Back on Chebeague Barbara made a last trip to Cambridge to take notes at Harvard while I took the boat into Portland for bunkers. Wwe moved aboard on the 9th and continued the work of loading the boat and packing up the house. This was a bigger job this year than usual because we are having work done this winter, and some books had to be packed away so the work could proceed.

Finally the storms offshore went away, the swell diminished, and early in the morning of the 16th we dropped the mooring and slipped down the coast of Chebeague for the last time until Spring. Our plan was to spend the first night in Gloucester, then see what the weather had in store for us, and a secondary plan was to go further by way of Marblehead, where we would have someone from Hansen Marine take a look at our generator, which was still not acting quite right.
We called Fred Knowles at Hansen and he agreed to look at our set around noon the next day, so we anchored in Gloucester after dark and set out the next forenoon for the 2-hour run to Marblehead. Fred came aboard almost instantly after we were tied up, spent about an hour with us, replaced a couple parts, and gave me some very welcome hints about operation and maintenance. The genset has performed beautifully ever since.

We stayed in Marblehead that night, then set out in a generally southerly direction. The Buzzard's Bay forecast for the next few days was southwesterly winds at 25-30 knots, and from experience I knew that the Bay would be quite lumpy with that wind, so we decided to stop over in Plymouth, where Barbara had never been, until the weather looked better.

These guns caused us some consternation - when I looked out the window while drinking my morning coffee I saw them set up on a point of land just across a small cove from our berth. They appeared to be aimed directly at us! My first thought was: "We didn't mean it! And it probably wasn't even us!"

We watched the parade, or at least most of it, and later wandered through a "historic village" set up in a park. There were men and women in colonial costume, an encampment of Union troops (from the Civil War), a World War I Coast Artillery machine gun nest, and a blacksmith with a portable forge. Some of the re-enacters were more hard-core than others and slept in their pup tents and ate food cooked over an open fire.

There was also by the shore, in addition to the modern howitzers, a small Revolutionary-era field gun, tended by men in smart blue uniforms, that fired frequent salutes.

We were very glad to have arrived at just this moment, and we stayed one more day to rest and wait until the wind swung around to the northeast, so it was a gray Monday morning when we found our way back out the channel and set out for the eastern end of the Cape Cod Canal. We hit the Canal with the tide still with us and made good time through it (since the tide in the canal can run up to 3 knots it's no fun going against it).

The next day we thought the ebb from Long Island Sound would hold us back, but instead we received a lift from the Buzzard's Bay tide, so we were in a good frame of mind as we slogged along the featureless Massachusetts and Rhode Island coasts. We left our anchorage at 7:15, and by 2:10 were anchored in the outer harbor at Stonington, Connecticut.

This day, however, Dave from the boatyard finally returned my several calls, with bad news: all his docks were full and there was no room for us! Well, this was not good, because Barbara had hoped to spend at least a week at the Yale Library, and we were looking forward to spending time with my sister and her husband.

So the afternoon before Thanksgiving Day we decided to go on into New Haven Harbor, where I knew we could anchor in Morris Cove and find shelter, even in the dark, and we would figure out a way to get Barbara to the library. We did this, then found an unguarded internet connection which gave me a chance to look at a site called "Active Captain" that is like a waterway guide but kept up to date by users.

On good days our wharf is much frequented by fishermen and others just looking to get close to the water.

Once through (actually under) the barrier imposed by I-95 and its tributaries, this corner of New Haven is becoming much more lively and interesting than I remember it as being. There are restaurants of almost every persuasion, for example, and an old firehouse converted into a jazz club. We are enjoying exploring the area, although Barbara is spending most of her time at Yale, a couple miles away in the center of town.