Cruise Log 3:

Hi, folks,

Yes, home safe and happy to be, though I'm still dealing with my disappointment about "giving up" on the cruise.

We got home mid-afternoon a week ago Friday. The final sail (40 miles up from York Harbor) was again REALLY tough--25 knot winds, six foot following seas. We lost our dinghy and little motor--when we left port it was pretty calm, and we decided to tow, as we'd done the rest of the trip, and for the entire trip in '92--but the waves swamped it, and it got away from us.  Trying to haul several hundred gallons of saltwater in the swamped dinghy up to the boat just didn't work.  And there was no way that F was going to agree to my boarding a swamped boat in 25 knots of wind to pump out, remove the motor, and drag the thing aboard.  Last we saw it was partially submerged and drifting off to the southwest...ah, well. Hindsight suggests how silly it was to assume that the dinghy could handle such conditions--though it HAD handled equally bad conditions earlier in the trip.  Just a matter of wind and wave angles I guess. 

Now we are just putting ourselves and landlife back together, and beginning  the process of loading stuff back off the boat, now snug in harbor. Our condo seems palatial and comfortable beyond measure.  Things are SO much easier when you're living on land!

Next comes rounds of planning for the next phase of the year.  Well, actually, the next phase is some nice autumnal time in Maine, but then we'll want to plan something rather more like overseas travel for the dead of winter up here--probably France, Italy, Sicily, Spain, then France again before home in April.  At least that's one plan.

Hope your days go well.

(Zeph)