Provincetown, even at five in the morning, shed enough light to make slipping our mooring easy. Quietly, we motored out of the harbor and headed for the entrance to the Cape Cod Canal, twenty-one miles to the southwest.
The air was still and the temperature a bit less chilly than we had experienced farther north. When we were half way across Cape Cod Bay, the sky began to brighten with the new day.

The water was flat calm. Only our wake disturbed the reflected image of the sky above.



We were on time arriving at the fuel dock in Sandwich and were heading south on the canal at 8:30 a.m. At one point, Robin hit 9.9 knots, not quite as fast as on the way north.
Out on Buzzards Bay, there still was no wind. Motoring was better than battering against seas kicked up by a Buzzards Bay southwesterly.
By early afternoon, we had turned the corner south of Cutty Hunk, and now the wind had arrived -- eight to ten knots on the port bow. We began sailing.
It was about now that Captain John struck a commanding pose.