2022: Massachusetts mooring ball fiasco

 22 August 2022

Depart: Onset Bay anchorage 8:10

Arrive: New Bedford, MA mooring ball 12:00

Distance: 22 nm

On our excursion into Wareham yesterday, Clark learned from a local boater that although it looked like a privately-owned island, folks could visit there. Clark, the adventurer, wanted to see that island. He decided to leave the dinghy down overnight so he could go exploring in the morning before departure.

Morning sky (7:00 a.m.) Onset Bay

For Clark to be up and ready at 7:00, he must have really wanted to see the island. I stayed on "Sunset Delight" and told him to scoot.

Pictures taken of or from Wicket's Island ...

By just after 8:00 he had the dinghy stored and was ready to carry on to our next destination. This time to see a friend of mine from my childhood and high school days. On our way north my friend, Faith, had said we should come for a visit to her home town of New Bedford, so we decided to take her up on that offer.

We planned to meet for lunch. I kept Faith guessing on what time we would arrive as my estimate kept changing as we traveled. First I told her 1l:00 then I changed it to 12:00 then, when we tried to get a mooring ball, I threw it all out the window and told her I would text her when I had it figured out.

New Bedford has a hurricane wall protecting the city. I had never seen that before. The gates close when a hurricane is imminent. Any boats that want to be in protected waters before those gates close because Faith told us that once they close, they stay closed.

We got the mooring ball number from the dockmaster, but when we came in we could  see a huge field of balls and no idea where to go. He said he would send the launch driver out to tell us where to do. He pointed to an area far off towards the hurricane gates and told us to go there and look for the "pancake", i.e. flat-topped mooring.

When we got to where we thought we were supposed to be, the mooring ball had no markings on it regarding numbering to confirm we were in the right place. Clark had to call again and we did get the word back that we had the right spot. So, with boat hook in hand I tried to pick up the line attached to the ball. 

The line was more than an inch in diameter, weighed a ton, had two floats on it that were wound around each other, and worst yet was covered in sea growth! Even after I ran to get rubber gloves I could not fancy touching the foul thing. Even if I could manage to get it up where I could reach it, the loop in the end of the line was so fouled with growth, my line would not fit through the loop even if I felt like spoiling my line. 

I was literally begging Clark to ask them for an alternative mooring. He is often times stubborn and hesitant to make waves, but I just kept telling him how disgusting it was and that I wanted no part of it near my boat! Finally he talked to the dockmaster, told him how disgusting it was, and got a different assignment from him. 

We went over a short distance to find the new assignment. All kidding aside - this one had no line attached to it at all. What was I supposed to do, climb off the boat and thread my line through the metal ring. Seriously!!?? Meanwhile I am sweating about the fact that I told Faith noon. We have been trying to moor for half an hour and are still without a usable mooring ball.

Finally the launch driver appears with someone else on the boat to come look at the situation. I had managed to pull the loop of the first (disgusting) mooring ball up onto the top of the "pancake", so when they arrived they could see what a mess it was. As we stared at the mooring ball with no line, we saw them beckoning us over and pointing to a different ball altogether. Yay! this one looked normal!

I quickly got us tied up to this third and final mooring ball. Clark told them not to go away while we secured the boat as we needed the launch ride to meet my friend for lunch. When I got on the launch, the guy said, "How are you doing?" although it was probably what he said in greeting to everyone, I looked at him incredulously and said, "I am stressed to the max right now and need time to catch my breath. We have someone waiting for us and that is adding to my stress." The 30 to 40 minutes it took us to get a mooring ball attached felt more like hours.

We are this far from the docks.

moored very near the gates

During my frantic texting to Faith, she said, "No worries. I am parked in the parking lot of the restaurant. Ready when you are!" 

The launch captain asked where we needed to go, and he said he could take us directly to the restaurant to save us time. Sure enough Faith was there when we got there. We had a lovely lunch together and then she drove us to her house to meet her husband. Her beautiful home was built c. 1865. Although old in structure, it was modern in interior and very nicely decorated. We sat in the kitchen due to my cat allergy because I asked for a seat that a cat would not have been lounging in.

We spent the afternoon pouring over the high school yearbook for our class and talking about who was where and who was no longer among the living. Sadly, 30 out of the 200 in our graduating class have passed away. I have not seen Faith since the early 1980s. We reconnected via Facebook. Even though it has been 40 years since we saw each other, we chatted as if we had seen each other just the other day. Amazing!

As the day wore on, we decided we should head back to "Sunset Delight". Faith and Harry wanted to see the boat, so they planned on taking the launch out with us for a tour. Unfortunately, the weather turned to rain, and by the time we got to the docks, they had changed their minds about coming out to the boat. 

While we waited in the office for the launch captain (just coming onto his shift),  we had a chance to talk to the dockmaster. He had hired on to this job only two weeks before. He was the other person in the launch when they came out to help us find an acceptable one for the night. He apologized for the mooring ball fiasco. When he came on board, he was told that all the mooring-ball lines had been cleaned for the season. The "Pancake" had obviously not been used the entire season to be in its current state.