25 July 2022
No boat travel.
With windy conditions all day today, we decided to stay in Plymouth for a second night. Evelyn did some boat chores and a lot of reading. Clark had fun watching a disabled charter fishing boat being towed back to Plymouth Harbor.
Lots of their customers clearly did not get the ride they expected. It was a slow ride back. It appeared that all of the passengers were required to stay on the upper deck, in the sun, so the crew could have access on the lower level to do their jobs.
The charter boat was surrounded by a swarm of about five tow boats including Boat US, Sea Tow, a harbor master's boat and a small US Coast Guard boat. A larger green-hulled boat called the "Easterly" had the charter in stern tow.
The "Easterly" slowed down and the harbor-master boat tied to the port hip of the charter. A towing company tied to the starboard hip, but before he was fully secure, they released his lines and another towing company took his place. I'd guess the terms for the tow were not acceptable to the charter. With the two tow boats on the hip, the "Easterly" towed the charter boat down behind the breakwater in tight quarters by the docks and moorings. The two small boats on the hip likely maneuvered the charter into the dock with a ramp so the passengers could depart.
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| "Captain John & Son" - disabled charter boat towed by the "Easterly" |
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| The "Easterly" Tow boat and a Tow Boat US |
Sunset at Plymouth, Mass
26 July 2022
Depart: Plymouth, MA anchorage 8:25
Arrive: Danvers private dock 4:20
Distance: 48 nm
Clark decided we should take a boat tour of the harbor before departing Plymouth. We saw lots of boats including a replica of the "Mayflower".
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| Plymouth, Masschusetts |
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| The punny "Packet Inn" |
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| Plymouth Rock Monument |
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| "Mayflower" Replica complete with dinghy |
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| "Pilgrim Belle" paddle boat |
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| "Captain John & Son" (on right) vessel towed yesterday while Clark watched the show "Captain John & Son IV" (on left) loading passengers |
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| Small footbridge near the moorings |
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| "Jersey Boy" is a long way from home |
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| Dunes along shore as we depart Plymouth |
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| "Duxbury Light" aka "Bug Light" |
We also passed by Gurnet Light - only 33' tall but raised up on a cliff. The original lighthouse from 1768 burned down, was rebuilt in 1801, and rebuilt again in 1842. In 1998 the lighthouse was moved 140' due to erosion to prevent it falling into the sea. The lighthouse now sits within the earthworks of Fort Andrew.
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| "Gurnet Light" |
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| Lots of colorful traps out on the waters, even in 50 - 60 feet of water |
Believe it or not we had to bundle up in jackets for today's travel as the wind had quite a nip to it. I do prefer this to 90 degrees and humid however.
Clark found a place in Green River, near Plymouth, with "in today's terminology" good fuel prices - $4.86 / gallon of diesel. He decided to top up the tanks. The pump must be one of the slowest ever created. We took on about 100 gallons per side and that took about an hour to accomplish. Besides being a slow pump, it had a very short hose.
It reached the side of the boat dockside easily, but when it came time to putting fuel in the opposite tank, it was a no go. We ran the hose over the stern of the boat as per usual - short by several feet. We thought maybe we could reach by going through the pilot house. We shifted the boat to line the pilot house doors up with the pump and tried again. We were still short by a couple of feet. It looked like we might have to leave the dock, spin the boat around, and come back in. With tight quarters in the area, swinging the boat would be tricky.
Suddenly, Clark had the brilliant idea to run the hose in and out of the windows in the salon. That worked!
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| Fuel hose through the "living room"! What next!? |
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| and out the opposite window |
With the fueling taking so long, I had time to watch some of the local happenings. The boater behind us prepared his vessel to go out to check his traps. It was fine until he turned on his stink pot of an engine and nearly choked us while he left it running and prepped his boat for departure.
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| Right behind our boat - finally leaving |
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| Nope - not leaving - just ramming his boat into the dock to pull on some very heavy ice chests |
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| Finally on his way - ahhhh fresh air at last! |
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| Another fisherman. Clark asked him how he did -- a few smaller ones. |
After the fueling expedition, we continued on our way with Danvers, Massachusetts, near Salem, as our destination to see a boating friend and meet up with Clark's cousins.
I found it pretty boring passing by Boston as we were too far away to see much of anything except ocean water. When we turned towards Salem, it got interesting in a hurry. We saw single-person, learner sailboats in a larger quantity than I could count. Clark slowed way down because even without our wake, some of the boats looked pretty shaky.
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| Hospital Point Range Front Lighthouse |
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| We both admired the Gaff-rigged Schooner |
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| Shoreline approaching Salem area |
To get to our friend's private dock, we veered off to the left to follow the Danvers River.
Mooring field at Danvers
Interesting green marker in mooring field ...
Harbormaster Vessel patrolling the area ...
We passed under two bridges that had to be opened for us to transit the area. When we arrived, the bridge tender told us we would have to wait for two trains or approximately 15 minutes before he could open. We expected to be sitting around for a while. Then he called us on the radio and said he got permission to open between trains if we were "on the ball". We said we would be right on it as soon as he opened.
After the train went by, we proceeded to transit the bridge area. My-oh-my, it looked like a tight fit. We actually had no problem, but it did look cozy.
As we left the bridge, the tender warned us to watch the channel markers. Very shortly after we saw why he said that.
Very soon after, we came upon a second bridge that needed to be opened for us. The conversation between the tender was either painful or humorous to listen to depending on your point of view. Clark thought that, with it being a swing bridge, he should go on the far side of the bridge. Little did he know, the bridge only had one side that allowed boats to transit. The other side had a walkway to the bridge tender's station blocking transit.
Clark asked if he should go on the far side or go to the port side opening. The bridge tender said he could do whichever. After saying so multiple times, I finally got it to sink into Clark's head that there was only one side to pick from.
After we got through the bridge, our friend, Tim, whose dock we were targeting called us on the phone and said he would meet us in his dinghy and lead us to his dock. After tying to his dock, we spent the night catching up and eating pizza on his breezy deck. Since it was a Tuesday night, we had live music that we could hear from a neighboring marina.
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| Sunset view from our friend's dock |
27 July 2022
No boat travel.
Not only do we have a friend in Danvers, Massachusetts, but out friends live one street over from Clark's cousin, Barb. We made arrangements for the cousins to get together for lunch. However, Clark was anxious to see how close their house was, so we decided to take a walk to check out the neighborhood. Just as we arrived, Clark's other cousin, Perry, drove up to the house. She had driven up from Framingham to see us all.
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| Barb, Barb, Ev, Perry, and Clark |
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| Perry, Barb, Evelyn |
After chatting at Barb's house for a while and taking a couple of family pictures, we went to lunch at a very nice restaurant in Peabody called the "Sylvan Street Grille".
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| Situated at the outside dining area of the restaurant |
After lunch, Barb took us to the local "Market Basket" to pick up some food supplies then took us back to our boat where we said our goodbyes to Perry.
Just before we left New Jersey, we discovered we needed to swap out our 2 bow thruster batteries at 120 pounds each. This week Clark decided we had a problem with weak house batteries. We have 3 of them at 160 pounds a piece. Three out and three in is a lot of back-breaking and costly work. I was not thrilled to hear this news. For that matter, neither was Clark. While we were shopping in the "Market Basket", he found a West Marine in the same parking lot and went to visit to check out their battery stock.
West Marine had one 8D that was probably a year old and he needed three. The clerk there mentioned other West Marine stores also had some stock but driving all around didn't seem like a good option. Clark asked if there were any good chandleries around, and the clerk said they were all in Gloucester. Clark called some to check out their stock, and they said there was a general shortage of 8D AGM batteries but suggested trying J's Auto in Salem only one town over.
Clark called and found they had 30 deep cycle batteries in stock of reasonable quality and slightly less amp hours than the current Mastervolt AGMs. Oh yay! He borrowed his cousin's car to pick up the new batteries.
We spent the rest of the night, thankfully with our friend's help, getting the old batteries out and the new ones in!
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| 3 of these out |
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| These 3 in their place |
After the back-breaking work of getting the batteries in place, Clark still had a ton of work to do for wiring them into place! Good thing we had a big, late lunch because dinner was pushed until after dark so Clark could do as much install work as possible in the diminishing daylight. Clark needed to make some modifications for the connections and cabling and finally got the house lights back on at 11 pm and cleaned up for dinner by 11:15. We are both hoping this will be the end of the battery trouble for a good long while.
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| Early-on sunset |
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| Later sunset - Wow! |
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