August 1 – 31, 2005

Sunday, August 28, 2005

We awoke to yet another perfect day… this is really starting to get annoying 😉

We spent the better part of the morning (after breakfast of course) pouring over our charts and listening to the marine weather forecast trying to figure out what our next leg would be.

We laid out a couple of different courses… number one on the list would take us straight out to the Isles of Shoal, our next choice, and backup course, would take us to Portsmouth. Either one, would then be our jump off point to Penobscot Bay the following day.

Part of the decision making process also involved finding a marina where we could leave Rocinante for the winter… as I think I had mentioned, with all the interruptions, we had already made the decision to leave Rocinante wherever we ended up and continue our trip next year. This process proved to be a bigger deal than I had anticipated… part of the learning experience. It seems that most, if not all, of the marinas use their parking lots for winter storage. Obviously, if they start pulling boats out of the water too soon, then they won’t have space for the cars of those patrons that continue to use their boats later into the fall.

Anyway, after much deliberation, we opted for number one… we would make landfall in Maine after all!

We prepared to go ashore for the day and called for the launch. First on our list of “to dos” was getting to the public library to see if I could get on the internet… they had plenty of stations, but they were all taken and a good number of folks were waiting for them to free up… updates would have to wait.

We headed into town to continue our exploration. In front of the town hall, a tourist trolley caught our eye. Sounds like a good idea… we would get to sit for a while, get a narrated tour of the town, catch a nice breeze and use up about 45 minutes (just enough to get us back in time for lunch!) It was actually a nice trip… not great, but definitely nice. We headed out towards the east end, saw and heard about the original homes floated across the bay to Provincetown by the original settlers, rode through the national park, several sections of town, etc… again, a nice ride.

Back in town, we looked for a place to have lunch… the trolley operator recommended a restaurant directly across the street that yesterday had piqued our interest with a sign hawking mohitos and views of the water… sounds like a plan!

Pilgrim Monument & Provincetown Museum

We headed in and were seated at a table with a nice view, ordered our mohitos and sat back to enjoy…
The food wasn’t phenomenal, but it wasn’t bad. After lunch, we headed out to find the Pilgrim monument… you can see it looming above the town from just about anywhere, but finding the entrance was another story.

We took a bearing on the monument and started heading in the general direction, winding our way through the local streets until we got close enough to find signs pointing the way… all said, fairly easy.

Looking up inside Pilgrim Monument

The climb up was fairly easy, a nice combination of steps and ramps wound their way up the inside of the monument.

Notice I said “fairly easy” round and round we went, slowly making our way to the top, every other turn, brought a wonderfully cooling breeze coming in off the bay to fend off the building heat. After what seemed like an eternity, we made it to the top.

We Made it to the top of the Pilgrim Monument

I figured some of you would want proof, so here you go…

We were rewarded with beautiful views of the surrounding area and took great delight in spotting what we believe to be Rocinante at her mooring!

View from the Pilgrim Monument

I’m sure I’m starting to leave things out, but we basically spent the day walking around until late afternoon / early evening and then made our way towards the wharf. Wait a minute, its been at least two or three paragraphs with no mention of food… oh yea, that’s right, we stopped by a local seafood shop and picked up two lobster dinners to go… somewhat like popping by McDonalds for a happy meal, but much, much better!

Goodies in hand, we boarded our launch ready for our trip back to Rocinante.
The safety of our lobster meals was of the utmost importance, so I boarded Rocinante and took the precious cargo from Maria and headed down below placing them in the galley for safe keeping… yes, yes, Maria made it onboard safely as well.

I can tell you that we have rarely enjoyed a lobster meal more than we did on this particular evening.

We broke out a bottle of champagne, and spread out our dinner on the cockpit table; scrumptious New England style clam chowder, a half dozen steamers and an unbelievably sweet, steamed lobster with drawn butter, corn (no adjectives… it was actually a bit soggy; but hey in all fairness, it had been sitting for a few hours) some steamed red skinned potatoes and finally a cookie!

I think it had a lot to do with the fact that we were aboard our beloved Rocinante… everything seems better when we’re here.

We enjoyed the rest of our evening and drifted off to sleep looking forward to the following day’s adventure.

Till next time,

Carlos & Maria
SV Rocinante…_/)