Another wonderful day in Gloucester Ma. Today was laundry day, so we packed up all the dirty things we  could find and headed  to town.Walking in this town reminds me of Europe , very small sidewalks were you can barley walk two abreast and very hilly. Walking here all the time would certainly keep you in shape.. Buildings are very old and you can tell this is what it looked like in the countries where the original settlers came from.The laundry was only a few blocks away clean and nice. I had to find a mailbox so I took Bella for a walk as soon as our clothes were in the washers. Carl stayed at the laundry while we walked about. I found a pet groomer just down the street named Rosey and  I had her trim Bella's nails. We are no good at it. With laundry done, we loaded up the back pack and walked through the street market that was going on on Main Street. Lots of people were out. They have a ton of teenager's in this town.. The town even had a little passenger train that ran through it. Carl found a little hat on the ground and we gave it to a little girl who had the same color dress on and made her day..After a while it time to head back to the boat, put away the laundry and have some lunch.When early evening arrived we grabbed the dog and went for our evening walk about. We walked to the Fisherman's Memorial, Fisherman's Wife's Memorial , and  the Joan of Arc statue. It is such a pretty walk along the water. We crossed an old bridge that was put in in 1910, it was really rusty and I wonder how long before they replace it..Glad we don't drive it everyday...The cut under the bridge was dug out by the people in the 1600's , to connect Ipswich bay to Gloucester harbor... They also have a free whale exhibit that we checked out..With a skeleton of a local whale.They document and tag them here, and they can tell by their tale markings which whale they are, plus they name them. After all the walking of the day Carl's foot was bothering him, it still not healed, so back to Windward Spirit we went. While lounging in the cockpit, we saw the small sailboat by us was dragging anchor. The owner was trying to pull the boat forward with his row boat against the wind to reset it.Needless to say he wasn't making much progress.  But he was building his arms... Carl got in the dingy and headed over to help, as did another man in a dingy.. Bella and I watched from the cockpit. Between both dingy's they got her reset. The man didn't know he was in 25 feet of water and didn't have enough anchor rode out. Carl stirred the boat with our dingy and the other guy pushed it with his. I would have gotten a picture but my camera doesn't work well in the dark.When they were all finished and Carl returned to the boat, we had some dinner and watched a movie till bed.Today we will go to the auto parts and finish our checking out of Gloucester.. And the fun continues...

On our 3rd month anniversary  at sea, we sailed into Gloucester Harbor under bright skies. It was a perfect day at sea, the winds were light and sea's calm. Sailing wasn't as fast as we would have liked, but coming here under sail made all my dreams come true. The day began with hot, great showers in Scituate Ma , oh to be clean again... I have taken to giving Bella a shower with me, she not so happy but I am..Coming to Gloucester has always been somewhere I wanted to come. When I moved to Florida in the 70's I hung out  with the fisherman on Madeira Beach and tended bar at the Charter boat center. A very good friend of mine Ricky Naves came from here.He always talked of it saying it was a town with it's proud heritage in fishing. Many sailing schooners fished  from this port dating back to the 1600's. Many of men were lost at sea. Ricky's father was lost at sea here , and most people of the town were touched by the fishing industry.So it was as wonderful that this is the port we would pull into today, on our 3rd month at sea..As we came in the bay you could see and feel the history just coming into port. We are anchored right in the center of town, so it's a short dingy ride to get in. Secured the boat and headed to town and the first thing we find out is that every Thursday during the summer they have a free concert on the waterfront.. Oh how happy this has made us.. Yeah baby, music too..we will be back for that later.. As we walked through the town you really get the feeling of it. Old homes lined the hilly streets on narrow sidewalks. There is a waterfront park that looks out to sea, where the Fisherman's Memorial stands. We found Ricky's dad's name he went down in 1962.After that we stopped and bought lobsters for $5.00 each...  the restaurant  behind the store steamed them for us while we waited and had a drink. They didn't even charge us for steaming them.  We walked back to the park where we cracked lobsters and listened to music. I asked a guy to take our picture and we got to talking it turned out he was a fisherman  and he knew who Ricky Naves is.  We just loved that....When the music stopped  we headed back to the boat and talked about all that has happened on our trip. That's when Carl says.. we are certainly earning our Merritt Badges for seamanship on this trip.. What a great way to put it.. Because that is just what were doing...We danced the night away on deck and appreciated our surroundings... This is what it is all about...

A lobster man has a sail on his boat with a lobster on it.. And the entrance to Scituate, Ma..

Carl pulled the both anchor lines and readied ourselves to go.While raising the line he found that one of the anchor rode was chafed at about 180 ft where it had gotten out of the bow roller , from all the knocking around. He will now have to cut that line off and re-braid it as it could break next time we have to use it.Tired but still moving we headed for our next stop.It was a very nice day at sea, 3 ft surf with light winds. A few hours later the sun came out. We hadn't seen it in so long, we weren't really sure that's what it was... Only kidding..but it has been a while...Lots of gray skies in the north..We had hoped to make Salem but as the day progressed we saw rain in our future and decided to head to port and get anchored so we could have a calm night. Landing in Sciuate Ma. we were told that we could not anchor and had to take a mooring ball, okay by me, only $35 in a calm harbor. Perfect..As soon as we were settled I took a 2 hour nap, I couldn't go another step..Then we boarded the launch Easy Rider, and headed to town, how nice no dingy...This is a lovely  town, really nice people, very clean. The perfect all American town... While there a local eye doctor was having a cook out for all to come to, to celebrate 40 years in business. We were offered but declined. All the boys and men of the town were building a stage for a music festival this weekend. As it is the towns  Heritage Days celebration  for the anniversary of 375 years..  It was pretty cool to watch them all work together like that..And of course we stopped for ice cream. I must say they do have good ice cream up north...Stopped by a dogie store  and Bella got a treat also.. Time to head back to the boat, about the Easy Rider and we were home. We hadn't been home a half hour when these men pulled up in their sailboat and asked Carl if he wanted a beer. They welcomed us to their town and asked where we came from in Florida.. They said they were the welcoming committee. What fun.. I told you this was a great little town. We are very happy we had stopped here. I made fish taco's for dinner and we called it a short night, as I am sure you can imagine we were very tired, from having to learn our lessons the hard way.. More adventure with better days to come..

Sorry I'm so late in posting the blog, but after a rough night on the hook, my brain was scrambled  and I just couldn't think earlier  today.. More about that later.. We had a late start as we wanted to catch the east bound tide on the Cape Cod Canal and we couldn't get there until 3;00 pm so there was no point in leaving early. We are only 2.5 hours away. The tide runs about 5 knots so we had to go with it..We dropped the mooring ball about 11:00 am and headed for the pump out station. There is only one in the harbor. We had to wait till the guy could get to us, Carl filled the water while we waited..We departed there at almost noon. Next stop fuel, we choose to go to the dock all the commercial vessels used as the diesel was cheaper. The fuel was only $3.60 per gallon, awesome...during  docking I stepped in Bella's poo and got it all over the deck, guess it's back to swabbing the deck for me...Lucky me... Emptied our trash and we were about to pull out when a 60 ft. fishing trawler was leaving , so we waited.. Holy crap.. He had to do some maneuvering of his vessel and when he did he back flushed us and pulled us into his wake..Really.. it's this how the day is gonna go... I didn't even know that could happen..Freaky... Once we broke lose of his hold it out to sea for us.. I took a picture of the hurricane wall from this side of it as we said goodbye to New Bedford Ma. The skies were overcast but not suppose to rain till later. Then about an hour from the canal the rain began and the fog rolled in. We kept going with both of us at watch for the channel markers and buoys. Just before the canal it cleared up and we gave ourselves a pat on the back.. good job..Yes we rock...  We had decided to take refuge in the last hole in the canal,(since it's called place of refuge) as it was late and we wouldn't make the next stop by dark.. Once there we were told it is now a private marina and we would have to pay $65 for the night..Well we all know how we are budget sailors so we decided to anchor just outside the canal with the jetty on side , land on another and 2 sides open. The sea's were pretty calm and  with the way the wind was blowing, we figured we were alright.. .famous last words...As day became night the winds made a change, with a gentle rain, Still no big deal .. Not long after is when it started to kick up, before we knew it it was 20 plus winds, sideways rain and rough sea's. To late to make a change.Good news is it wasn't thunder and lighting..That's something good... So it was time to ride it out. Carl put a 6 to 1 scope on the anchor line, we were in 30ft of water with 180 anchor rode.. That's seems to be the safest way, with a second safety anchor...Plenty of room to  bounce.. Then the boat really began rocking sea's got up to 5 or 6ft and it was really knocking us about.. Me I was scared, but then I remembered what Elaine said, don't worry the boat can take it, and Carl was doing his best to keep me relaxed.. To no avail.. I was still scared and so was Bella. No sleep was had during the night.! All three of us were up all night..huddled together on the cabin floor, the best place to stay put, waiting for relief from the sea.. I can tell you this that is the last time we spend the night exposed, especially over $65!!!. I vowed to never do that again... I'm sure our safety is worth more than that.... Finally about 3 am it calmed down enough for Carl to try to get some rest, and he almost fell out of the bed twice.. As the sun rose the sea's had quieted down and we were ready to face another day.. Spent...