To Martha's Vineyard in Fog - Claire

Sat June 1. My first real foggy passage. It had been a long time for Dave. Only a few boat lengths visibility for 30 miles. Thank goodness for Garmin chartplotters, radar and AIS. Many boats did not have AIS, so we saw their little blotches on the radar. Garmin helpfully turns them red if they are approaching us and green if they are moving away. If they had AIS, the AIS "boat location" icon caught up with the real time radar blotch every 22 seconds.

With the fog horn active, between reefs, we didn't have far to get out of the way, so we slowed down until the boats appeared. We waved and avoided each other.

One of the ghosts appeared where we expected.

Dave was really good at detecting small blotches way ahead that we started tracking. He found a good "alert range" to try to keep our passerbys out of. Some fishing boats stay in one place , some move slowly and change direction. I offered him a short nap while "no one was in the area", but he declined and just closed my eyes for a little bit.

When we got to the mouth of Vineyard Haven Harbor, as expected, the fog cleared in that area so we could see to anchor.

The first ship we saw out of the fog, was this one which I think I've seen before. 

While I took photos for tomorrow's blog, Dave made 2 snubber eye splices and placed it at sunset. Dinner and a movie ended a "spooky" day.

- Claire