One of the joys of sailing is the ability to be in two places at once by experiencing both new and old adventures all at the same time.

My wife, Jody, and I have sailed extensively from Maryland through Downeast Maine and I have been offshore to Bermuda. We have done day and night sailing, mostly racing with other crewmembers. However, we had never sailed overnight with just the two of us, so our September cruise aboard Tosca, our wonderful Tartan 37, fit the criteria of old and new experiences.

We had not cruised the waters of Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket since our kids were young. We used to enjoy that area, as the water was warm so that we could swim with our two boys without it being a major trauma to us. But we had left sailing for awhile, as the boys went through adolescence and didn't care to be on the boat. But with the nest empty and college expenses over, we returned to sailing three season ago. We have been spending most of our time revisiting old and discovering new and wonderful places on the coast of Maine. But old memories and old and dear friends beckoned us south.

	Photo by Don Abbott
	Jody Abbott lets the automatic pilot do the hard work while she tries to stay warm during an impromptu passage across the Gulf of Maine

The trip south was a delight, as we had wonderful clear weather and no prevailing southwesterlies to fight. This was as opposed to the summer sailing season of navigating in the fog, honing our navigation skills. We stopped in the familiar destinations of Isles of Shoals and Scituate, Mass., then went through the Cape Cod Canal to our old friend Marion, where we needed outboard and engine repairs. It was a case of dŽjˆ vu — we had had engine troubles in Marion before and once again Burr Brothers came very graciously and rapidly to our rescue.

We then went on to Cuttyhunk to meet our friends, also sailing a Tartan 37, and the reason we now own a Tartan. It was wonderful to be back at the "Hunk," but we were shocked when we arrived to find that we were only the second boat in the basin. Normally in the summer it is a battle to find a mooring, but this was September and it was a different experience. Our friends arrived after a valiant battle upwind from the Connecticut shore. We renewed a wonderful friendship and learned more about their trip to the Bahamas the year before.

From there we went to familiar haunts of Vineyard Haven, Edgartown and Nantucket. Our friends introduced us to many new places in the Vineyard. We talked with the maker of beautiful weathervanes and visited Gannon and Benjamin, a wooden boatbuilding and restoration yard.

More old memories were rekindled of days of my youth spent in wooden boats and nosing around the old boatyards, recalling the sounds and smells of these yards. It was fun to anchor up in Katama Bay and dinghy into Edgartown. The trip to Nantucket was a bit of a battle, but ended in a screaming reach right into Nantucket harbor. We again had our pick of the moorings.

Nantucket is a bittersweet place for us to visit. We have been going there since 1977, both by boat and renting on shore. Some say change is good, but it certainly doesn't feel that way to us. We miss the 5 & 10 store and the hardware store with the live parrot in the window. Each year it becomes more upscale, with cashmere shops and trendy stores replacing the old favorites. It may be a sign of our age, but this change is seriously eroding the island charm that was so uniquely Nantucket.

Still, we stayed a couple of days. We had been keeping our eye on Hurricane Isabel and she was a real threat, so we decided to cut our journey short and run for home. Even though Falmouth Foreside, Maine, is certainly not a hurricane hole, we felt it was less likely to hit there than where we were.

We sailed back to Vineyard Haven, planning to go through Woods Hole and the Cape Cod Canal the next morning and head for the harbor at Scituate. The tides were right for a 6 a.m. departure. Going through the hole can be quite an anxiety-provoking trip with the tide running full bore (3 to 4 knots through there) as the oversized buoys disappear underwater. So we bid our friends adieu that night and headed out early. It was a perfect day, clear, warm and calm for the trip through the hole and the canal. When we emerged on the other side, a nice southeasterly was filling in and we were soon sailing. Much to my wife's surprise, I broke out the cruising chute (I usually resist it since every time I get it up the wind dies or shifts) and we were doing a very comfortable 5.5 to 6 knots.

By the time we were five or six miles out of Scituate, it was 2 in the afternoon. The forecast for the next 2 days was deteriorating with talk of rain and northeast winds. Out of the blue, Jody proposed a change of plans: We could just keep on going right straight through to Falmouth Foreside. I had been toying with the idea, but had dismissed it as not one of my better. But with the new input from the de facto skipper, it suddenly seemed like a great idea.

After all, the day was great, we were sailing well and the next two days looked grim, so we altered course for Cape Ann.

I started to rig the boat for nighttime sailing. I brought out the jacklines and hooked them up, retrieved the harnesses and life jackets, brought up the flashlights, got out the foul weather gear and started to think about dinner. This would be the first overnight sail for just the two of us, so there was a little anxiety in the preparations.

The weather stayed beautiful, with unlimited visibility, and we were able to sail until about 11 p.m. With our dodger enclosure up, we were warm and dry. We had the GPS and chartplotter keeping us on course and the radar tracking any possible company. We shared the night mostly with the stars and waves. We passed the Isles of Shoals well inshore, as well as Boon Island light. The automatic pilot performed flawlessly. Though it had decided not to work on our previous cruise, the gremlin seemed to have disappeared.

We developed the routine of two hours on and two hours off, with the off-watch crewmember sleeping on the cabin sole to be ready to lend moral support and comfort as needed. We saw only an occasional fishing boat and arrived off Cape Elizabeth just before dawn. The weather was finally starting to look more ominous as we picked our way through the lobster pots up Hussey Sound. That was when it started raining lightly but increased to heavy just as we picked up our mooring. It was 7 a.m., we had been sailing for 25 hours and had done 130-plus miles. It was a great feeling of accomplishment as we crashed in our bunks, waiting for the rain to abate before we went ashore.

We had rekindled old memories as well as adding another notch to our sailing belt. All in all it was a terrific cruise and a wonderful way to end the sailing season.