9/2/22 -- Portsmouth NH to Beverly MA

                                             9/2/22 -- Portsmouth NH to Beverly MA

            We got up before our 6-a.m. alarm went off due to bridge and harbor noise and perhaps nervousness about our undocking. The marina manager was ready at 6:30 as promised and we got off the dock easily by following his instructions. We then headed across the river to get diesel at the self-serve fuel station on the New Hampshire side. The marina manager recommended it, saying it is a state-run facility where we could get fuel 24/7 (with no one else in the area offering fuel for sale at this hour). This was the first time we had ever experienced a self-serve station for boats, but it worked just fine, and is something that other states should consider (like in Eastport, Maine, for instance!). 

            We left the fuel dock a few minutes before seven and had a 28-mile run across open water to the tip of Cape Ann. We had swells out of the east, but they weren't too bad, and the morning sky was lovely. Once we rounded Cape Ann and headed into Salem Sound the seas calmed considerably. We pulled into the public dock at the Jubilee Yacht Club in Beverly a few minutes before ten. We washed the boat down at the dock, then went out to pick up our mooring, and had the Beverly Harbor pump-out service come over and pump out our holding tank (many ports offer such services). We then sorted through our clothes and other stuff figuring out what to bring and what to leave on the boat, as we won't be back on her for a couple weeks. We took the launch back over to the yacht club about 12:30 to meet Ashley, who came to pick us up and take us to stay at her house for the Labor Day weekend. 

            The plan is to leave Craunological II on her mooring at the Jubilee Yacht Club for the next twenty days or so while we fly to Europe to meet friends and go on a Rhine River cruise. (John will not be piloting this boat! 😉) When we get back, we will have about ten days to run her down to New York Harbor, where we have arranged to meet a guy on the NJ side who will put her on a trailer at a public boat ramp and then drive her back to Naples behind his Ford F250. We'll fly out of Newark and be there to meet him at the Collier County boat ramp around the corner from our dock in Naples. We're looking forward to seeing how this works out, as trailering the boat could be an important component of future cruising plans with Craunological II. We will start the blog again when we start our Beverly to New York run.

P.S. The big white building topped with a white cylinder in the background of the above photo is a natural gas-fired power plant in Salem, MA that replaced an old coal-fired plant. The design of the exterior shell for this plant was one of Zach's first projects at Cook-Fox.