We left Wentworth-By-The-Sea Wednesday morning for the 65-mile run back to Boston. The fog eventually burned off and we had an easy ride south.

As we approached Marina Bay, I noticed this unfortunate sailboat sitting on the rocks.

It had been there a while. I’m guessing the owner abandoned it.

I wondered whether it might eventually become a salvage case, but judging from its condition, I’m not sure there is enough of a boat left to make the effort worthwhile!

Unfortunately, Marina Bay can’t just haul it away for junk since someone holds the title!

Safe Harbor Marina Bay

We’ve stayed at Marina Bay quite a few times, but this time they put us on WB-20.

I think we found our new favorite slip.

It gives us a terrific view across the water toward Boston and, as we discovered later, an even better view when the sun goes down.

Once Amazing Grace was settled in, we headed over to The Chantey for lunch.

The Chantey

The Chantey is exactly what you want from a marina lunch stop — casual, easy, cold drinks and honest pub grub.

Mrs. Horne and I shared the sheet pan nachos.

They were good.

Nothing fancy or pretending to be fancy, just a big pile of properly loaded nachos that went very well with a couple of cold drinks.

Honest pub grub.

After lunch, I assumed we might sit around and enjoy the afternoon.

Mrs. Horne had other plans.

She went back to work sealing the teak in the aft cockpit.

As I have previously mentioned, Mrs. Horne is totally dedicated to teak restoration.

I’m doing my best not to discourage her. 😂

Sunset Pier

For dinner, we decided to try someplace new.

Sunset Pier sits by the Marina Bay offices and feels quite different from the traditional New England waterfront restaurants we visited during the Northern Tour.

The room is bright and contemporary with a huge Sunset Pier mural, white chairs and an open view toward the marina.

It has more of a Miami waterfront vibe than an old-school New England clam shack.

And there’s certainly nothing wrong with that!

As usual, we grabbed seats at the bar and started working our way through the menu. We’ve never had a bad meal here, but their menu constantly changes and sometimes it’s a tad thin.

That night it was more robust.

Mrs. Horne went with the Poke Bowl.

It was a beautiful plate and Mrs. Horne gave it very high marks.

I ordered the Birria Tacos.

These were terrific.

Crispy on the outside, tender beef inside, and the consommé had enough heat and flavor to make the whole thing work.

At $18, they were also one of the better values we encountered on the trip.

By the time we finished, the sun was beginning to disappear behind the city.

There are certainly worse places to spend an evening.

Day Two — Exploring The Neponset

We woke up Thursday morning with no real agenda other than exploring the area on our bikes.

One of the things I’ve discovered is that Gemini does a great job planning bike rides.

I can tell it where we’re starting, how far we want to ride, and that we want to stay off busy roads as much as possible. It finds bike paths, trails and quieter streets, builds the route, and puts the whole thing into Google Maps on my phone.

For Marina Bay, Gemini came up with a route that turned out to be a great ride and, more importantly, introduced us to something I didn’t even know was there.

The Neponset River Greenway

The Neponset River Greenway may be one of the best urban bike trails we’ve found anywhere.

You’re only a few miles from downtown Boston, but much of the ride feels completely removed from the city.

The paved trail follows the Neponset through parks, marshes and wooded areas and now stretches about nine miles through Dorchester, Hyde Park, Mattapan and Milton.

The Greenway began taking shape in the 1990s as community groups pushed to reclaim former industrial land and an old railroad corridor along the river. The first major section opened in 2002, and additional sections have been added ever since.

At one point we literally crossed into Boston.

Not exactly what I expected when we left the boat that morning.

There are miles of paved trail, almost no traffic and enough scenery that you quickly forget you’re riding through one of the most populated areas in New England.

What a find.

This is exactly why I like exploring a new port on a bike. You discover things you would never see from the boat — or from the back seat of an Uber.

Willie’s Alfresco

Eventually we worked our way back to Marina Bay and stopped at Willie’s Alfresco for lunch.

It’s the outdoor bar associated with Victory Point and sits right on the boardwalk.

Casual, open-air waterfront dining — a pretty good place to finish a bike ride.

The fish was moist and flaky. The fries weren’t quite as hot as I like them, but they were crunchy; well done!

The Great Power Cord Project

After lunch, Mrs. Horne returned to her other ongoing Amazing Grace project.

Our shore-power cable had gotten pretty badly stained over the season and somebody recommended Star brite Power Cable Cleaner & Protector.

It sounded like exactly what we needed.

It wasn’t.

Mrs. Horne tried it and the results were pretty underwhelming.

Then we remembered that we had an old can of Eagle One NEVR-DULL aboard.

NEVR-DULL is actually a metal polish, so cleaning power cords probably wasn’t what the manufacturer had in mind.

Mrs. Horne tried a small section anyway.

It worked great.

The grime and discoloration came right off and the cord started looking almost new again.

Naturally, Mrs. Horne immediately wanted to do the entire cable.

Naturally, we ran out of NEVR-DULL.

That’s when I discovered another useful cruising trick.

I pulled up Walmart on my phone, found another can, and had it delivered directly to the marina.

You don’t necessarily need a car when you’re cruising.

Sometimes you just need Walmart. 😂

ReelHouse

For dinner, we headed to ReelHouse — our favorite restaurant at Marina Bay.

We’ve eaten here several times and it has never disappointed us.

As usual, we grabbed a couple of seats at the bar.

Mrs. Horne already knew what she wanted.

Mrs. Horne loves their crab fried rice.

It’s technically listed as something “For the Table,” but she has absolutely no problem turning it into dinner. 😂

I went with what has become our new favorite ReelHouse dish.

Perfectly cooked steak with garlic mashed potatoes. Mrs. Horne substituted spinach. I’m not a big fan of mashed potatoes, but these were fantastic – smooth, buttery, and creamy.

We’ve tried a lot of things at ReelHouse over the years, but I think this steak has moved to the top of the list.

A bike ride, a new trail, a successful power-cord experiment and dinner at our favorite Marina Bay restaurant.

Not a bad Thursday.

Day Three

The Day The NWS Blew It

Friday morning was cold, gray and raining.

Not exactly the kind of weather that makes you anxious to get underway, but I had checked the marine forecast and there wasn’t anything particularly concerning.

The National Weather Service forecast I was looking at called for winds around 10–13 knots and 1–2 foot seas for our trip back to Onset.

Nothing Amazing Grace couldn’t comfortably handle.

Mrs. Horne put on her headset, handled the lines, gave me the thumbs-up, and we left Marina Bay around 9:00.

For the first couple of hours, conditions were pretty much exactly as advertised.

It wasn’t really a boating day, but it was perfectly manageable from our fully enclosed bridge.

[VIDEO — CONDITIONS EARLY IN THE RUN]

Then, at about 11:45, everything changed.

The wind came up very quickly and the seas started building.

[VIDEO — SEAS BUILDING]

Within a remarkably short period of time, what had been a routine ride turned into serious boating.

Amazing Grace started rolling heavily as the seas built into steep, closely spaced rollers.

At 12:13 p.m., the National Weather Service issued a Small Craft Advisory for nearby southern New England waters, calling for northeast winds of 15–20 knots with gusts to 25.

By then, we were already in it.

I had my hands full.

We were a few miles off Plymouth and for the next hour I was surfing what looked like 8–10 foot, steep rollers as we worked our way toward the Cape Cod Canal.

This wasn’t dangerous for Amazing Grace, but it required my complete attention.

Along the way we started seeing Coast Guard activity headed in the other direction.

Response boats and even a helicopter headed toward Provincetown. We weren’t the only ones caught off guard!

When we finally entered the Cape Cod Canal, everything immediately settled down.

Then somebody hailed me on the VHF and wanted to know what it was like coming down from Boston. I told him. He said he had tried to leave earlier, got outside, took one look at the conditions and turned around. He decided to take refuge in Sandwich, and I couldn’t blame him.

So What Happened?

When we finally got Amazing Grace back home, I started digging. This wasn’t simply a case where I had misread the forecast.

At 3:49 Friday morning, the National Weather Service marine discussion labeled its forecast “High confidence” and said winds and seas should remain below Small Craft Advisory criteria through Friday night, with seas mainly 3 feet or less.

Read the actual NWS discussion here.

Even at 1:04 p.m. — after the conditions had already deteriorated — the NWS coastal forecast for Massachusetts Bay was still calling for northeast winds of 10–15 knots with gusts to 20 and seas around 2 feet.

Read that forecast here.

In other words:

The National Weather Service blew this one.

And we weren’t the only people dealing with rough water that day.

Oak Bluffs canceled its Friday night fireworks because of rough seas and unfavorable weather conditions, specifically citing concerns about safely loading and operating the fireworks barge. The Steamship Authority was also warning that diversions were likely because of the seas.

Read that report here.

Given the Coast Guard boats and helicopter we saw heading out while we were coming home, it was obvious that plenty of other mariners were having a much worse afternoon than we were.

The Northern Tour Comes To An End

And with that, our Northern Tour was over.

We covered a lot of miles — Kennebunkport, Southport, Boothbay, Freeport, Portsmouth and Marina Bay — and we ate very well along the way.

Mrs. Horne restored teak, polished power cords and became a pretty competent radar operator along the way.

We discovered some great restaurants, an unexpected bike trail and a few new places we’ll definitely visit again.

And Amazing Grace once again proved that she’s considerably more capable than her captain needs her to be most of the time.

But the ride home provided the most important reminder of the entire trip.

I spend a lot of time studying marine weather.

I use multiple forecasts, weather models, radar and real-time observations before making a decision to leave the dock.

But forecasts aren’t promises and sometimes they’re simply wrong.

Friday was one of those days.

By the time the warning arrived, we were already surfing down the face of the waves.

The boat may be under your control — but the water never is.

Next Up: California “Girls”