Thrown out of Cambridge

We are underway southbound in Cape Cod Bay, headed for the canal and our southward migration for the winter. We had a lovely final week in Boston and Cambridge, wrapping up a bit more than five weeks in the Boston metropolitan area.

Vector anchored in the Charles Monday night, immediately adjacent to the "floating island," with the Boston skyline in the background.

I neglected to mention in my last post that just before we left for dinner, we were overflown by a Marine Corps V-22 Osprey, no more than 500' overhead. It rattled us out of our seats to see what was going on, and I could not imagine why a military aircraft was so low over the Charles. When we stepped outside, there were a few other large helicopters hovering over Boston.

Our forward camera caught the V-22 passing overhead in light rain. We were in the rotor wash.

Thursday morning we met our friends Erin and Chris at the Fiedler Dock and walked to breakfast at a great little place called Bakey. Our walk took us through the Public Garden, past the Make Way for Ducklings sculpture, and into Boston Common, where we found the Osprey along with three USMC helicopters as well as armored vehicles sitting in the northwest corner of the park.

We found it the next morning in Boston Common.

Not a military takeover of Boston, but evidently part of the Marine Corps' year-long 250th birthday celebration. I can only imagine what it must have been like for random passers-by to be suddenly confronted with a V-22 landing on Boston Common. I found some news footage online.

At Bakey you can watch them making the pastries. That's an enormous sheet of dough.

On our way back from breakfast the mayor was addressing a small crowd at the display, and just before we arrived back at the tender a pair of USMC fighters flew overhead. While we were out the wind picked up to 20, and I lost my beloved Bahamas Music Festival ball cap on the ride home, circling back just in time to watch it sink to the bottom of the Charles.

Swan Boats at the Public Garden.

We had a very pleasant five days on the Charles. I walked all over Boston and part of Cambridge, we went out for dinner nightly on one side or the other, and we met up with Chris and Erin a few times. One evening they picked us up and drove us to their favorite dive out in Wayland called the Dudley Chateau. I discovered the local boutique grocery, Brothers Marketplace, just a couple of blocks from the dock for a few necessities, including sandwiches for dinner one night when Louise was having a particularly bad allergy day.

The inside of an Osprey as seen from the aft ramp. I went back stag the next morning to see the exhibits.

I was happy to see this stenciled on a Super Stallion. Man that's a big chopper.

On my many walks I hit two different Amazon lockers, including one just across the street from the Cambridge dock, for parts for the FlopStopper setup, a new hoist cable for the davit, and other projects. And I found a replacement drive leg for the thruster at an outfit in San Diego, who drop-shipped it from the distributor in Louisiana. Two-day shipping got it to Chris and Erin's place on Monday.

The Frog Pond, a splash pool in Boston Common. Closed for cleaning at this moment.

We were having such a nice stay that we contemplated staying to the end of the week, departing just ahead of the likely chaotic Labor Day weekend. But with the drive leg schedule to arrive in the afternoon, I started making calls first thing Monday to find a yard that might be able to haul us for the swap. Labor Day weekend marks the start of "haulout season" in the northeast, heaviest in late September and October, wherein locals start hauling their boats out for the season.

I ordered a swivel and some thimbles to make this FlopStopper tether from leftover 3/16 Dyneema.

My first call was to MarineMax in Quincy, where we had remembered seeing their spiffy brand new 75-ton lift, which had not been at all busy during the couple of weeks we were in the marina there. They agreed to do it for a fair price, and offered me a slot either Wednesday or Thursday. We opted for Thursday to give us one more day in this lovely spot.

COVID aced Louise out of her cherished box of Sees chocolates on our trip to California, generally unavailable on the east coast. So when I saw this display in Brothers I had to buy a box, even at $25 for 11 ounces.

Maybe that's what jinxed us, but later that morning we had a visit from the marine unit of the Massachusetts State Police. They were very nice, but had the bad news that we were not really permitted to anchor there. I had not turned it up in my fairly extensive research, but evidently the MA environmental code only permits it in marked anchorages, of which there are none. There is an exemption for certain special events, such as the annual Independence Day fireworks.

Vector anchored in the Charles before we moved. The duck boat at right is in the channel. We finished a lot closer to the floating island. The moorings behind us are private and there is an annual lottery for them.

Apparently this is only enforced on a complaint basis, and they got a call about us being "in the way" over the weekend, probably from some scullers. And the officers intimated we could stay longer if they got no more calls, but we judged that too risky. We were out of the navigation channel, but further into the river than we could have been, on account of having put out a large scope to shelter from Hurricane Erin. Most likely, had we weighed anchor, shortened scope, and tucked further into the mooring field we might have escaped notice completely.

There was a celebration at City Hall Plaza for Ukrainian independence day. This singer was having a hard time competing with the Marines on the other side of the plaza. Behind me are a dozen or so festival booths.

I explained that we were stuck in the river until the following morning, since we had already missed the window to get under the Charleston River Bridge downstream of the lock. They were very understanding and asked us to move closer to the moorings. We did that immediately after they left, dropping the hook on just 50' of chain, as close to the nearest moorings, one of which held not a boat but the Charles River Floating Wetlands (map).

The competition. The Marine Corps Rock Band from Quantico. They were very good, but it was odd to see Marines in service dress uniforms bopping around on stage. I was handed a 250th birthday guitar pick.

While that put something of a damper on things, we were very happy to have gotten the six pleasant nights that we did. The several locals, who keep their boats on the Charles, who had advised me that it would be no problem were incredulous, and one even sounded outraged, which just goes to show how obscure and unknown this statute is. When we asked the police how we could have known about it, all they could say was that we could ask the harbormaster.

Even the duck boats got in on Marine Week.

We made preparations to leave in the morning when the bridge lock-down ended, and I went ashore for final provisions. In the evening we took the T into town and met Erin and Chris for one last dinner at The Merchant Kitchen & Drinks, where Chris handed us the drive leg that arrived earlier in the day. After returning home I made one last trip ashore with our accumulated recycling and put it in a Cambridge recycling bin.

Newbury Street is closed off every Sunday for a pedestrian mall.

Tuesday morning I left a message for MarineMax to see if we could move our haulout up a day, and at 9am we made ready to depart. We had a short tide window and could not delay, but this was the morning the Duck Boats, which had been passing us all week on tours, decided to conduct training. There were fully a dozen of them in the basin, conducting drills and practicing maneuvers, including towing one another. I made a Sécurité call before we got underway, and again as we approached the canal to the Craigie drawbridge.

In all the times I've been to Boston, I had never made it to the fabulous public library.

The duck skippers were smart enough to keep clear of the canal as we passed through, but we ended up in a clot of them as we waited for an MBTA train to clear the Tower A bridge. I had been apprehensive about making the tight turn into the small recreational lock chamber with no thruster, and Louise was ready with a fender to fend the bow off the lock walls, but the lockmaster agreed to let us through the larger commercial chamber, which involves a lot less maneuvering.

The reason why the MBTA bridge is called "Tower A."

Once out in the harbor we set a course for Quincy, hoping the yard would be able to move our haul to Wednesday. While one more night in Boston, anchored in the harbor, was tempting, today is a better day than tomorrow in Massachusetts and Cape Cod Bays to be making the passage. En route we realized our friends Kristina and Atle aboard Summer Star, along with mutual friend Stephanie who is cruising with them, we still anchored in Hull Bay, where they had stopped to shelter from Erin. We reached out to let them know we'd be nearby.

The library has three eateries. This is the Tea Bar, on my list for our next visit.

That resulted in an invitation to cocktails and dinner aboard, and so instead of Quincy (actually Hingham) we proceeded just a little further to Hull, dropping the hook almost exactly were we had been five weeks earlier (map). That put us just a 50-yard dinghy ride from them, fortuitous in the heavy chop that evening. It was a very pleasant evening and we enjoyed seeing their Outer Reef; the last time we saw Summer Star it was a Nordhavn. They weighed anchor and headed for the Cape Cod Canal the next morning. Between when we dropped the hook and when we headed over for dinner, I spent an hour in the thruster bay unbolting the motor and drive spline, and cracking the mounting bolts.

New drive leg before painting.

When I finally reached the yard they rescheduled us for a 2:30 haulout yesterday, and so we had all morning to ourselves. First thing in the morning I painted the new drive leg with antifouling, having sprayed it with primer the day before. The chop of Tuesday evening was gone and we tendered ashore to the Hull town dock to get in a bit of a walk. In the five weeks since our last visit they have erected a sign limiting the dock to 30 minutes, but that was plenty for our stroll.

If you want to eat in the restaurant, tie up at the marina's dinghy dock instead.

We weighed anchor for Quincy at 1:15, and were at the lift slip 20 minutes early, in light rain but also light winds. We only had a five minute wait and we were hanging in the slings by 2:20. Lift operator Tony suggested we had about two hours or so of favorable tide to get us back in the water.  Vector is the largest vessel they have ever hauled here. Louise, who sat in the office while I worked reports that pretty much everyone who went by asked about us.

John Singer Sarget murals on the top floor of the old library.

The fresh bolts that come with the drive leg are 5mm too short for our application, and I ordered the right ones from McMaster-Carr Tuesday morning. Thankfully they arrived before we were in the lift, and I got started right away on removing the props and mounting bolts and pounding the old drive leg out of the boat. The yard had Kristin, from their haulout crew, stay with me an lend a hand as needed throughout the process.

One of a pair of colorful staircases at Cambridge Crossing.

Everything went smoothly, but getting all the old sealant off the tunnel was a challenge. In the process I managed to remove some paint down to bare steel; Kristin went and found one of the painters for me who was able to get a little one-pack primer on it and some bottom paint before I installed the new leg. Even with the extra 20 minutes for paint to dry and another ten for the sealant, we were back in the water just before closing time.

I always knew Boston had its own Cardinal. This one is not Seán.

Marina manager Lindsay was happy to let us tie to the fuel dock while I did the inside work of bolting up the motor and testing, and also let us top up our water tank and walk over to the restaurant for dinner. Sharing a prime rib was an excellent way to end an otherwise difficult day.

Vector dominating this rather small 75T lift. They maxed out both the spread and the lift.

Not wanting to overstay our welcome, after dinner we dropped lines and made the short cruise to our regular anchorage south of Grape Island (map), where we had the hook down just before sunset. I went down to the thruster bay every couple of hours to look for leaks; the sealant takes 24 hours to cure fully.

Final sunset over Boston as seen from our anchorage in Hingham.

This morning was a 7:45 departure to catch the last of the ebb leaving Hull Gut and out past Minots Ledge, then pick up the flood south through Cape Cod Bay. We will have a very good push through the canal and power-slide into Onset before dinner time. We've been so busy with everything else that we have no plans beyond tonight, and I have no clue where we will hunker down for the boating chaos of the holiday weekend.