Sphinxmoth: July 2021

Tuesday, July 20, 2021

Folks at Nobska, The Governor in the background

A row from Woods Hole to Hadley's Harbor and back

It was the first time I went out with the celebrity rower Laura Schulman and new friend David Epstein. The tide in the Hole was just turning west, starting to ebb, and we had planned to circle Nonamessit clockwise but, because Olwen Huxley was pressed for time (and also didn't show up - possibly because her mom is in the hospital) they had decided to go straight to Hadley's; circle Bull Island; and then come back through the hole against the current.

Even crossing the harbor on the way out to the Hole, I was having trouble keeping up. Laura seemed to dance effortlessly across the water and David was fast too. After a few minutes I said: "If I have to race you two the whole way, then I am not going to make it." Laura said she was testing me to see if I would be able to row back through the Hole. She did not slow down much for the rest of the row, so rather than having a peaceful time of it, I was working hard the whole time.

It appears that if I make a good effort, I do not fall too far behind. We put the water tower at our sterns and raced [if you ask me] down and over to Hadley's Harbor, where we parked for a few minutes on Bull Island, giving my heartbeat a chance to slow down, before circling the island - counter clockwise - and then heading back out into the Hole. At this point Laura wanted to go back on the Penzance/Devil's-Foot side of the Hole but David was unsure if we could make it backwards through the Gut, so he wanted to go back on the Nonamessit side of the Hole and cross back to Great Harbor, just down-current from Grassy Island.

So Laura went off towards Penzance and David and I rowed a hundred yards up the inside of Nonamessit and beached on a smooth sand beach, at a spot just before the current gets strong. Just before getting to the beach I smacked a rock pretty hard, and have to hope the ding was handled by the brass strip on the front of my boat. Except for that, David was frequently warning me of boulders just ahead, or times when we should stay close to shore. At the beach, we looked across to where Laura was already trying to head through the Gut. It looked, from a distance, as though she did not make it on her first try and had to drop back and try again - hugging her shore more closely. I caught a glimpse of her beyond the hard part of the Gut, and then she was gone. She probably got back to the Yacht Club at least a half hour before us.

The water at this beach was somehow golden, turquoise, and very gentle. The only waves were little wavelets, and it was shallow water over sand. I should mention that it was sunny, and still. The water of the Hole did not seem to be moving very fast and, except for a little ripple a few feet beyond the beach, did not look too strenuous.

Already before the beach I was a little surprised at how slowly my boat was moving versus the shore. Everything seemed fine, the water smooth and calm, but I would get a glimpse downward of a shallower place or a seaweed covered rock, and realize that the current was hauling across it pretty fast. So when we reached the little ripple beyond the beach, it turned out to require my full effort for a couple of moments - first to get into the cross-current, using one oar on that side (starboard), and then using both oars to move forward against a now stronger current. It was a bit of effort but we were soon again in calmer water - as we inched up that side of the Nonamessit. In places it was only a few inches deep.

When you get to the northeastern end of Nonamessit, you hit a place where the current is strong and there is a lot of chop. It felt like the water was trying to decide which side of the island to go down. We had to pull hard there too, as we began to cross over towards Grassy Island. We stayed above the really messy standing waves and strong current and raced for Grassy. The turbulence a few feet away seemed to get closer the harder I rowed and I felt like I would be sucked in, if I didn't put my back into it.

But it was fine, we got behind Grassy and then slowly escaped the pull of the current and got over among the moorings in Great Harbor. I smacked into one. What would have been a fast-paced, strenuous, crossing back to the Yacht Club, was just more hard rowing this time. Soon I was back on Dory Beach getting Rosie, my boat, out of the water. Didn't see Laura. David was waiting for me and we walked into town for some iced coffee at CoffeeO.