Nantucket Dreaming

Dave and I bought the forty-five foot yawl Arethusa back in 1978. We had been sailing it for six weeks when one evening at the supper table Dave asked, "How about we go somewhere, take a few days off, and sail to Nantucket. What do you think?" Of coarse I said yes, but inside I was a nervous wreck. Leaving land is not easy, I had a job and a home. I thought about how much I didn't know about sailing, about all the things that can go wrong when you are alone on the water. Gradually I began thinking that a short trip somewhere would be fun. I was absorbing the sailing life, excited by it, thrilled to be able to do this. We talked about what we would need. "I'll put the Wildflower on the mooring. We've got the charts. I can bring Arethusa to the wharf, get fuel, water, and take onboard whatever you want to bring from home." I was in for a new experience. "We just need Jackson, food, and plenty of cash," Dave said.  I looked at my husband and said  to him, George Bernard Shaw wrote: Some people look at the world and say why? And some look at the world and say, why not?"  I think you are in the second category."  We opened the charts, listened to the Beatles, the Stones and rocking hillbilly music, while we checked off items from our never ending lists and transporting them to the boat. In a week's time, we were waving bye-bye to home and heading away from Provincetown Harbor. For Dave this was a weekend away from fishing, his vacation. For me it was risk taking, excitement, and adventure. During the past six weeks we had been sailing around Cape Cod Bay, taking friends for short sails, and racing alongside of the beautiful Hindu. I was comfortable on the boat, I knew how to tie lines, and I could handle winches. I was ready, or so I thought.  I had much to learn. I didn't even know the names to the parts of the sail, what's a clew? What's the difference between standing and running rigging, abaft or aback? From Alfa to Zenith, forepeak to stern, ground swell to gybe, it's a language all it's own. Dave had been a student of a mariner's way of life all his thirty-five years. His knowledge came from hanging around fishermen, boat builders, and sailors. Born in Provincetown in 1945 to a family of fishermen, being on the water came naturally to my husband. We left the dock at dawn, crossed the bay and entered the Cape Cod Canal. The captain planned our trip, so that we would enter the canal with the tide going west, an ebb tide that had a maximum velocity of 5.2 miles per hour.  The seven mile cut in the land, dug in 1909, is thirty-two feet deep and four hundred-eighty feet wide, built to accommodate vessels to eight hundred-twenty five feet. The water pushes through, changing directions every six hours. The entrance buoy was tipping on its side from the wake of the tide. "I've got an idea," Dave said once we entered the canal. "Judy, take the wheel. Jackson and I are going to set the jib boom, to keep the jib set out to starboard while I set the mainsail to the opposite side of the boat, that's port to you land lubbers." This sail plan can only be used when certain conditions are met, breeze on the stern, moving with the tide.  It was our first taste of what's known as Wing-On-Wing. What a treat it was.  I waved to people in cars passing on the bridges over our heads, to people walking, biking and fishing alongside the canal. I wondered if they imagined a mythical creature, a dragon navigating the passage, or the goddess the boat was named for, as I did.   

To Be Continued: