Today I came up the Danvers River, after a nice sail from Great Misery Island. Great Misery Island did involve a tad bit of misery, but that was counterbalanced by a lot of beauty, and for the last night some solitude. That last bit of solitude would be because the local people were sensible, and foresaw the tremendous amount of rolling that was going to go on in there for the night! A combination of the “pool table effect” and basic wave wrapping, I think, brought on by the strong easterly wind going on out to sea. And then for quite a while the wind in the cove was light enough that the boat did not stretch out away from the mooring ball, so the waves could really smack the two of them together. Sheesh!

So I left in the morning while it was a bit foggy but generally quite lovely to be out. Big wind was forecast for the afternoon – gale warning for Massachusetts Bay – so my plan was to get over to Beverly Harbor (about 3 miles away) well before that started. That worked out fine, and I was anchored in a cove inside the harbor by about 10:30. As it turned out, those east swells were working their way into the harbor just fine, even though the wind had gone more to the south. So in the end, instead of staying for another extremely rolly night, I got to use that nice breeze to come up the river.

This involved two more drawbridges, which went reasonably well, except that the second one said that the sails had to come down. I had had such a nice time sailing through the first bridge, downwind, with the current! But otherwise it was fine, and I came all the way up to the yacht club marina that is opposite the ramp that we are going to use on Saturday. The marina folks are going to help with the masts on Friday, and were quite wonderful about letting me come in today to stay in a slip for the week. I’m ready for a rest, and this will make it easy for a bit more visiting between now and Saturday.

So that’s it! There is so much more to write about this trip, and I am hoping to do that after going home. The yuloh post is written, but waiting for a couple of photos. And a post about provisioning that we did for this trip is in progress.

I am quite blown away by how many people are reading this blog lately, and from such faraway places! The administration side of the blog has a page that keeps track of “site statistics” and includes a map of where readers are from. References in duckworks online magazine made for a big jump in readership, which now has included people from every continent except for Antarctica! Who knows if that will continue, but it’s fun to think of such a broad range of folks interested in this bit of a project. Thanks for coming by!

So anyway, even though we are closing in on the boat coming out of the water, it still might be worth checking in now and then, if you like – there is more to say, just to catch up on bits that have been waiting their turn.

Thanks again.