calmer (longer period at the very least), and the boat does just go up wind very comfortably.
So we continued on and it ended up being one of the most comfortable sails since we set out from Portland. This was good because I think we were all getting pretty tired.
Our destination when we left was Plymouth, but as things were going along so smoothly, we extended that to Sandwich, which is just at the beginning of the Cape Code Canal. Doing that made todays sail very long (52NM, 10.5 Hours), but meant we could just book two nights there instead of having to make yet another hop the next day, and I think we needed that.
The sail was upwind the entire way, mostly close hauled and close reach, but interestingly enough was all done on a single tack. We put up sails and raised anchor and sailed that one tack all the way to the Cape Cod Canal. But of course, there was a large amount of sail changes made throughout that. The main was reefed up and down multiple times, and we put up the gale sail twice. The first time probably a bit too soon and ended up changing back to the genoa, but near the end of the sail as the winds picked up pretty good it was the perfect sail plan with a double reefed main and we sailed on that for a couple hours quite nicely in the blustery winds.
We got into the marina, picked up our first bit of diesel since Shelburne, NS. Only 22L as we've been lucky with lots of good sailing through Maine. Got tied up at our slip and could finally relax a bit knowing we had two nights there. It's been a long 3 days to get here, but that does knock off a lot of miles.
On these last few sails I've been getting a fair bit of water in the bilge, and it's been driving me crazy figuring out where it's coming from. With our down day I was determined to figure it out so I started disassembling some of our vberth following the leak up from the bilge. It took me the better part of a day, but I finally figured it out. Our anchor locker has two holes on either side for wire runs, tucked way up in the inside of the locker. Water was making its way into these. I've never had this problem before, but I suspect this is just due to the conditions we've been sailing in. On these large waves, as we get splashes on the bow, some water makes it way into the anchor locker, and that is normal, and usually that would just drain out the anchor locker. But in these waves, that happens as we ride up these rather large swells, and I guess that water coming in is then able to make it's way into these wire holes as the boat is pointing upwards climbing the next wave. I'll have to block up those hole some how, but first I'm going to need to get it dry in there, so I'll have to wait on that yet. But at least I know whats going on. Finding leaks is such a pain, water finds some crazy paths as it wicks along things.
While I was causing absolute chaos on the boat, Theone and Aria visited a Glass Museum in Sandwich and then went over to the Cape Cod Canal Visitor Center to learn about the Canal.
And that was about it for the day. We ended up having a late dinner after doing some provisioning, cleaning up the boat, filling water tanks, etc. And then to bed early as we need to get an early start to catch the favourable current on the canal tomorrow morning.
