Boston

Thursday August 28, 2015
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We have been looking forward to our Boston visit. The last time Deidre and I visited as tourists was in 1975 with Adam in a pram! I have been there since on business trips but only seen the inside of an office or warehouse. Its an interesting city, plus our close friends Nick and Lyn Nicholas live there. Nick will be waiting for us on the dock.

Easy 25 NM run from Gloucester under sunny skies and over calm seas. We opened up the boat to get some dry air into all the corners. Our first view of the Boston Harbor area was the tank farm shown below - I explained to Deidre that it must be a LNG facility - later Nick told me that it was a sewage treatment plant!

Either way, I hope it does not leak

Once thru the northern entrance we had another 5 miles to take us to our mooring ball right down town. Nick has called from his 32nd floor apartment and was watching our progress with his Peeping Tom telescope. We came into the marina to load water before going to our ball - and Nick was waiting for us on the dock. We loaded water then Nick rode out with us to the mooring.

Approaching downtown

The mooring location is just spectacular. We are just a few hundred feet off what seems to be the social center of Boston. After a chat and a few beers we launched the dink and took Nick ashore, and had a brief walk around. Even tho it was a Thursday night the area was very alive.


Friday, August 28, 2015

Our view this morning

Funny experience last night - when we went to bed we could here train traffic on a regular basis. Basically all night. This morning figured out that we are moored right over a subway tunnel! Only hear the trains when we are below, but at night in bed we could just about count the carriages.

We had arranged for Nick to pick us up at 10 AM and go grocery shopping. On the drive to the supermarket he gave us a bit of a tour of downtown.

The afternoon we devoted to showing Tide Hiker a bit of TLC. The last 3 months of damp has penetrated every corner of the boat. We needed to get all the bedding out into the sun and air out the closets and storage areas.



Don and Barb visited about 4 PM and after a chat we headed into the city for dinner and a walk around.

Saturday August 29, 2015

Nick and Lyn were due at about 1 PM so we spent the morning cleaning up and getting ready.

We had seen this LPG tanker arrive the other day - complete with helicopter and Coast Guard escorts.

The guy with the 50 cal machine gun looks pretty serious.

Nick and Lynn arrived at about 1 PM and we set off for a harbor cruise and picnic shortly thereafter. The Boston harbor area contains a bunch of small islands that offered some nice anchorages. We chose one about 8 NM from downtown and settled in for an afternoon in the sun. Deidre made a great dinner (taco salads) and a good time was had by all. We returned to our mooring in the dark which was a bit nervous making but all went well.

Sunday August 30, 2015

We were spotted by another boat yesterday and they visited us this morning for breakfast on board. We had no trouble chatting for a couple of hours and comparing cruising history

As soon as they left we headed ashore - today was our history and tourist day! Rode a tour bus around the city for a couple of hours and received a large dose of history and got our bearings. Part of the tour was a visit to the USS Constitution - unfortunately it is in dry dock for an overhaul. But there also was a WW2 Fletcher class destroyer and we found that most interesting

After the tour we headed out to Harvard in the subway. The "normal" population of Boston is about 650,000 but ACCORDING TO THE BUS DRIVER this number almost doubles after the summer when students return to the many universities in the city - such as Harvard and MIT etc. And this was the week when the students were arriving. We wandered around Harvard for a while and then headed back on the subway to Nick and Lynn's place.

The subway cars had been pretty full on our trek to and from Harvard. We had to scurry to make the last connection to Nicks place and jumped into the train - only to find the carriage to be 100% empty! It was really quite spooky - we wondered if we were on the way to the yard for the night! We could see into the other carriages and there was just not a person!  

Well, it took us where we wanted and all ended well. Nick explained that the train serviced a government center and since it was Saturday............

This is the view from their living room - we could see Tide Hiker and Cavara! Logan airport in the background.

Monday August 31, 2015

After all our walking yesterday Deidre's knee was really acting up so we enjoyed a quiet day. We eventually made it off Tide Hiker and enjoyed dinner out with Nick and Lynn. The visit to Boston has been great. We move out tomorrow.