Out at the York, ME, sea buoy, the wind was blowing.
Hallelujah!
With the Autohelm 4000 doing the steering, we sailed all day long, reaching Cape Ann, MA, by 3:30 in the afternoon, a voyage of 35 miles. The wind had been from the northeast, on our port quarter until we were just offshore from this new cape and about six miles from the entrance to Gloucester Harbor. It had been the perfect day.
But now we had to turn to starboard to make a straight run for the Gloucester breakwater -- and a run it was, with the wind directly from behind along with a following sea that wanted to shove Robin's stern one way or another.
The smart move would have been to keep on a reach until we had the breakwater on our beam, and then to tack toward shore.
Instead, when the action got rough, I brought the sails down and motored for the next hour.
We had called ahead for a city mooring in Gloucester, a port we'd never visited. I grew up in Massachusetts but had never been in downtown Gloucester, a town that played a central role in the book (and movie) The Perfect Storm. It was that book that helped sell me on the Westsail 32. One Westsail had been caught in the storm and easily survived, and that convinced me this was the boat for us.
So our visit to Gloucester seemed in a sense preordained.
There was a drama going on when we reached the breakwater. A sailboat had sunk just off the entrance, and crews were attempting to raise the boat. We went around the two boats on the scene and motored up the outer harbor, about two miles long, while three guys in an old Irwin 30 made us look like neophytes, sailing along with Robin as her exhaust spit out water and steam.
The harbormaster met us when we were inside the inner harbor and led us to a mooring, collecting his fee and offering suggestions for our visit.
But we decided to stay aboard Robin. The dinghy was lashed on the foredeck, there was food in the icebox and we'd had a wonderful day on the water. Why not stay there?

The boats moored near Robin made clear this was a working harbor. This lobster boat, rather trashy looking, was not quite as picturesque as those we'd seen in Maine.

Nor was this commercial fishing boat going to win any councours d'elegance. There was not a waterfront mansion in sight . . .

. . . only blue collar tenaments. With no glitz to lure us ashore, we had dinner, read our books and watched the sun set behind a cathedral that stood on the far side of not some fancy waterfront bistro but a steel-sheathed warehouse on a barnacle-encrusted wharf, just north of the harbor's Coast Guard station.

With darkness came sleep. Monica was in the V-berth, where there really is only room for one, particularly if one needs to make middle-of-the-night visits to the head. I was in the main cabin on the starboard settee.
It was about 10:45 p.m. when I woke. I saw Monica, only a shadow, up in the cockpit, moving around.
Why is she out there, I wondered? The night was pleasantly cool, and Monica seldom wakes once she falls asleep.
Then she began fumbling with the companionway screens.
"What are you doing?" I asked. I couldn't imagine why she had gone to the bother to replace the screens if she went out to get some air.
She hadn't.
I knew this now because there was a flashlight shining through the screen into my face.
As I climbed over the lee cloth and out of my berth, the shadowy figure moved to starboard. A moment later, I was standing on the companionway ladder, fumbling with the screens.
Just beyond the dodger, two feet away from me, a large man was attempting to climb over Robin's two-strand lifeline.
Then I saw the boat and the other man. The boat was small as was the other man.
It was still confusing me, what was happening, so at first I didn't realized that the man in the boat was trying to start an outboard motor, maybe flooding the engine.
There was nothing I wanted more for the big man to climb over the lifelines. And now there was nothing I wanted more than for the outboard to start.
But I was also now aware that we had been boarded by thieves, and I was angry. Although they hadn't been aboard long enough to take anything, I didn't want them to get away with their felony.
So I reached down inside the companionway where two headlamps are hung by their straps over a regular flashlight mounted there. I seized one of the headlamps, brought it up, turned it on and shined the light at the bow of the theives' boat, where I could read their registration number. I tried to memorize it.
MS 0106, I thought.
"We've got a gun," the scrawny man operating the boat hollered. "Don't come any closer or we'll use it."
I had no intention of getting any closer. But now I was forced to think about our vulnerability if the invaders really had a gun. We were unarmed, I thought, and I got the feeling in my chest you might get staring down the barrel of a loaded pistol.
I kept the light shining on the boat, and finally the outboard motor caught and the boat began to ease in reverse away from Robin's side.
When the scrawny guy -- he reminded me of the rock star Kid Rock -- got the boat far enough aft, he motored slowly past Robin's transom. I stared into his eyes, the flashlight still shining on the boat.
"Don't try to follow us," Kid Rock said. "Or we'll come back and get you."
I realized now that he was the brains of this nincompoop operation. I also saw now that the boat was a center console about 16 to 18 feet long and that, on a tall antenna amidships, it flew -- a Jolly Roger, a pirate's flag.
The thieves motored west, toward the cathedral, and then south, near the Coast Guard station, which I was now calling on Channel 16.
"This is the sailing vessel Robin calling the Coast Guard or any law enforcement agency in Gloucester Harbor," I said, and then waited.
It was probably 15 seconds later that a young woman Coast Guard watchstander responded. I described what had happened and the culprits. She asked for my cell phone number and the called me.
The watchstander told me that a 25-foot Coast Guard boat was being dispatched to investigate.
By now, Monica had been awakened by the commotion and was standing on the companionway ladder while I stood in the cockpit, watching the thieves circle the harbor, heading now east and stopping in what I thought was called Smith Cove. Once again, the big guy's flashlight came on, bobbing about as if he had boarded another boat.
"I can tell you where they are right now," I told the watchstander.
Moments later, Monica and I saw the red and green lights of the 25-footer emerge from the darkened Coast Guard station and move slowly across the harbor, heading toward the flashlight.
Half way there, the red and green navigation lights disappeared, but we could see the silhouette of the 25-footer advancing toward the thieves.
Suddenly, a blue police light was flashing and a flood light or spotlight was piercing the darknessand we heard excited voices.
It was a few minutes later that we got another phone call, this one asking whether the Coast Guard could bring the culprits by for my identification.
Of course, I said.
The Coast Guard had the center console cleated alongside the 25-footer, and two Gloucester City police officers were in the center console, where Kid Rock was handcuffed in his pilot's seat and his beefy sidekick was in the bow facing aft, handcuffed.
The police sergeant asked if I could identify the suspects. Yes, I said. Pointing to Kid Rock, I said: "He was driving and he made the threats." Then I pointed to the big one and said, "He came aboard."
The sergeant turned to the big one and said: "What do you have to say to that?"
"I swear on my childrens' graves, I never was on that boat," he said.
"Shut the f... up," the sergeant said. Then he looked down to the deck of the boat, turned and, directing his next question to Kid Rock, he asked: "You have a permit for those lobsters?"
The two were locked up that night. Kid Rock was wanted on outstanding warrants. They both were charged with breaking and entering a vessel at night, which apparently is a federal offense. They were also charged with threatening bodily injury during the commission of a felony and threatening a witness during the commission of a felony.
Monica says she never wants to return to Gloucester.
I thought it was a much better time than reality television.
By the way, the thieves were captured at a place called Pirate's Point.