Sailing Jeannius: Day 43: Boston to Plymouth

Today we wake up to fog in the distance, not enough to be a problem but I don’t want it to thicken with all the traffic around. We want to head a little further south but not until we have re-fuelled which turns out to be just a little problematic in that we can’t find the fuel dock. We go down the river as far as the bridge and the USS Constitution, past all the coastguard boats and it is not where it is described by the guys on the dock.

Photo: Two of Boston’s bridges but no fuel dock

We do eventually find it, right opposite where we were originally berthed and there are two helpful lads waiting to help tie us up.

We head back out along the channel and hear the coast guard talking about a vessel grounded in the fog but I can’t hear them well enough to understand exactly where this took place – they talk so fast and if you are not familiar with the place names you haven’t got a hope in hell of knowing what’s going on.

The fog is nowhere near as thick as we have experienced in Maine but as we leave the skyscrapers behind us it lifts enough for us to see that the troubled vessel is only a couple of hundred yards in front of us. It turns out to be one of the ferries that shoot around the bay and it’s surrounded by coast guard boats and water taxis taking people off and transferring them to another waiting ferry.

Photos: The Provincetown III aground in Boston Harbour

We end up quite close as we are going down the channel next to them and it’s easy to see that the ferry has gone aground in the fog, both its keels clearly visible on the sand bar at the little island of Nixes Mate even from our distance.

Even as we are watching, the fog starts to lift further and blue sky appears above us even though at sea level it remains murky. I guide Mike through the channel even more carefully than usual even though he can see a couple of miles ahead now. As we leave the area we hear that all 149 passengers and 1 dog on the Provincetown III are without injury and on their way back to Boston.

Photo: Leaving Boston in the fog

(We find out later that the ferry captain was training and under instruction from a senior captain. All equipment was fully functional and the company spokesman said it was operator error, pure and simple. No explanation was given as to why they were so off course. They talked about the fog being like pea soup. That was no pea soup. Pea soup was in Maine!!)

The sun is now out although there is a chill in the light breeze. At the helm, Mike wears a thin jumper and I wear long sleeves and long trousers. Victoria looks at us as if we are mad – she thinks it’s hot!

We eventually get to the huge bay that opens out in front of Plymouth but there is only a narrow channel through the sand and Mike follows it in trying all the time to talk to the harbour master. Channel 16 in this area is a free for all. In Maine, if you exceed your 10 seconds or whatever on the channel and are not in danger of immediate death or sinking, some smart arse comes on reminding you that it is an emergency channel. OK, that’s correct but they are so quick off the mark it doesn’t always give you enough time to ask anything before they are on your case. Not here though. Leisurely chitter chatter before changing channels is all the rage. People are cutting in all over the place and we are well into the mooring field before we can hear the harbour master telling us which mooring ball to go to. The mooring field is absolutely full – it’s the last holiday weekend and it shows.

Photo: A crowded mooring field

We pass the replicas of The Mayflower and The Bounty before we find our ball, one of the biggest in the field and it’s amongst the fishing fleet, not a mast in sight.

Photo: The replica of The Bounty as seen in the 1962 film

Photo: The replica of The Mayflower

Victoria and I glare at the mooring line. It is covered in weed and gloop and has one of those sticky up sticks to grab onto which has half broken off so it’s under the rails for me and having grabbed it I hand it up to Victoria. We each get a line through and we’re on.

Photo: Yuk! Slime!! Gloop!!!

We stick out like a sore thumb, not just because we are the only boat with a mast down our end of the mooring field, but we are the only catamaran and a British one at that. Numerous times people drive their dinghies and tenders really close to get a better look, not embarrassed to be caught at all when one of us suddenly pops our heads up.

Photo: Jeannius with the only mast amongst small motors

The sun is already starting to sink and we get the water taxi ashore to explore a little, going up to see the replicas of The Bounty and The Mayflower before standing in front of the famous Plymouth Rock, carved with the date 1620. There is some dispute about whether this is the rock that the settlers actually kissed, some saying that this was chosen some years later, but the date is on it and it is now enshrined in a granite portico for all to gawp at.

Photo: The Plymouth Rock?

We wander around the town, just soaking up the historical atmosphere of which there would be lots more if it weren’t for the bloody tourists. Now I know I am one, but my tolerance for others is zero as I have already mentioned, and here, on the last weekend of the last week of the summer holidays, there are thousands!

Photo: I love this car but wouldn’t want to encounter any speed bumps

Photos: Plymouth

We choose a pizza place for dinner, the Pie Hole, named because their gimmick is go give you an enormous pizza with a hole in the middle that you fill with your appetizer, in our case, cheese and spinach meat balls. The one pizza is big enough to feed all three of us and with free wine and beer (because it is part of their opening deal) it works out cheaper than our takeaway last night.

Photo: Mike hopes that he might have to eat it all himself …