A few days before we were due to set off, we moved the boat around the point of Chebeague to an anchorage off the Stone Wharf that was convenient for loading and that also meant we could dinghy in and out from a float instead of fighting with a rocky beach in the prevailing easterly conditions.

A problem familiar to anyone who has ever brought a ship out of a dockyard is that initially everything is put aboard every which way, usually in a hurry and with little thought to where it will eventually be stowed. Sometimes it seems overwhelming, but eventually everything gets stowed in lockers and bins and the boat settles down into her proper sailing order.

The day before we left, we moved back to Barbara's own mooring to escape the northwest winds off the back of a low, and we lay in a comfortable lee while where we had been anchored was covered with whitecaps.

We passed the end of Chebeague and took our departure from the whistle buoy off Cape Elizabeth that marks the southwestern end of Casco Bay. At first we had the wind and sea behind us, which was very pleasant, but the wind eventually swung around to the southwest and we were quartering into it, but still with an easy motion.

At that moment we were about where the old Nantucket Lightship used to be, where the traffic patterns for New York and Boston interesect, and after a few minutes with the chart we decided to run back for Nantucket Harbor and wait for a better shot. It is disheartening to double back on one's track, but in this case it seemed wiser.

Once through the jetties the harbor was calm and the day grew bright. The Harbormaster hailed us on the radio and offered us a berth on the Town Pier, just astern of the dragger Ruthie B., and by 9:00 Tuesday morning we were secured alongside and we set out to visit Nantucket, thinking to ourselves that people pay good money to come here, so let's see what it's all about.

Ths older and maybe simpler houses are covered with cedar shingles that have faded to a soft gray, while the fancier Greek-revival houses up on the hill behind the harbor often have white clapboards, sometimes only on the side facing the street.

We enjoyed walking around the town and getting to know it a little. Local inquiry led us to a NAPA store that produced a new air filter for our heating system, and that expedition in turn led us to the supermarket almost next door, where we bought more fresh vegetables.

So the days passed while the storm made its way off to Labrador, and we began to think that a Sunday departure would give us a window of good weather. In the meantime, however, another low was slated to give us heavy northeast winds,and our berth was very exposed in that quarter. On the advice of the Harbormaster, we moved into the protected Boat Basin, now all but deserted, for our last two days. We tried to raise the Basin office on the radio and the telephone, but with no success, so we simply drove in and made fast in what looked to us like a secure berth, figuring that the authorities could find us if they wanted to.