Hadley Harbour MA USA

Long Point Light

What a difference a day makes! When we arrived off Provincetown the previous day, the Long Point Light was shrouded in mizzle and the beach looked grey and uninviting.  As we sailed past on Saturday 30 September, with sun blazing in a perfectly blue sky, it was quite clear why this is such a well-loved summer holiday location.

Hard on the wind and fetching the entrance to the Cape Cod canal

Not only were we lucky with the change in the weather, we were lucky with the wind direction too.  The forecast had been for southwest 10-15kts but there was rather more north in the wind and only about 10 knots of it.  So, full sail flying, we were able to fetch the entrance to the Cape Cod canal without tacking, saving us several miles and lots of time.  We weren’t the only yacht headed in that direction and it looked as if everyone else was having just as good a sail too.

Coastguard flypast

We reached the entrance to the canal a little earlier than we had expected, just as the wind dropped, and met half a knot or so of adverse current.  Nothing to write home about and we knew that it would turn and be speeding us through before long.  A Coastguard aircraft overflew us at low level, which was quite exciting, though nothing like as interesting as the night low-level flypast of the (unlit) Canadian Coastguard aircraft when we sailed from St Peter’s to Halifax.  They took a picture of the boat as well – Nicky says that the camera flash was immense – though all we can imagine they’d have seen was Nicky’s open-mouthed, surprised face mouth staring up at them!

Cape Cod canal – the 2 fixed bridges (each with 135ft vertical clearance)

Apart from that, our canal transit was quite uneventful, though it was nice to see the area in sunshine as it had all been rather dull and grey when we had gone through headed east.

The ConRail Railroad lifting bridge and cruises on the canal

The ConRail Railroad lifting bridge bridge behind us.  It’s normally open (135ft+ vertical clearance) but closes (7ft vertical clearance) for about 15mins once or twice a day after announcements on VHF Ch13

Once out of the western end, with what little wind there was hard on our nose, we motored towards the entrance to the Wood’s Hole passage and our destination for the night, Hadley Harbour. Wood’s Hole passage has a justifiable reputation for strong currents and all the pilot books and Eldridge’s (the nearest thing we have found to a tidal atlas and tide tables over here) warns of making a transit through at slack water or risk the dangers of up to 6knots of current with or against you in a very narrow, rock edged passage.

‘Cottages’ around the edge of Hadley Harbour

Hadley Harbour is at the northern entrance to the Wood’s Hole Passage so, whilst you need to take good account of any cross-tide as you enter, the tidal flow is less here than further into the passage and is by no means insurmountable.  But the gaps between the rocks at the entrance are not great so you don’t want to get distracted oohing and ahhing at the enormous ‘cottages’ that litter the shores of the outer part of the harbour.

Entering the outer part of Hadley Harbour and looking towards the entrance to the inner harbour

The outer part of Hadley Harbour was quite empty so we thought that we’d have a look at the inner part of the harbour to see if there was space for us to anchor in there.  We already had a number of AIS paints on the chart plotter and it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon so we feared we knew the answer but nothing ventured, nothing gained.  Unfortunately all the moorings were already taken as was what little anchoring space remains amongst the moorings, so we returned to the outer harbour and anchored there in about 5.5m – a good sheltered anchorage unless the wind goes north or northeasterly.

Escapade of Rame

And it’s just as well that we did as about an hour later Richard and Julie Farrington (Escapade of Rame) turned up.  We’d just had a very interesting chat to Bill of ConverJence – he and his wife had sailed around Newfoundland this summer so it was great to pick his brains – and just as he got into the dinghy to leave and take his dogs for a walk, a familiar yacht appeared. We had known that Escapade was quite close by but hadn’t known exactly where and so it was lovely to see her and to catch up with Richard and Julie again. We had a lovely dinner on board Escapade and talked until far too late but that does so often appear to be the case!

The pretty yacht before she dragged

Earlier in the evening, as dusk fell, we had been joined in the anchorage by 2 other yachts, both American, one of which was a very pretty 40 footer with not a lot of cabin space (they put up an all-over awning to cover their cockpit before nightfall).  At about 3am the wind picked up a little and shifted more northerly and the small wavelets, and the noise of our sinks gurgling as a result of the waves, woke Nicky.  She put the plugs in and stuck her head up to check all was well on deck……and saw the pretty 40 footer blowing steadily downwind past us and towards the shore. We had, unusually, left the outboard on the dinghy, so she jumped in and motored over to wake up the yacht’s crew. They were rather grumpy to be woken, though less so when they understood why, and rapidly went off to re-anchor, happily some distance from us and downwind of all the other yachts.  (Very kindly they gave us a very nice bottle of Chablis as a thank you before they left the next day.)

Adieu to Escapade

After the early morning excitement, morning ‘proper’ dawned rather sooner than comfortable.  We waved adieu to Richard and Julie – they were off to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, whereas we were off to Cuttyhunk – but we know that we are likely to meet up again in Newport in a few days’ time.  After all, we are all planning on going further west and the best day for that is looking to be next Friday when the wind is forecast to go northeasterly.  But for the time being, the holiday playground of the Elizabeth Islands beckons.

Hadley Harbour, Massachusetts, USA