18 July 2017

Bassetts Island

16 July 2017

Today, we took the kids on the boat for their biggest outing to-date: a day trip across Buzzards Bay to Bassetts Island, a sheltered anchorage on Cape Cod.  It was a good day.  The weather brought all the glory that forecasters had promised: sunny, in the low 80s.  There was ice cream.  There were laughs.  Everyone had a great time...for the most part.

Fog hangs over the cranberry bogs in the predawn twilight, as we go off to row....

The Admiral and I began our day at 0430, to make ready for a 0515 departure, in order to row at 0600 in New Bedford.  It was our final training row before next Saturday's Blackburn Challenge.  Rowing short-handed (one absent), we covered three nautical miles in fifty minutes.  With placid conditions next week, that would make for a five-hour Blackburn.  We will see.  Returning home, I picked up Lauryn and took her with me to collect and process water samples.  She wants to be a scientist (but a geologist, not a marine biologist).  Then, our duties fulfilled, we began prepping for the trip.

Since high tide that day was around 2:30pm, the kids' favorite spot, Long Beach, would be underwater.  We could have just gone there and anchored, beach or no beach.  But I thought, in light of the calm conditions, we might take them to a new spot.  Her kids are kind of conservative: they can be a bit stubborn, and don't always readily embrace new things.  So there was some initial resistance to overcome.  I proposed a day trip over to Bassetts Island, on the other side of Buzzards Bay.  "How long will that take?"  Well, its about seven nautical miles, so at an average speed of five-knots it should take us about an hour and a half.  OMG.  How they moaned and howled!  You would think we were asking them to round the Horn....

'Rounding the Horn'
(Montague Dawson, 1895-1973)

Bassetts Island is a popular boating destination on Cape Cod.  It offers an excellent sheltered anchorage, and access to some really fine beaches.  I announced we would tow the new dinghy with us, in case anyone wanted to explore the island or lay on the beach.  But it was only when I told Dylan that the island was shaped like a "fidget spinner" that he got interested.  Nestled between Wings Neck and Scraggy Neck in NE Buzzards Bay, the three-armed spit of land  provides a protective barrier outside Red Brook Harbor, near the towns of Pocasset and Cataumet.

Upper Buzzards Bay

Mentioned in many guides, Red Brook Harbor is a choice stopover for many cruisers transiting the Cape Cod Canal, and some opt to spend a day or two at anchor here.  The largest full-service marina on Cape Cod, Kingman Yacht Center, is located there.  At the Chart Room, a hugely popular local watering hole, you might as well buy two or three drinks at once, since the line can be so lengthy.


I went down to the boat early and brought it to the dock when the Admiral arrived with the kids, having learned well my docking lessons of the other week.  "Well, that was better than last time," Dylan muttered under his breath, as he climbed aboard at shrouds.

The trip over was fun.  Dylan lay on the foredeck, and almost fell asleep to the rocking of the waves.  He had been up half the night playing Minecraft online, after we went to bed.  As a precaution, I had him come sit or lay in the cockpit.  Lauryn took the tiller and steered the boat.  She was very engaged and drove with confidence.

I tried to coach her, pointing out landmarks towards which to steer.  But she only said that she was steering for them already.  I tried to advise her to watch the water surface for lobster pots or even people's heads.  She scoffed at that.  "Why would there be people in the water out here?"  Well, sometimes a small boat or kayak capsizes, and the person becomes separated from the craft.  It happens not uncommonly -- you hear it with some regularity over the VHF or in the news.  I asked her if she knew any 'Rules of the Road' for boating.  Her approach was to keep going and see if the other person moves, and to turn at the last minute if he didn't.  Hmmmm; she starts driving soon.  I suggested it was important to keep her head on a swivel, looking forward, to both sides, as well as astern.  "Why?" she said.  "I can see just fine."

No sooner had I spoken than I looked astern (out of habit), and what I saw confused me.  Trailing behind the boat was the dingy painter.  That's odd, I thought.  A moment later I realized why it was so odd.  Looking astern, I spied a familiar object floating on the waves about a hundred feet behind the boat.  "We lost the dinghy!" I cried, and jumped to relieve Lt. Stepdaughter at the helm.  Lauryn hauled in the line, which I assumed had failed under the strain.  Much to my chagrin, I discovered the line was intact -- it was my knot that had failed!  Well, that pleased the Admiral immensely.  "How ironic!" she hooted gleefully.  "The Knot-Nazi's knot came undone.  THIS has got to go in that stupid blog!"

What followed next was a deeply gratifying pseudo-MOB recovery drill.  I turned the boat around and returned to the drifting dinghy.  Dylan went and got the boat-hook, and the Admiral leaned on the coaming and caught the dinghy with the hook.  Then I gave the helm to Lauryn, and moved over to retie the painter to the bow of the dinghy as it bobbed up and down in the waves against the side of the boat.  "What kind of knot did he use, Dylan?" quizzed the Admiral.  "Bowline!" Dylan said after a quick look.  "He tied a bowline."  "What knot did you use before?" she then asked me.  "I thought I tied an anchor hitch," I replied.  "I guess not," she smiled with satisfied smugness.

The kids were visibly excited when we crossed the shipping channel leading to the western canal approach.  The waves were still very moderate, though a bit bigger, and the kids were keeping sharp watch for boat traffic.  While there were sailboats and powerboats, of all sizes, with which to contend,  fortunately there was no large commercial traffic.  As we approached the shores of the Cape, they began to check out various million-dollar waterfront houses.  The southern half of Bassetts Island is owned by the town, and publicly accessible.  The northern end is private property; a few years ago, five of the eight homes there were up for sale -- an interested party could have bought up most of the island for about $5 million.

I don't know much about the history of Bassetts Island.  In the mid-ninetieth century, grain mills dotted the banks of Red Brook, on the Cape, where "the flour is celebrated, and commands an extra price" (Frederick Freeman, 1869, The History of Cape Cod: The Annals of the Thirteen Towns of Barnstable County, Vol II, Boston: W.H. Piper).  The island may have been named after the Bassetts, an old family that settled in the region in the 1600.  Barachiah Bassett (1732-1813) moved to nearby Falmouth in the mid-1700s.  An officer in the Continental Army, he served in the Fort Ticonderoga campaign (1758), and in Nova Scotia (1760), and was with Washington at Valley Forge (1777-78), before taking command of the brig, 'Falmouth' (3 guns, 30 men), in 1782.  I'd like to think the island has something to do with him, if only because it makes for a more interesting story.  According to the Bullshitters Bible, you simply need to say something with confidence for people to believe you -- Trump does it all the time.

As you approach Bassetts Island, a long stretch of beautiful beach beckons.  But the water there, on the western side, is shoal and just a few feet deep at low tide.  Only powerboats anchor there, and not too many of them.  The preferred anchorage is on the eastern side of the island.


The problem is that one must take a circuitous route to the anchorage, supposedly at "No Wake" speed, which could mean a trip of about 25 minutes just from the edge of Buzzards Bay in to Red Brook Harbor.  To get there, one takes either the (busier) southern channel that skirts a shallow sandbar, or the (less traveled) zig-zagging northern channel.  Regardless of your choice, everyone is warned to remain extra vigilant, as many submerged rocks and sandy shoals lay just outside the channel boundaries.


We took the northern channel in and picked our way forward into an anchorage already crowded with boats of all sizes.  A couple of other vessels (including one group of five powerboats rafted together) prevented us from getting closer to the beach, and we eventually dropped the hook in thirteen-feet of water just after 12:00 noon.  Knowing the bottom was sandy with some eelgrass -- not ideally suited for the Danforth-style anchor we had deployed -- I instructed the crew on how to take bearings for an anchor watch, and how to know if we started to drag anchor.  That turned out to be rather prescient.

Anchored off the eastern side of Bassetts Island

The water here is nice -- clear and relatively clean.  Outer Red Brook Harbor scores 63 (out of 100) in the Bay Health index maintained by the Buzzards Bay Coalition.  By contrast, Long Beach on the Wareham River scores 59, while our mooring area on the Weweantic River scores only a 47.  Visibility was nearly two meters, whereas at the mooring I am lucky when it is two feet.

Looking east, toward Pocasset

I put up the awning to shield us a bit from the sun, and the musty smell seemed to have been a game-changer for Lauryn, who became more quiet and moody as the afternoon progressed.  We jumped off the boat to enjoy a swim in the cool refreshing waters.  Dylan demonstrated his ability to climb into the dinghy from the water, a feat the Admiral and I both fear is beyond our reach.  He also tried his hand at rowing for a bit, until the winds picked up and he returned to the mothership.  We snacked on cherries and grapes and apples, and a lunch of BLTs (at least for some of us).  Then the Ice Cream Boat came by, I flagged them over, and Dylan and I both enjoyed some ice cream.

Red Brook Harbor Ice Cream Boat at Bassetts Island

At some point in the afternoon, the Admiral, Dylan, and I all noticed that we seemed to have drifted a bit, our position shifting to leeward of where we originally anchored.  Then the beeping of the anchor alarm (set to 50 feet) confirmed our fears that the anchor had started to drag.  The Admiral fired up the motor, we nosed ahead a little bit and re-set the anchor.  I carry a spare anchor, a plow-design more suitable for this type of bottom, in the V-berth, and decided I would deploy it if the fluke-design failed again to hold.  We were anchored amidst some pretty large neighbors, and I really couldn't afford to meet them under cheerless circumstances.

S/V Aura, a 50-foot blue-water cruiser from Australia, anchored on our starboard beam

Around 3:00, we decided to get underway for the 90-minute journey home.  The Admiral had to go off to work the next morning, and wanted to have dinner before 6:00; before we departed the house, I had promised to have her back to the mooring by 5pm.  By this time, Lauryn had disappeared into the cabin with her phone.  I consulted Dylan about our return track -- back out the northern channel or take the southern channel and circumnavigate the island?  He opted for the more direct northern route.  "We'll do the other one another time," he said.  Ah, I thought.  He wants to come back....

Rafting Up: a group of powerboats tied up alongside each other while at anchor.
These covfefes can get pretty loud and raucous

As we made our way southwest to the mouth of the northern channel, where it meets Buzzards Bay, we were greeted in the face by the southwesterly wind and waves so characteristic of afternoon conditions on the Bay.  Even before we rounded Wings Neck, the boat was crashing head-on through some three or four foot waves, throwing spray in our faces.  Meanwhile, we had to keep an eye on -- and steer clear of -- other traffic.  Boats of all sizes, much larger than us and even some much smaller than us, were criss-crossing the waters between Wings Neck and Scraggy Neck.  The Admiral was surprised by the number of small boats we saw, many of them filled with people who wore no life jackets.  Quite a few of them had deep open cockpits and low gunwales.  "I would never be out here in these conditions in a boat like that," she said with some concern.

The "Buzzards Bay Boy's Boat," a Herreshoff 12

What we were looking at were Herreshoff 12.5 sailboats, or replicas thereof, a rather ubiquitous sight throughout the harbors and mooring fields of Buzzards Bay and New England in general.  They were designed in 1914 by the famous naval architect, Captain Nathanael "Ned" Herreshoff (1848-1938), who produced an unprecedented six consecutive winning boats for the America's Cup races, as well as some of the world's finest yachts.  The twelve-footer, despite its small size (only half as big as Piao), is an exceptionally seaworthy boat: buoyant and stable (with a 700-lb lead keel), it features a deep cockpit that comfortably fits a crew of four, yet is easy to single-hand.  Conceived specifically as a sail training vessel for youngsters, it is safe and forgiving -- especially for the inexperienced -- and handles well in the strong winds and steep chop of Buzzards Bay.  The H12 is widely regarded as one of the finest small boat designs, a "perfect boat," and its enduring popularity is unparalleled.  For about $20,000-$30,000, you can have one custom-built for you by Artisan Boatworks in Maine, or get a fiberglass replica 'Doughdish' ("dodici," or 'twelve') made by Ballentine's Boat Shop in Cataumet.  The Buzzards Yacht Club in Pocasset has a fleet of H12s, which race regularly off Wings Neck.  They are surprisingly fast.  We had a hard time getting ahead of one of them: he was sailing on a beam reach through the waves while we were motoring at full throttle into head seas.

An H12 at the Herreshoff Marine Museum Sailing School

I had Dylan take the helm, and he drove the boat into the rough chop, crashing through waves that sent spray back to the cockpit.  He was grinning, face wet, eyes wide.  "I'm a little scared," he confided, but stayed at his post for the duration of the crossing.  This was his longest trip yet, and the roughest, but he performed admirably well and gained a great deal of confidence and experience.  About two-thirds of the way across, he observed how conditions had calmed considerably.  I pointed out how we had passed into the lee of Bird Island, and were now a bit sheltered from the wind and waves.  "Well, that's good to know," he concluded emphatically.

Meanwhile, Lauryn lay in the cabin, growing increasingly queasy, and refusing to wear her life jacket.  Both the Admiral and I pressed her to put on the inflatable PFD, to come up and sit in the cockpit, fix her eyes on the horizon, eat some crackers, and drink some water or carbonated soda.  But she steadfastly refused.  Even Dylan encouraged her.  "I made that mistake once.  You are gonna get sick."  But Lauryn was adamant that she would feel better down in the cabin, and insisted she didn't need anything to drink.  And that life jacket was just too "annoying" to wear.

When we got back to the dock (precisely at 5:00), Lauryn headed straight for the car and didn't look back.  While the Admiral and kids headed home to shower and change, I took the boat back to the mooring and buttoned her up.  Finally, back at the house, I fixed myself a double 'Dark and Stormy' and sat down to a bacon cheeseburger of my own making -- yet one more thing that Lauryn found annoying.

Oh well.  Must be the age....




No comments:

Post a Comment

I welcome your comments and suggestions....