Portsmouth, NH

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From Portland, Maine we continued south to Portsmouth, New Hampshire where we had a great stop at the excellent Wentworth Marina. We got another Amazon Prime fix, completed a few boat projects, toured the experimental submarine USS Albacore and explored the city of Portsmouth with its many pubs and restaurants.

Trip highlights from October 21st through 28th, 2016 follow. Click any image for a larger view, or click the position to view the location on a map. And a live map of our current route and most recent log entries always is available at http://mvdirona.com/maps

10/21/2016
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Fog


This was pretty much the view the entire run from Portland to Portsmouth.
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Whaleback Light


The light station has been active on the rocky outcrop south of Wood Island since 1820. The current lighthouse was built in 1872 and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
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Breakwater


Even in relatively calm conditions, waves are crashing into the breakwater off Fort Stark at the entrance to Little Harbor.
10/22/2016
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Barometer


We’ve been tracking a big storm that will hit the area on the weekend. Over the past 48 hours, the barometer (top left) has fallen from 1025 to 988 millbars. That’s 1.5mb/hour for two days straight. We got a big thunderstorm last night, with a NOAA flood warning for the area. The winds (rop right) picked up overnight from nothing to nearly 25 knots, then fell back down again this morning.
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Calm Before Storm


Conditions are extremely calm now, but that won’t last long with a storm coming through today. This is the view from our new aft-facing video camera in our slip at Wentworth by the Sea Marina in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The picture resolution is good enough that not only does it make good videos, but decent-quality still can be pulled from it as well. On the left you can clearly see a bird sitting on the pier end.
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Peter and Laurie


Peter and Laurie Hayden of Nordhavn 60 Tanglewood drove up from Gloucester, MA for a visit. It was great to finally meet them in person after so much email correspondence. We had an excellent time with them, first on Dirona and later over lunch at Salt restaurant in the resort adjacent to our marina.
10/23/2016
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Barometer


The barometer bounced (top left) up after bottoming out at 984mb, and we saw big winds (top right) last night with gusts near 40 knots.
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Stack leak


Yesterday we noticed water trickling down the stack enclosure and collecting in the tray above the engine. We found pools of water in the stack base on either side of the stack enclosure installed in Florida. The thunderstorm the other night was the first really big rainfall since we installed the enclosure so likely it is preventing water from reaching the drain at the base of the stack. With time, patience and a lot of wiggling around, James can just barely fit inside the stack. Here he is ensuring the drains are adequate and sealing the stack enclosure around the edges with 5200. That’s the easy part. James found pushing back out expands his chest and just about guarantees he doesn’t move at all. “Are you just holding onto the can Homer?
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Phone Repair


This spring Jennifer dropped her Nexus 5 cell phone and predictably the screen broke. James also had a Nexus 5, and a month or so later his phone spontaneously rebooted. It never came back, and even a factory reset wouldn’t save it. The storage had failed, and short of changing the storage, that phone was not going to see use again. What do you do with a broken screen and good storage in one hand and a working screen with faulty storage in the other hand? This evening James decided to make a fully functioning phone from the working parts of each. Good as new.
10/24/2016
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Packages


One of the reasons we stopped at Wentworth Marina for a few days is for another Amazon Prime fix. We seem to go through periods where we can go months at a time without any shopping and other times where we can’t make it days.
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Wheels


We’re really liking the Wentworth Marina. One of their many excellent features is a loaner car. The cars are only available for 90 minutes at a time in the height of the summer, but nobody else is using them here in the shoulder-season, so we often can have one for a good part of the day.
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Portsmouth Brewery


The self-explanatory sign outside the Portsmouth Brewery in downtown Portsmouth.
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Lunch


The Portsmouth Brewery pub is as appealing inside as out, with great bear and food.
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Moran Towing


Moran Towing was established in 1860 and is the oldest and largest supplier of tugs on the U.S. east and Gulf coasts. Their tugboat dock is featured on the city’s web cam.
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Great Signs


“Why drink pumpkin spice? When we have tequila?” We loved this sign outside Poco’s Bow Street Cantina, one of Portsmouth’s many waterfront restaurants.
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Broomstick Fuel


Another great sign in front of the adjacent River House restaurant.
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Memorial Park


The Portsmouth Veterans Memorial Park honors veterans and those who have died in war and conflicts throughout US history.
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Memorial Bridge


Looking across the Prescott Park Municipal docks to the Memorial Bridge, partly open for a sailboat to pass through. The bridge was built in 1923 and is dedicated to those who served in World War I.
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Fish Boats


Commercial fishing boats rafted along the Piscataqua River.
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Pumpkins


An incredible display of pumpkins for sale in front of the First Methodist United Church of Portsmouth.
10/25/2016
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Brrrr!


Our goal has been to mainly stay south of the frost line, but we’re close to missing on that today. The outside temperature (center top) is 41.6F (5.3C) this morning, with a wind chill (below temperature) of 34.6F (1.4C). Brrrr!
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Deck Removal


The teak deck is being replaced on one of the boats in the marina. This is the debris pile from just the cockpit.
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Red Hook


We’ve been many times to the Red Hook brewery and pub in Woodinville just outside Seattle. The brewery was founded in Seattle in 1981 and in 1996 opened the Portsmouth Brewery, to become the first craft brewery with bi-coastal locations. The Portsmouth brewery is built to mirror the Woodinville one, and looks identical near as we can tell, even down to the earthquake support structures that likely aren’t even needed here.
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USS Albacore


The Portsmouth Navy Yard, established in 1800, has a long shipbuilding tradition. The shipyard began building submarines during World War I, including the L-8, the first built by a US Navy yard. The yard produced seventy submarines during World War II, launching a record four in one day, and in the 1950s and 1960s built at least ten nuclear subs. In 1953, the yard built the research submarine USS Albacore for testing control systems, dive brakes, sonar equipment, escape mechanisms and other experimental approaches. Read more …
10/26/2016
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Packages


Jennifer bringing back a load of groceries and packages.
10/27/2016
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Spare


We’ve been trying for ages to get to a spare steering rod end and spherical bearing and it finally arrived today. This is a part the nobody seems to keep in stock so it has to be ordered from the manufacturer which results in a fairly length delay.
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Vent Covers


Installing the covers on the engine room intakes. When we are at rest, the covers help keep the engine room a lot warmer.
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Salt


Dinner at Salt in the Marriott resort adjacent to the marina.
10/28/2016
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Stack Socket


When we were investigating the water leak in the stack the other day, we noticed that this power socket wasn’t sealed properly when installed, allowing water to leak into the stack. We also noticed one of the conductors was loose. James tightened up the conductor and coated the resealed the socket.
10/29/2016
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Voting


Filling out our ballots for the 2016 US General Election. The ballot can be filled out online, but we still have to mail it in.
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Flag


Our US flag was ready for replacement when we arrived at Portsmouth and the two storms that just passed through shredded it. We saw gusts to 49 knots. The boat is covered with chunks of flag debris.
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British Beer Company


We had an excellent lunch at the British Beer Company in downtown Portsmouth after mailing in our ballots.
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Rob Blake


Rob Blake lives nearby and stopped by for a visit and a tour. He’s been following our blog and Nordhavns in general for quite some time and knows a lot about them.


Show locations on map Click the travel log icon on the left to see these locations on a map, with the complete log of our cruise.

On the map page, clicking on a camera or text icon will display a picture and/or log entry for that location, and clicking on the smaller icons along the route will display latitude, longitude and other navigation data for that location. And a live map of our current route and most recent log entries always is available at http://mvdirona.com/maps.

   


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