We awoke early in Kettle Cove, Naushon Island to light wind and thick fog (where the track changes from green to orange). After breakfast all hands helped to weigh anchor and get underway for Quicks Hole, Vineyard Sound and thence to a landing spot on Cuttyhunk Island near, in fact, to where the last whaling ship, the Wanderer, was lost in the 20's. By mid-morning dories were over from the Ernestina and all rowed ashore for a couple hours on the Island on the western side of Cuttyhunk Pond.

You can see the orange track  on the chart image to the right showing our circum-navigation of Nashawena, Cuttyhunk and Penikese Islands.

After setting our main and fore sails at anchor, we weighed anchor and set jumbo and jib for a series of reaches across Buzzards Bay downwind to New Bedford.

On the final tack, we carried on in to Apponagansett Bay off Padanaram Harbor to anchor for dinner. We left the main sail up during dinner but then struck it and stowed all sails and readied the ship for port.

From Padanaram we motored the final five miles round Clark's Point and Fort Rodman to pass again through the hurricane barrier and dock at Tonnessen Park on State Pier.

After a few final remarks, Randy Peffer read from his book and all departed the ship.

"Buzzards Bay truly has turned out to be an elbow in time. But I suspect that almost any place you sail can be. On the coast, the past is constantly reaching out to touch  the present. And - as I found out- the future. Or maybe it is the other way around. To explore slowly - as under a press of sail - is sometimes to feel the saudade for all the rituals and people you thought that you and this land had somehow lost. And at the same time you consider how those traditions and friends endure. Whales vanish, but they don't vanish. Shipmates leave us, but they never really leave. Youth fades, but it returns in new shapes. Like this Bay - one day is a millpond, the next day a tempest, but always here." ~ An excerpt from pgs. 237-238 in Logs of the Dead Pirates Society by Randall S. Peffer.

Great trip! We'd like to extend our sincere thanks to the South Coast Learning Network and to Randy Peffer for a great program. We enjoyed having his wife Jackie and five-year-old son Jacob aboard as well!

Program Coordinator: Rhonda Moniz
Captain: Gregg Swanzey

Twenty-six hour run. Lots of miles covered!

The 750 lb. anchor comes up one link at a time by hand. (Randy Peffer is in the middle on the bar)

Rounding Sow and Pigs Reef with a good swell coming in from seaward. The reef broke much of the swell by the time we came in at the anchorage northwest of Cuttyhunk Pond.

We anchored close in on the beach. Great spot to come ashore. Who knows what pirates had frequented this beach in the past....

After sailing across Buzzards Bay, we anchored off Padanaram Harbor in Apponagansett Bay for dinner. After dinner we motored across the mouth of The Cove and around Ft. Rodman to reenter New Bedford Harbor and dock by 1930 at New Bedford State Pier.

Rowing ashore to Cuttyhunk Island. No experience necessary... Great job by all!

Randy offers a reading and leads a discussion.

Rowing ashore at the beach on Cuttyhunk Island.

Crewmember Sam Dreeben helps people out onto the bowsprit as Ernestina sails along.

Out on the bowsprit as Ernestina sails along at 10 knots!

Passing up napkins and dinner on deck calls for hands. Here we're anchored off Padanarum Harbor.

Out on the bowsprit furling the jib at anchor.

Striking sail off Padanaram around dinner time.