Day 12, June 29 -- Shelburne to Port Mouton 30 NM

A fairly easy passage from 8:00 AM to 2:30 PM. There was very little room between us and the boats ahead of us and behind us on the facing dock (a small parking space). I relocated a fender to our quarter and one neighbor pulled our stern line in, toward the dock, while the other pushed the boat off the dock from amidships. This swung our bow clearly off the dock, and Lene motored slowly forward without hitting the boat forward of us. We were off. It was dead calm as we motored the ten miles out of Shelburne Harbor, passing Sandy Point Light to port (and everything else to port)

except this big fish operation.

Once out and along the coast a nice wind let us sail at 6.5 knots for about an hour. But we turned further to port and the wind was at our stern with ocean rollers at out starboard quarter so we furled the Genny, pulled the main amidships and motored. Rounding Port Mouton Head, the wind came up strongly on our port side, I ran out the Genny, and we were making well over eight knots. 

We rounded the Spectacle Islands with its Light warning folks off Spectacle Rock, furled all sails and motored to the  big sandy Carter's Beach, headed into the wind, which came up to 30 knots for the rest of the day.

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The beach and the stand of trees on the hill behind it created a lee for us and our new windlass got its first usage. I have a trip line connected to the anchor so a float can mark its position and it can be used to pull up on the anchor from a different angle if needed  the line was coiled and stowed by being tied to the bow rail. I forget about it. The consequence was that the anchor and fifty feet of chain was hanging from the bow rail, making it too hard to untie the knot.  We made another loop to come back to the position where we wanted to drop and I cut the line, loosing about six inches of it. The snubber hook was difficult to affix to the chain, but held us well. Gypsy Soul came in about 45 minutes later and anchored well off from us, the only two boats at the beach. [INSERT PHOTO WHEN DECENT INTERNET CONNECTION] Come to think of it, on our last two passages we saw only one sailboat, a sloop that was going our way, about four miles off our starboard side, about 40 miles from Shelburne

We thought about lowering the dink and visiting the beach or the tiny town about a mile and a half ahead, but not for long.  I worked on the pressure water leak for four hours, but without success. In the process I cleaned the big Lazarette and the engine compartment. In the latter I did stop a small (one drop per seven seconds) drip from the capped hose that formerly took fresh water to the aft Lectrasan. I put over a quart of distilled water into the seven batteries. A quiet night.

By the way, the British of the eighteenth century had an aversion to things French, so this French named town, Port Mouton, (which should rhyme with Grey Poupon) is pronounced like mutton, but with the accent on the second syllable, of the word "cartoon". Go figure.