Beach days at Tarpaulin Cove

On August 30th we left Mattapoisett in the morning with our sights set on catching the tide through Woods Hole and turning south to tuck into Tarpaulin Cove. The weather was similar to the day before, but it was time to get moving.

Woods Hole is a notorious passage for some very swift current, so you have to time your transit through the area carefully to avoid having the current pushing against you in a fairly dramatic fashion. In most places, adverse current is just annoying, because you lose speed and time, but in Woods Hole it’s a safety issue as well! It really rips at its peak, so you don’t want to mess around with the timing. Fortunately we got to the cut just after slack, so by the time we exited the other side, we only had a little bit of current against us, no problem at all.

We dropped the anchor in Tarpaulin Cove and mused that it wasn’t much to look at on such a grey day. But by sunset it had cleared up some. And we expected the next day to be better.

And indeed it was!

It was a breezy day and as blue as anything. We dinghied to the beach and spent a few hours wandering around, playing with sand and rocks, and enjoying the sunshine.

We wore ourselves out soaking up the good weather, and enjoyed a peaceful sunset that night on board.