Summer Sailing Adventure Part 5

Friday 17 July 2009

We tied up to the mooring ball in Tiverton, and lamented that it would be our last night aboard. Typically we try to take vacation for 2 weeks at a stretch, so some serious miles can pass below the keel. Unfortunately I only had a week of vacation time at my disposal.

We headed to one of the swankier restaurants in Tiverton to celebrate our last night. However, we did not dress for the swankier restaurant. I walked into the joint with my hair tied in a bandanna, in ratty shorts and a tank top. Todd wasn’t dressed much nicer than that. The maitre d’ eyed our appearance, then caught herself staring and seated us. We ate a lovely meal, I pounded a few mojitos, and then we headed back to the boat.

Once aboard we needed to take the boys ashore. They hadn’t been all day long. Griffen paced, and Nemo, miraculously, hadn’t soiled the deck all day. Our lack of coordination screwed us again, Griffen ended up in the water while we prepared to get them into the dinghy to go ashore. We shrugged our shoulders and decided to let him swim alongside the boat all the way to the public dock—approximately a quarter mile away.

Griffen loves to talk while he swims. He chatters excitedly in squeaky puppyish barks as if to say “This is great! I am having such a fun time! I love to swim! I love you guys for letting me swim!” The problem with his swim chatter is that he has to open his mouth to do it. If he opens his mouth salt water flows freely down his throat. We learned several years ago that salt water and the doggy digestive tract are not friends. At all. We learned the meaning of the phrase “projectile poop” the hard way (kinda like my experience on my way to work yesterday).

Tired dogs and people climbed back aboard and settled in for the night. Overnight a massive thunderstorm blew in and carried buckets of rain. We listened as it pelted the cabin top over our bed—but thanks to our diligence in the spring not one drop fell on our bed.

Saturday 18 July 2009
We freed ourselves from the mooring and headed west to cross the bay and return to East Greenwich. The wind blew from the south, which is perfect from Sabine as she prefers her wind to blow across her beam (her perfect point of sail is when the wind is blowing in perpendicular to the direction she’s traveling, so directly into her side). We had a leisurely, sunny and windy sail home and only slowed to clean off the deck several times. (See above, “projectile poop.”)

We tied up to our home mooring and sighed. Coming back from a sailing vacation is always difficult for us. I distinctly remember our first sailing vacation on Lake Champlain in 2000. We were out for 10 days on a 26’ Pearson Commander called Sugar Magnolia. Sugar Mag had a 10 horse outboard engine; Sabine has a 53 horse inboard engine. Aboard Sugar Mag, bathing was either done in the lake, or with a solar shower, while aboard Sabine it’s done in a tiled shower with hot water. Drinking water on Sugar Mag was carried in gallon jugs purchased at the store; Sabine has a sink in the galley and bathroom with fresh running water. Cooking was done on a butane camp stove aboard Sugar Mag, while it’s done on a propane stove in the galley aboard Sabine, or on the gas grill on the aft deck—depending on what we’re having. Sugar Mag required us to bring a cooler filled with ice to keep perishables and beer cold; while Sabine has a top loading fridge.

But those 10 says aboard Sugar Magnolia were blissful. We first felt the bittersweet ending to a sailing trip as we tied to our mooring at Chipman Point Marina in Orwell, Vermont. It’s always the same feeling every time a sailing trip ends. While we’re happy about the places we’ve gone, sights we saw, and experiences we had there’s a slight sadness in that it has to end and more places, sights and experiences have to wait until the next trip.