Day 51 & 52 Cuddyhunk
Aug 19th
It would have been a beautiful sailing day if we wanted to go in a different direction, but as it is the wind is right on our nose, and once again we were motoring.
There are some standard "travel brochure" mental images I have about Cape Cod, but a cow loose on the beach was not one of them. (Terrible photo, but best I could do with the boat at 8kts!)
Our destination was Cuddyhunk- the last island in a chain located northwest of Martha's Vineyard & Nantucket. The Cuttyhunk entrance channel and twists a few times before delivering us into the harbor. People will be wading in the channel and move back so you can get through! And bad news if you veer off the center of the channel, cause there's no room for error. But lots & lots of boats do it every day. Once inside the harbor is spacious and filled with boats. Everyone is in a festive mood out on their decks. There are lots of families with young children, many teaching their kids to sail in tiny little skiffs, or how to run about in a dinghy. Lots of excited squeals coming from the kids at the tillers.
A sudden thunderstorm blew up, rain, wind, thunder & lightning right at dusk. Lois & Shelby got caught in it on shore, and had to make a challenging return in the dinghy in the dark. Lois was not a happy camper.
Aug 20th
We decided to stay in Cuddyhunk an extra day to enjoy the beach & a swim in the ocean. The beach itself is no longer rugged boulders, but smaller- basketball sized & smaller- granite rocks. The colors of the granite are much more muted than in Maine.
The dunes are covered with the wild sea roses I showed you earlier, only the blossoms have now given way to rose hips. They are large enough to look like tomatoes.
There were interesting things to look at along the shore. A fence topped with rubber gloves (no explanation...)
Several very old timbers from a long ago shipwreck. Clues made us say 100-200 yrs old.
And in honor of my friend Jane, here's a quiz! (LOL!) Anybody know what this is? Anybody? Raise your hand....
It's an egg casing from an Atlantic Skate. The prongs wrap around eel grass to keep the eggs hidden in the vegetation and from drifting out to sea or onto shore.
Shelby enjoyed her very own beach shade.
We took a short walk through the village. There's not much there: seems like everyone runs a tourist business out of their garage or a shack on the pier. A taco stand, ice cream, lobsters, oysters, etc. The village store and the post office are in houses as you walk up the hill. Some residences are very nice, others are quite old and look like they'd blow away in the next gale. All are a little eccentric- one place had a humpback whale rib in the front yard.
It would have been a beautiful sailing day if we wanted to go in a different direction, but as it is the wind is right on our nose, and once again we were motoring.
There are some standard "travel brochure" mental images I have about Cape Cod, but a cow loose on the beach was not one of them. (Terrible photo, but best I could do with the boat at 8kts!)
Our destination was Cuddyhunk- the last island in a chain located northwest of Martha's Vineyard & Nantucket. The Cuttyhunk entrance channel and twists a few times before delivering us into the harbor. People will be wading in the channel and move back so you can get through! And bad news if you veer off the center of the channel, cause there's no room for error. But lots & lots of boats do it every day. Once inside the harbor is spacious and filled with boats. Everyone is in a festive mood out on their decks. There are lots of families with young children, many teaching their kids to sail in tiny little skiffs, or how to run about in a dinghy. Lots of excited squeals coming from the kids at the tillers.
A sudden thunderstorm blew up, rain, wind, thunder & lightning right at dusk. Lois & Shelby got caught in it on shore, and had to make a challenging return in the dinghy in the dark. Lois was not a happy camper.
Aug 20th
We decided to stay in Cuddyhunk an extra day to enjoy the beach & a swim in the ocean. The beach itself is no longer rugged boulders, but smaller- basketball sized & smaller- granite rocks. The colors of the granite are much more muted than in Maine.
There were interesting things to look at along the shore. A fence topped with rubber gloves (no explanation...)
Several very old timbers from a long ago shipwreck. Clues made us say 100-200 yrs old.
And in honor of my friend Jane, here's a quiz! (LOL!) Anybody know what this is? Anybody? Raise your hand....
It's an egg casing from an Atlantic Skate. The prongs wrap around eel grass to keep the eggs hidden in the vegetation and from drifting out to sea or onto shore.
Shelby enjoyed her very own beach shade.
We took a short walk through the village. There's not much there: seems like everyone runs a tourist business out of their garage or a shack on the pier. A taco stand, ice cream, lobsters, oysters, etc. The village store and the post office are in houses as you walk up the hill. Some residences are very nice, others are quite old and look like they'd blow away in the next gale. All are a little eccentric- one place had a humpback whale rib in the front yard.
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