The 2009 spring Coastal Passage Making course had two boats, Melissa and Invictus, two instructors and seven students. We left on a Thursday headed for Sandwich and the Cape Cod Canal; the larger plan was to sail around the outside of the Cape.
KC Cucchi
The crew on Invictus plotting their strategy in Sandwich.
KC Cucchi
Longer passages make time for a nap on deck.
Mark McGann
View from the water of the Sagamore Bridge.
Mark McGann
One tower of the Railroad Bridge.
KC Cucchi
On Friday night we rafted the boats up in a foggy Hadley Harbor for dinner on the grills.
KC Cucchi
View from the mooring in Hadley Harbor.
Geoff Rand
Saturday featured a spinnaker run from Woods Hole to Nantucket.
Geoff Rand
An outbound scallop dragger in Nantucket Sound.
Geoff Rand
Melissa sailing in to the entrance channel to Nantucket harbor.
Geoff Rand
Instructor David Gayton showing some knots to the crew on Melissa.
Mark McGann
Night view of the Nantucket Boat Basin.
Geoff Rand
Morning at the Nantucket Boat Basin, nearly empty in early June.
Geoff Rand
Melissa off Nantucket's Great Point Light on a slightly hazy Sunday morning. It's the start of a nearly fifty-mile spinnaker leg from Nantucket, through Pollock Rip and along the outside of the Cape, until the wind built and drew a little too far forward near Highland Light.
Mark McGann
Sunday afternoon we were just north of Provincetown. Over almost an hour we watched dozens of whales spouting, feeding and sounding. For all of us, it was the most amazing whale sighting we've experienced.
Mark McGann
The whales often swam in pairs, diving right next to the boat.
KC Cucchi
Sunday night was a beat across Cape Cod Bay in 25 knot northwesterlies and 4-foot seas, with a 2:30 am arrival in Scituate. Breakfast under sail Monday morning headed back to Boston made up for the understandably light dinner the night before.
Drying out after 5 days under sail.
Geoff Rand