Wednesday, December 13, 2006

The Good the Bad the Diesel

It’s been a few days and things have calmed down. Once again we have found ourselves enjoying good food and a warm bed thanks to the graciousness of friends. After leaving the very quaint town of Newburyport on Sunday we saw a beautiful sunset just before navigating through the Annisquam River and arriving in Gloucester. We enjoyed a good nights sleep while securely tied to a dock.

Under a light rain we set sail looking forward to a solid day of sailing. We flew by Marble Head and Boston even managing to find a bit of sun along the way. It was the definition of a pleasant day of sailing. After checking the tides we found that our window to go through the Cape Cod Canal was from 4am – 9am. Sailing around the bay in the middle of the night may not sound like fun to you but we found it to be quite jolly, freezing, but jolly. Finally the magical tide time came and we made our way through the canal under cover of darkness. Apparently the Moxie likes to pilot through the narrow treacherous waterways with the added difficulty of nighttime. Cape Cod Canal turned out to be a well-lit nice little cruise with no hiccups whatsoever.

We arrived in Marion, MA at 6:30 Tuesday morning and quickly made our way to breakfast at Tabor Academy. Sean is an alum and everyone we meet has been more than willing to help us with food, advice, immersion suits and plenty of embarrassing stories about Sean. Tuesday night we slept in the home of Bill Lloyd and his wonderful family. We are enjoying ourselves immensely but our engine is still playing games with us, and so far it is winning by a lot. We have been poring over books called How to Fix Your Diesel Engine and How to Become a Diesel Mechanic. We’re now moving on to How to Deal with Frustration. Hopefully our next writing will be from Greenwich, CT (our next stop) but until then enjoy your continually running car!

4 comments:

meikle said...

Great to hear from you all again and to see the picture of the beautiful sunset.... Thank heaven that you are having a bit of rest and visit at Tabor...Please say Hi to all for us. Dad says to watch out for the Ksea tug, the Viking and its barge which is now in Portland and sailing in the AM for NYC. Then it will be going down the sound. Hope the engine situation rights itself and you are merrily on your way to Greenwich in the AM. Glad that the weather is warm and calm. We love you, God speed, Mother Meikle and Daddy Jay

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to hear that you made it to Marion. Hopefully you have your shakedown sails out of your system. Do remember that when your engine fails, it's probably better to head back to port, especially at night...wise risk taking, Sean, wise risk taking...Say hi to all at Tabor if you haven't already headed to CT. Glad you're on the east coast...we're expecting 80-90 mile an hour gusts tonight and lots of rain, but that's not new. Be safe!

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Can you tell us a little about Moxie? We know she likes sailing and horror movies. Would it be prying too much to ask about her age, her travels, her dimensions? You seem to think she’s a little bit fickle but dependable when truly needed, even if you run her into the mud.