Woke up to a great sou'wes'er. Surprising for this time of year. Usually, the storms don't begin until September. The wind blew 20-30 knots all day, and there were a lot of whitecaps. I didn't think I could paddle against the wind, so we spent several hours trying to decide whether to paddle to town or call a water taxi. In the meantime, I entered the waypoints and route to Maine into the GPS.
Ate the rest of the sandwiches for lunch. The wind was still blowing strong, but our anchor was holding. We decided to call a water taxi, but when I talked with them on the VHF, I found out they charge $3 a ride for people at a mooring and $4 a ride for people at anchor, so I told them to forget it. That would have been $16 round trip for Roy and me.
Paddling against the wind was a struggle, at least for me. Roy had no problem, but it took all my strength. It was great fun, though.
I had thought we would go to the same beach we went to yesterday. In order to avoid being blown out the channel to the ocean, I planned on paddling towards town until I was past the beach and then blowing over to it, but Roy kept going towards town, so I tried to follow him. Eventually, he disappeared behind a dock. By the time I reached the dock, he was nowhere in sight. It was calm in there, so I headed for the beach and soon saw his Royak. He had pulled up on the beach where the kayak-rental place is and was talking with the son of the owner about Royaks. The son seemed quite interested and told Roy to come back tomorrow and talk with his father. I pulled up on the same beach. The young man said we could leave our Royaks there, and he'd keep an eye on them.
Roy had brought his backpack, but he decided to leave it in his Royak. He had also brought a chain and padlock for the Royaks, but he thought the young man might be insulted if he chained the Royaks after he had said he'd keep an eye on them, so Roy didn't use the chain, but he put the padlock on the compartment hatch of his Royak. I left mine unlocked.
We spent an interesting two hours at the Nantucket Historical Museum. We were surprised to learn that Nantucket appeared out of the sea only 5000 years ago when the glaciers retreated, and if the present warming trend continues, Nantucket will again disappear beneath the sea in a mere 2000 years from now.
When we left the museum, we walked across the street to the A & P and bought some groceries. Then we returned to the Royaks.
It wasn't until we got back to the Royaks that Roy realized with dismay that he had left the key to the padlock in his backpack, which was locked inside the compartment. The extra key was also in the backpack. His paddle and cushion were also, of course, in the compartment. What a dilemma! He solved the problem by borrowing my Royak, paddle, and cushion, paddling back to the Jofian, and getting the bolt-cutters. The round-trip took forty minutes, and the return was especially difficult against 30-knot winds. In the meantime, I sat on the beach in the rain. Fortunately, I was wearing my bathing suit. When he finally got back, it only took a second to cut off the padlock. We blew back to the Jofian very easily.
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