Tuesday Oct. 8 I was so excited to get on board after 3 loads from our car to the boat only to find new tasks of stowing, buying paper charts, getting grib file and weather apps, buying at the hardware store, CVS of course, West Marine and stowing all of that over another couple of days.  We used our yellow dinghy, Tweety, to scurry to shore and back as the yacht club launch was on shorter hours.  As we did our work we watched the moorings get pulled out of the water.  The end of the Marblehead season is upon us and all the yards are filling with boats pulled out for the season.  Jack stands, blocks, wedges, are neatly stowed in all the parking lots awaiting the boats to support for the winter; out of the water like giant multi-boat tie ups, all sizes, power, sail, runabouts.  The sun is lower in the sky, the days shorter and cooler, the sunsets spectacular.

 Friday Oct. 11 Shawnee, sailing vessel Island Packet 380 with Drew, Deb and trusty dog, Mazu left the mooring at 7:30 am to what the weather report said would be 10 to 15 knot winds 2 to 4' seas in Mass. Bay. However in reality the locals are saying to add about 5 to 10 knots and 2' to the waves onto the reports to include the gusts. We entered a nice way point for 9 hours straight at 7.5k speed to the Cape Cod Canal. About 9:00am I started not to feel so well. I lost it about 4 times on our way. The last time I thought my stomach was coming out as the dry heaves were heaving me almost over the side and taking my stomach out of my body. Next outing I'll be wearing a transderm patch. As soon as we hit the canal and the water was calm so were my insides, completely empty at this point. The canal was the usual (see my facebook for pictures) beautiful Sagamore Bridge. Drew was fine of course and skippered us through the canal. We moored at Kingman Marine in Pohassett, MA, (check the map zoom in and out.) That night we ate dinner with my roommate from college Jean Mojo and her husband Steve at The Chart House Restaurant, the last weekend of the season. 

  Saturday Oct 12 It is blowing from the east at 23 k in this sheltered harbor today! (Anything over 20 k is small craft warnings.) Now it's time that we got the professional weather emails from Chris Parker and set up the SSB, radio communications. Drew spent the day doing his electrical wizardry fixing numerous connections. I did the laundry, walked the dog, cooked the meals, set up this blog, worked on some writing (trying to write biographies of my parents and add them to wikipedia). Connected with new friends, Holly and Steve at the laundry. We walked through a small local woodland preserve with Mazu for about 45 minutes. It was full of mostly scrub oak, pine, PI, wintergreen ground cover, and a gray air moss hanging from the trees that almost looked like the stuff in the south that hangs from the live oaks. 
  Depending on weather we plan to leave tomorrow afternoon taking a predicted weather window with less wind as we head south.