Sailing Buzzards Bay

Hello. I’m writing this blog entry late Sunday afternoon from my patio, sipping a glass of home made wine, and simply relaxing. I just got home from a weekend on Galatea, no more than 20 minutes ago. In fact, if I close my eyes I can still  feel the motion of the boat. I had forgotten about that feeling you get after spending time on the water.

It was a great weekend. I went down to Mattapoisett by myself. Janet went away on a retreat, so it was perfect to spend some time by myself on the boat. I got down to the boat about 10am on Saturday, all ready to start putting the sails on, the dodger on…….. couldn’t even try do it. The wind was so strong there were 1-2 foot whitecaps in the harbor, excuse me, harba’h.

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Finally, the 2010 sailing season is here. All my hard work getting the boat ready for launch culminated with the boat hitting the water this morning. I was hoping to watch the event from my office using the MBY webcam. Unfortunately it didn’t appear to be working. That’s probably for the best. I’ve never seen the boat get launched. Not ever. I’d probably be too nervous watching. I’d be thinking of all the things that could go wrong. Envisioning the boat falling on it’s side, cracked open like an egg. No, better to just go down the following weekend to see  it sitting safe and sound on it’s morning. Read the rest of this entry »

  Got down to the boat this Sunday to continue my spring maintenance projects. Turned out to be too cold to do any painting or apply cetol to the teak. Instead it was good opportunity to work on the engine. Read the rest of this entry »

  Hello. I’m back! It’s been quite a while since I’ve written anything in my sailing blog. In fact, I haven’t written anything all winter. And for good reason….. I haven’t done anything all winter.

 Well, it’s March and I’m ready to get going. Last weekend I went down to the boat for the first time this year. The picture above is before I stepped foot on the deck. The plastic tarp I tied down blew off as you can see. Otherwise, Galatea is looking great. Read the rest of this entry »

 There was some heartbreaking news a few days ago. One of the mainstays of the Mattapoisett boating community, Karl Collyer, passed away. Janet and I want to express our condolences to Karls family and his extended family at the Boatyard. He was a great guy and we are going to miss him.  The  photo above was borrowed from the Mattapoisett Boatyard Newsletter that Dave emails out to everyone. Hope he doesn’t mind. It’s a great picture to remember Karl by.

  I discovered something that I never read before in any sailing magazines or books. The effectiveness of anti-fouling paint degrades over time. That statement seems like common sense. But I didn’t know that, nor as I mentioned ever heard of that before. Read the rest of this entry »

  I usually go down to the harbor whenever I take lunch breaks while I’m down in Mattapoisett working on the boat. It’s a great chance to just sit there and take in the sights. See the harbor when it’s quiet and still. Read the rest of this entry »

 Last weekend I started my winter’s maintenance work. I had a list of a dozen things to do. Though of course I ended up working primarily on a single project and getting only a few things done. That always seems to happen. The reason being, I start out thinking I only need to do something minor, then as I start taking things apart, I find I have a whole bunch of stuff to fix.

 The picture above is my steering pedestal. That was my major project last weekend. There had been a leak under the pedestal all last season. So, I intended to spend a half hour or so sealing up the base of Read the rest of this entry »

Hi everyone. I’ve been remiss in keeping up with my blog. I apologize for that. The truth is, I hadn’t had anything to write about. This Fall, I went out for day sails whenever the weather was nice. But I didn’t have anything new to say. In October, the boat was hauled out of the water for the season. Again, you could read my last years blog entry for the haulout and it would have been the same thing. So, I thought, whats the point in writing anything.

However, for this winter I plan on writing about all my maintenance work. And I’ll post any good pictures I’ve taken during the season, or post any good sailing tidbits. Basically, anything to get through the long cold winter.

Sailing up Buzzards Bay along the western shore and rounding West Island to head for Mattapoisett or Marion, the only hazard to navigation is Cormorant Rock. When the tide is low you can see the rocks and it’s easy to see from a distance during the day. The picture above shows the rocks at mid tide, along with all the cormorants drying their wings. Read the rest of this entry »