Running from Danny

We spent most of Wednesday night planning our options for tropical storm/hurricane Danny. The current path shows it headed directly for Long Island, perhaps a little east. These things have a way of moving out to sea further to the east so we decided that the best plan would be to move west. And move west as fast as possible.

The weather outlook is pretty good for the next 2 days. That gives us a nice set of options - but we have to move now. We have to get as far west into the Long Island Sound as possible today. That would allow us to get to Sandy Hook, NJ on Friday or head up the Hudson River to Yonkers if the storm moved west toward New York City. Once in Yonkers, we'd have another day to get deep into the Hudson River with little chance of great storm damage because of the land barriers. Either way, today was the day to move west.

We awoke at 5:00 am (yikes!) and were pulling up the anchor at 5:45. By 6:00 we were heading out of Cuttyhunk's protected harbor. It had been a dead calm night - it would have been nice to stay here another day. Our destination was 85 nm to the west to Joshua Cove off Sachem Head, CT. All projected winds were from the north there for today so anchoring off Connecticut would give us the best protection.

It was a beautiful day with no waves beyond the slightest ripple. There was a lot of sleeping going on especially by our canine crew. We picked up some wonderful current around "The Race" at Fishers Island which sped us to our destination. By 4:00 pm we were anchored and enjoying the stillness and incredible homes lining the cove.

All eyes are glued to NOAA forecasts and the National Hurricane Center right now.

The "Good" versus the "Not So Good"...

We arrived at the town dock at 7:30 am to find Larry waiting to take us to our boat. That was good. While loading the boat, Dylan decided to jump into the water soaking all of our clothes - this while still tied to the dock. Definitely not so good.

Upon dropping us off at the boat, Larry had one final set of instructions - "Keep her off the rocks" - definitely good.

We unhooked the mooring lines at 8:30 am - right on schedule. It was a beautiful morning and a bunch of friends waved goodbye at the town dock - all very good.

One planned stop in Rockland to top off our fuel at Journey's End Marina. We also picked up a SPOT Messenger and configured it over a cellular internet connection after leaving Rockland. The SPOT device sends our position to satellites every 10 minutes. The track that those positions create can be viewed by anyone so everyone can watch our progress or see exactly where we are. Our public tracking page is located here:

http://tinyurl.com/ActiveCaptainSPOT

All good.

Leaving Rockland we experienced 2-4 foot rolling waves - we call them rollers. They rise slowly and fall slowly. It's a nice gently motion. More good. How much good do we deserve in a single day?

Two hours before sunset we arrived outside Monhegan Island. This is our final go/no-go position before heading overnight across the Gulf of Maine to Cape Cod. There was no change in the weather prediction and the 4 foot rollers continued. Even more good!

It turns out, we used up our allocation of good. About 2 hours after sunset, the period of the waves shortened from 8 seconds to 4 seconds (and less). This turns those nice gentle rollers into choppy, nasty, up-and-down motion. The waves were all coming on our nose too. Straight-at-you waves are the safest bad weather condition but they are mighty uncomfortable. We had 12 more hours of this type of weather to face. This was certainly in the not so good category. In fact, it was worth 10 not-so-goods.

Within 2 hours, Karen was sick. I felt queasy but was OK. The dogs had never been in bad weather and took it wonderfully. We gave them some preventative sea-sickness medication that would make them a little drowsy. They didn't like the motion but they were really great. Karen couldn't do her watches and I had to pilot all night in the dark against those waves with no sleep. Make that 50 not-so-goods. 10 isn't enough.

By 9:30 the next morning, we were in the protection of Cape Cod and the weather was light. I gave the helm to Karen so I could sleep for a couple of hours before piloting through the Cape Cod Canal with close maneuvers and other boats all around.

We eventually found our way to a calm cove off Cuttyhunk where we dropped the anchor, ate one of the three meals we missed, and tried to brush ourselves off. The anchorage was beautiful, the sunset was golden, and all was happy again inside aCappella. Very, very good.

That lasted all of 10 minutes - Hurricane Danny is aiming right at Long Island and set to hit in 3 days.

The not-so-goods won today but we've only just begun this joust.