Sailing Log June 5, 2026

Shelter Cove to Tor Bay

Distance: 77nm

Time: 7:30 - 19:30hrs

Motoring: 2hrs

Big day ahead of us. If we make it, it'll be the biggest one day distance thus far, excluding over night passages. Winds predicted to be from 15 knots going to up 20 knots later in the day gusting up to 30 knots.

Got up early and by the time we lifted anchor and underway it was 7:30. Winds were light and as we got out into open water the winds gradually increased. We maintained a port side broad reach. That reach took us away from shore and into deeper water (300 ft and deeper), which meant no lobster traps and allowed us to use the principle "velocity made good,” where speed, even if indirect, trumps a direct path.

As the winds picked up, things got bumpy so we reefed our main and furled in our genoa and put the staysil. The latter of which slowed us down considerably. We changed our wardrobe again but this time put a reef in the genoa. Sped back up and continued on until it was time to gybe and head to our anchorage. We couldn't have picked a better time to gybe as our new heading took us directly to our spot.

The new heading had us surfing down waves and made for a smoother ride but took a considerable amount of focus to keep us from sliding sideways and getting broadsided.

Once inside the cove, we changed direction and were on a close reach, the winds picked up even more and sped up a couple of knots. A big motorboat cruiser came up from behind us and headed to the same area we were heading and got themselves anchored even before we started lowering ours.

Spent 2 days there as we were pretty tired from the previous days sail. Did some boat jobs: drilled out holes and fed lines into our new fender boards, figured out why when making water our bilge would fill with the water we had just made - come to find out that the over flow for the water tanks empties into the chain locker, then flows into a hose directly into the bilge. The only way we found out was just that morning I had emptied the chain locker of water and to find it full again led us to believe that maybe the over flow was located in the chain locker somewhere. Christine tasted the water coming out of the chain locker and it was fresh. And then the eureka moment, we saw water coming out of what we thought was an air vent. Shamefully, it took us months to figure that out. We also noticed that some chain from the port side locker had spilled into the starboard side one. We dropped the port side anchor into the water and all of its chain to get at the vagrant chain. And lastly, the blige pumps. they developed an air bubble and found a couple of loose hose clamps.

The day before we flagged down a lobster boat and secured food for a few days.

For supper we made lobster rolls from our monstrous purchase. Mmm, so good.

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