For the last few mornings I have been woken up by back pain and have to take strong painkillers in order to actually get out of bed and move around. The moving around is what actually sorts my back out – the painkillers just make me feel brave enough to do it without tensing up and making it ten times worse. It’s an old problem and an intermittent one. Usually sleeping on the boat with its lovely solid latex mattress is a cure-all but not this week.
Once I am mobile we get ready in a leisurely fashion. There’s rain over Boston just a few miles away and it’s heading our way so there’s no need to rush. It ends up just missing us and we can see the clouds pass by leaving us with a beautiful clear blue sky.
The water in the harbour is beautifully flat (if a rather unpleasant colour) so I have no worry or problem with the water taxi that takes us right into Salem by Pickering Wharf and the replica ship Friendship, a 1797 three-masted Salem East Indiaman.
We pick up a street walking map and follow the red line past the Custom House and into the historic centre. Once more the architecture is beautiful – I just love all the different paint colours - but it is ruined by all the overhead electricity cables everywhere, tangled across the streets like strands of nasty black spaghetti. In UK towns and cities, all our electricity is underground. I wonder why it isn’t here? It’s not the first place I’ve noticed it.
We stop for a huge ice cream and sit on a park bench in the shade of a tree to eat it. Even with the utmost care I manage to let it drip onto my white linen trousers – it’s usually Mike who’s the Pig Pen, not me!
We pass the famed “House of the Seven Gables”, the house that inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to write a Gothic novel of the same name in 1851. Apparently it’s very famous, but I’d never heard of him or the book, so I just go in the entrance and use their bathroom to wash all the sticky ice cream off.
Down near the front we find a house that obviously belongs to a metal sculptor – his work on display in the garden and on the fences, reminds me of a garden I saw in St Vincent – very individual.
We walk around for about two hours. To be honest, Salem has a lot to offer – if you are interested in the tacky, commercial side of witchcraft. I know all about the history behind the Salem witch trials (well I know a bit) but talk about getting on the band wagon. The water taxi driver was very disparaging about it yesterday (he called it witchcrap) when he came over to check us in, and now I know why. Every other shop either sells green wigs and pointy hats or offers palm readings, tarot card readings, crystal ball readings and every other type of hocus pocus. There are witch museums, witch waxworks, magic book shops, witch cafes, haunted houses – even the small town mall is full of it. I wouldn’t mind (well I would because it is all so false) but given the actual facts behind the story ie the women were not witches just old women with maybe a wart or two, falsely accused by silly young girls, focussing so much on the witch theme seems ridiculous and makes the Halloween-happy tourist trap of Salem feel like a fairground ride rather than a beautifully restored town with a rich maritime history.
We head back to the waterfront and eat at Finz Oh-so-Hip Seafood. It’s certainly not hip, nor is it the best seafood meal I have had although Mike says his is good, but I suppose its got some competition given the seafood I have eaten over the last few weeks. Maybe I’m being harsh, or maybe it was just the three whining kids on the table near us that ruined it a bit.
By 4 pm we’re back on the boat for a snooze. Mike books our 3-day stop in Boston at a marina right in the heart of the city by Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. I want Victoria to do and see as much as she can while we are here.
We stay on board in the evening, both of us too full to bother eating. Tomorrow we are Boston bound!
Position: 42 deg 31 min N, 70 deg 53 min W
Distance so far: 1922 miles
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