NORTHBOUND LUNACY 2025: Phase 2 –Georgia to Maine via North Carolina, New Jersey, and Massachusetts (A Shorter Post With Not Too Many Pix)

May 8/2025:  Some of you may be surprised to learn this, but I do have fans. One at least, anyway. Scott Davis, an active sailor based in Manchester, MA, contacted me via this blog site some time ago and worked hard to establish a rapport. We had a long chat on the phone, during which he peppered me with questions about sailing singlehanded and professed an ardent desire to go sailing with me. So it was he took some time off from his busy work and family life middle of last month and joined me in Brunswick, GA, to help bring Lunacy north on her first leg up the East Coast to New England.

Amazingly, though he has been sailing his entire life, Scott seems to believe he might learn something from me. One thing I like about him is that he is literate and actually reads about sailing. Can you imagine? The only sailing media consumed by many folks I sail with these days are videos on YouTube. But Scott not only has read much of what I’ve written, he also still subscribes to print sailing magazines.

If only there were more like him.

I arrived at the Brunswick Landing Marina a couple of days before Scott and managed to change the oil, provision the boat, and get the bottom scrubbed before he appeared. I also struck up an acquaintance with Jeff O’Brien, who works with McMillen Yachts and helps manage Enticer, the exquisite vintage motoryacht that was tied up just across from Lunacy.  After Scott arrived, Jeff gave us a quick tour of the boat. I took no pix during this, out of deference to her owners and the fact that the boat was in a state of dishabille, but I did get one of her underway as Jeff took her out for some exercise while Scott and I exited St. Simon Sound on Lunacy.

Having Scott aboard brought some good luck. We enjoyed moderate, comfortable sailing conditions, with just two and a half hours of motoring, during our two-and-a-half day passage from St. Simon to Beaufort, North Carolina. Here we ended up anchored on Easter Sunday next to an interesting steel ex-sailing yacht that had been converted into a full-on motor-cruiser with a custom frame for deploying birds to reduce rolling. Very creative. We explored a bit, Scott even went for a swim, and the next day, alas, he left me to fly home while I continued on my way.

Exiting Beaufort solo, I had a nice small-world encounter and VHF convo with Bonnie Lynn, the hermaphrodite schooner I encountered previously in both Puerto Rico and the Bahamas. Again, I enjoyed some good luck and got to sail for all but 12 hours of my two-and-a-half day jaunt up to Cape May, New Jersey. There was a mild frontal passage, but nothing too serious, and I had no trouble copping lots of naps. Once arrived, I again found myself anchored beside an interesting “heavy metal” neighbor.

I left the boat in Cape May for some time, tied up at the South Jersey Marina (long a personal favorite), so as to attend to family matters. First a visit with my brother, who showed off the complicated airplane model I gave him for Christmas, which he had succeeded in assembling. He also loaned me a car, so I could drive up to Massachusetts, to see Jay, my Beloved Spawn, playing King Louis XVI in a school production of David Adjmi’s stage-play Marie Antoinette.

Yes, King Louis does get his head cut off in this play, but not on stage.

Six days after first arriving in Cape May, I headed out again, still solo, on what proved to be the toughest leg of my journey. Though this transit, from Cape May to Buzzards Bay in southeastern Massachusetts, was my shortest yet, with just one overnight, it involved heavy air (a 30-knot tailwind), heavy seas, and lots of traffic, so I got very little sleep. The good news was that no flies came aboard, unlike on my previous transits of the Jersey coast, which saw huge swarms mobbing the boat.

As it was, flies or no, I was relieved when I finally sighted Buzzards Bay tower and managed to pick up a mooring off Cuttyhunk, at the mouth of the bay, just as the sun was going down on day two of the passage. Next morning, May 1, the friendly gentleman who manages the mooring field advised I was the very first visitor of the season.

I spent the following afternoon enjoying a very leisurely sail up the length of Buzzards Bay, from Cuttyhunk to Cataumet. The most prominent feature during this was an enormous plume of billowing smoke that made it appear as though all of Cape Cod was on fire. Googling around, I learned this was in fact a “controlled burn.” After anchoring for the night, I could see the glow of the dying fire from Lunacy’s cockpit and was reminded of similar burns witnessed in Puerto Rico and the Bahamas, during Phase One of our northbound odyssey.

I enjoyed a hazy sunrise the following morning, mixed with some rain, and was through the Cape Cod Canal by 1000 hours. The forecast was for more southerly wind, 15 knots with gusts to 20, which I hoped would carry me with little trouble all the way to Lunacy’s home mooring in Portland, ME.

The forecast, unfortunately, was dead wrong. After getting through the canal, I spent a lot of time trying to sail north in moderate wind turning light and then dying, as did another sailboat that emerged from the canal right behind me. This proved to be Wabi Sabi, a Chris White-designed Atlantic catamaran with a distinctive MastFoil rig, that I had seen cruising the Maine coast in the past.

We both floundered around for some time watching our sails flog, within just half a mile of each other, and finally gave up and started motoring. Soon afterward, a Coast Guard launch appeared and raced toward us. Her crew boarded Wabi Sabi for a “safety inspection,” which went on for a surprisingly long time.

I was sure I would be boarded too, but the Coasties headed straight for Provincetown after they were done with Wabi Sabi.

From there, sadly, it was nothing but motoring all the rest of that day and the night that followed, through rain and later fog, until at last Lunacy hooked up to her mooring in Portland and whispered home at last.