June 22 Scituate to Boston

Good bye Scituate!

10:00 to 3:00, for about 30 miles to Boston, unfortunately most of the way against tide that grew to two knots.  It was nice and warm and dry with a slight haze but no fog. Lene spotted a marine mammal as we exited Scituate, but not close enough to determine whether it was a seal or a whale. We started on a broad reach after jibing upon exiting the harbor and eventually as we headed westerly to enter Boston, we had to tack a few times and motor-sail for two miles. But from many miles away the Boston Skyline appeared.

My problem was that as many people feared in Columbus’ day, we sailed off the end of our electronic charted world. Its chip provided a chart from the southern tip of New Jersey until outside Scituate. So I had to insert the next chip, which covers from Block Island to the Canadian Border. But somehow it is not aboard with the other chips covering down through the Caribbean, though I cannot recall having removed it from the boat since our last trip to Maine on this boat in 2008. What to do?

In the short run there's good old “dead reckoning” but with an electronic assist. Our paper charts have magenta lines between selected commonly used buoys, with the magnetic course and distance between them. And the chart-plotter still shows a readout of our "magnetic course made good”. By steering (or having auto pilot steer) a course made good which matches the course indicated on the chart, we are on the right course. And since time, speed and distance are functions of each other, and we know the length of the magenta line and our approximate(ever varying) speed, we can calculate when we should be looking out for the landmark buoy.

The intermediate term solution was that Lene’s iPad has the iNaviX application which uses the iPad’s built in GPS and charts downloadable for free from our government. It does a very god job of showing where we are on the chart, which way we are moving, and the way to an easily selected waypoint. But it either lacks some of the functionality of the built in Raymarine chart plotter or I do not yet know how to use that functionality. And another feature of the use of the iPad is battery life. We can keep charging it from the ship’s battery through a 12 volt cigarette lighter type plug, in the cabin, so once a long leg is set, we turned it off, brought it inside and recharged. And the iPad turns itself into a sleep mode after a few seconds of being left alone, necessitating a delay of a few seconds to wake it up when you want to read it.

The long range solution, because the iNaviX is intended as a backup, is to restore the original, by buying a new Maine chip to be sent to us by Fedex at our next port, Rockport Mass.

Boston is a large harbor, but its entrances, though well marked are narrow between many islands in the path. And it was a bustling sailing community this fine Saturday with many boats, underway, mostly going out to sea. Cities are exciting places.

Our only other stop in Boston was on the way back on our 2002 honeymoon trip, on our smaller boat. Today we took a mooring at the Boston Waterboat Marina (what other kind of boats are there? UPDATE: The boats that brought fresj water out to boats anchored out in the harbor used this place as their base: waterboats!), where we stayed last time. The advantage is location: it is right off the New England Aquarium, in the heart of downtown. The disadvantage is also location: it is near the municipal ferry dock and except at night, this causes noise and wakes. In fact, it appears that the MBTA runs under the harbor under our mooring and we hear it rumble by at regular intervals. At least that's the only explanation for the persistent recurrent loud noise.

Dinner aboard and early to bed.