This morning, my GF and I drove to Padenarum, which is a cute seaside village in North Dartmouth Mass. It is only 20 minutes from where I live and is a sailors heaven. At a glance, there could easily be 500 sailboats and only 50 motor boats in the harbor. It's like "Where has this place been all my life?!?"
We arrived at the New Bedford Yacht Club and boarded my friend Henry's father's sailboat Restless. Its 40 or so feet. There were seven of us in total and Henry and I did most of the work of sailing. Based on the wind direction as we pulled out of the harbor, we decided that a trip to Cuttyhunk would be an appropriate plan for the day.
About two hours later, I steered the boat into Cuttyhunk Harbor, we grabbed a mooring and had subway sandwiches in the cockpit.
Afterwards, five of us hopped in a small row boat to row into shore for a look around the island. The last time five adults tried to get in the boat, the boat quickly filled up with water from a hole about 8 inches up the side. This time, we didn't notice the fast gushing water sound until we were about half way between the sailboat and the dinghy dock. I had to make a really quick be line for the closest place to drop off my passengers and we did it with about five inches of water in the rowboat and climbing. Needless to say, we split up and took two trips on the way back and everything was fine.
We split up once on land, and my GF and I wandered out into the woods to a nice overlook with a panorama from Martha's Vineyard and basically all of the South Coast (SE) of Mass. It was sunny clear and almost no clouds in the sky. Just perfect!
We had a great trip back and arrived just as the sun was setting. Awesome trip. My GF sounds like she likes sailing a lot more after today :)
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