Marthas Vineyard to Novascotia Part 1

We leave in misty/foggy conditions with a good breeze pushing us along and navigate the shoals to exit Nantucket sound. The aim is to go north along the west side of Chappaquidick Island ( ring any bells?…Chappaquiddick incident in 1969 involving Senator Ted Kennedy) and then turn right (I mean East!) to leave the sound just south of Cape Cod. We spend the main part of the morning navigating buoy to buoy in the fog with unseen fishing vessels around us. We hail one up by VHF who is on the opposite bearing to let them know we will pass just to the south of them. I hear the engine but see only the smallest glimmer of a shape in the white and we pass each other within a couple of hundred meters. It is difficult to see the navigation boys from more than 200m  

Thankfully we have AIS installed. We would be blind without it in conditions like this. AIS (Automatic Identification System)  allows vessels to automatically share key data like position, bearing, speed, size and vessel name. The signal is relayed vessel to vessel by VHF in the area using a mesh network and ultimately ends up available on the internet. We get a little display of all the vessels equipped with AIS in our vicinity (about 20 miles) and so can see what we are about to collide with or what is about to run us over. Some of the big ships travel at pretty high speed (35mph) and they can be on you very quickly. The down side is that not everybody has AIS…..and rocks, fishing lines and navigation buoys don’t either so you have to keep your eyes peeled. Usually you would use radar to detect these but ours is on the blink and on the to-do list for Halifax.

By 2PM we’re happy to be at the exit of Nantucket sound and give ourselves a little pat on the back. We are free of the worry of running into something fixed to the earths crust for the next few days as we head out into the Gulf of Maine. Floating things are still a risk but visibility steadily improves throughout the day and so we begin to relax and get into the rhythm for the passage to Halifax. We estimate it will take 3 to 4 days depending on the winds. Regular 8 hour sleeps go out the window as we take turns on watch. (Sleep deprivation torture was probably invented by mariners.) I am a solid 8 hours a night guy and this is going to be a challenge. More about that later.

By afternoon, the weather gods start to play games and the misty conditions return and it starts to rain. Proper big fat heavy drops at times which look quite cool out in the North Atlantic but still surprising to see ripples from the drops like on a pond. 

A nice fresh breeze clears the air and we get going again with a lovely sunset but with thunder clouds starting to appear on the horizon in some directions. This is  a bit of a worry as lightning around a boat is pretty, it also cause a degree of tightening of the rear sphincter.