Monday, 4 August
Edgartown’s Mad Max makes day charters work even in the rain, right through the harbor.
After two days of rain and clouds, it was with much anticipation that Steadfast prepared today to leave Edgartown. The morning turned out to be too much like a ketchup commercial—you know, Carly Simon singing while the Heinz stays in the bottle—as a thick gray-brown fog crept up Vineyard Sound and hugged the island.
That left time for a couple of minor items of deferred maintenance along with the usual checks of fuel filter, oil and cooling water intake. Eel grass and seaweed haven’t been as much of a problem here as in Maine two years ago but some seems to get sucked into the line every day.
The early fog lifted but left so little wind, sailing camp crews resorted to paddling to make way.
But taking time for those duties meant losing most of the morning’s favorable current down the Sound to Cuttyhunk, the intended destination. Given the total lack of wind once underway, this didn’t seem like that much of a problem…until Steadfast came around East Chop. Just like that, the wind went from nothing to 15 knots on the nose and into the southeast current, so seas went from slick calm to white caps that sent spray all the way back to the cockpit.
All hands quickly reached consensus and Steadfast turned hard-aport to head back into Vineyard Haven for what turned out to be another ten-mile day. And for yet another day, Cutty remains on the list of “must see” harbors.
Steadfast out.
At Sea with Steadfast 
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