Let’s go for an overnight cruise. We have managed to sneak out of the office a little early on a hot summer day and are rowing out to the Kittywake, a Marshall 18 foot cat, moored in Clarks Cove. We have food and drink for 24 hours. There is still a solid 10-15 knot southwest breeze, and the sun is still high. Leave the dinghy on the mooring, because where we are going you won’t need a dinghy. Throw the bag with food and clothing below and get the sail up quickly so we can have daylight across the Bay. It takes two hours to cross. We should see a beautiful sunset as we cross.We are going to the Gutter. Ten miles, 130 magnetic. A sliver of a new moon is in the west, and this means an evening high tide, essential for this harbor.
The Bay becomes quiet as we move further out. Most of the daytime sailors are already home. Our course places us on a broad reach with a quartering roll. In this moderate air, with a small sea, one can steer the boat from the leeward side with one leg, thus helping to compensate for the cat’s weather helm. Instead of pulling the tiller to windward, flip off your shoes, place a cushion behind your back and push, using the mass of your leg to keep the boat on course.
Our course takes us close to West Island, and we see the hill and water tower of Woods Hole just to port. Our harbor is low lying and invisible until well after half way across. The Weepecket Islands are just to starboard but hard to see as they blend into the lager mass of Naushon behind. We must look for the two smaller Weepeckets, nothing but rockpiles and potentially dangerous, just to the right of our course. But today there is no worry, there is still lots of light, and the compass will not betray us.
About at sunset we are passing the Weepeckets and all is being revealed to us. But where is the Gutter? One sees ahead a low lying rocky beach line, with scrubby trees and grass above, and no immediate evidence of an entrance from a distance of one mile. The passage which separates Uncatena Island from Naushon, known as the Northwest Gutter, is difficult to see until you are on top of it. It seems that all at once you can differentiate Uncatena on your left and Rattlesnake Point on your right, with the little bridge joining the islands ahead, and the masts of the boats in Hadley Harbor just behind the bridge.
We trim the sheet to maintain our course in the middle of the Gutter. Board down. Head straight for Tombstone Rock on the Naushon shore. Rattlesnake Point narrows to a spit and continues as a long submerged bar. Our anchorage is in the basin just west of the Gutter on the other side of the bar, so we must continue parallel to the bar until we are thirty feet from shore before tacking into the basin. The board touches once, rubbing in sand, and then clears. No rocks to worry about. Also, the water near shore is quite deep.
We tack. The wind has died to a whisper, so we must pinch a little to get past the end of the bar. Once past, we ease the sheet and proceed into the basin, one of the finest harbors in the Bay. Plenty of water now. And flat as a millpond. This is a “sleeping harbor.” Anchor anywhere, but allow four feet (remember the oar?) in order to be floating at 2 am. Anchor and sail down, we watch the sunset over Rattlesnake Point over wine and cheese, soaking in the peace and quiet of this remarkable little place. ✦
Jeremy B. Whitney is a benefactor of the Penikese Island School, a fully-accredited therapeutic boarding school for troubled teenage boys. Founded in 1973 as an alternative to juvenile detention centers, the school is located on one of the smallest Elizabeth Islands, a 75-acre islet north of Cuttyhunk in Buzzards Bay. Penikese Island School is a small, self-sufficient and interdependent community with a program based on choice and natural consequences rather than coercion. For more information, visit penikese.org.
