Aug 9 - 13, 2009 - Plymouth, MA

We absolutely could not believe that we had actually made it to Plymouth, MA on Grand Fromage. Click here for the Wikipedia article on Plymouth, MA.

Plymouth is brimming with tourists, but there is a small town feel. It seemed like the perfect place to offload a scooter and do some exploring.

The keyboard on Robert's computer was behaving in a truly bizarre manner...randomly, it wouldn't type T, U, 3, or Q. I did many diagnostics and finally came up with the highly technical answer...."It's broke". So, first stop in Plymouth was out to Staples to buy a new keyboard and mouse for Robert's computer. How historical can you get???? Back on Grand Fromage, we successfully installed the new keyboard and mouse.

Since we were right next to the Mayflower replica, that was our first serious sightseeing venue. Click here for information on Mayflower 2, the replica, Here is the Wikipedia entry on the Mayflower.

Exploring Mayflower 2 was extremely interesting. There were people in period costumes who were acting out particular characters from the Mayflower in the time period of 1620. There were also docents who were not in period costumes and were not acting out a role. This second group interacted from the current perspective.

Conditions on board Mayflower were pretty unbelievable...at least from the perspective of two people who live very comfortably on a boat for six months a year. There were 102 passengers, plus crew. The passengers, except for rare occasions when invited to come up on the upper deck, spent the entire voyage in the dark lower deck. It was gross.

One of the period characters
Robert walking on the deck
Looking up

Second sightseeing stop was Plymouth Rock. To protect the rock from scavengers, over time a fancy portico has been erected around the rock. To me, it was pretty funny.
The rock

Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum, is a three mile ride out of town. It is divided into two parts, the Indian Wampanoag tribal settlement and a settler village representing life in 1627.

The first thing you see as you enter the Plimoth Plantation visitor center is this funny statue of The Mooflower. Being simple folk, we thought it was hilarious.

Our first day visit to Plimoth Plantation we went to the Indian settlement of the Wampanoag tribe. The docents in this area are members of either this tribe or of another native American nation. Although they wore native dress, they are not representing historical characters and speak as modern people.

The tribal members were extremely interesting and I gained some new perspectives.

On our second day in Plimoth Plantation, we went to the colonial village. In this area, the staff is in period costumes and each plays a character from 1627. It's a lot of fun and extremely interesting.

Robert is walking up to the wooden walls of the colonial village. On the other side of the wall is a two story building. The first floor served as the worship center. The second floor was the fort area, complete with canon.
The path going down to the village
The houses were all constructed in a similar manner, with thatch roofs.
Some of the period characters

We greatly enjoyed Plymouth. In all honesty, however, Mystic, CT was a step above in every way. Mystic Seaport was immaculately clean with exceptionally courteous and friendly staff. Every process, including the purchase of tickets and memberships was efficient. The folks at Plimoth Plantation were pleasant enough, but the processes weren't efficient. In the exhibit area, there were piles of stuff that didn't belong, especially in the tribal area. It didn't seem well maintained. The gardens were weedy. The administration of Mystic Seaport was definitely superior.

Aug 9, 2009 - Cape Cod Canal to Plymouth

The town of Onset is right by the Cape Cod Canal, a seven mile human constructed canal that cuts through where the Cape Cod peninsula connects to mainland Massachusetts. Click here to read a very interesting Wikipedia entry on the Cape Cod Canal. According to the article, the concept of the canal was first proposed by Miles Standish of the Plymouth Colony in 1623. George Washington was involved in further investigations of the canal concept, but the ideas fell through. The construction of the canal was finally started in 1909 and completed in 1916. If you happen to have more time on your hands than is possibly good for you, you may click here for a webcan of boats passing through the canal....updated every 30 minutes. The Army Corps of Engineers has some interesting information here.

At the start of the canal going north is this railroad bridge

Directly in front of us going through the canal was this barge and then the sailboat. I had no idea that the Cape Cod Canal was such a tourist attraction. On either side of the bank is a paved walking path. It was not surprising that during our transit, many people walked, jogged, roller bladed, biked both sides of the bank. What was surprising was the number of people on both sides of the bank who brought folding chairs to sit and watch boats transverse the canal.

Going through the canal

When we exited the canal, we were in Cape Cod Bay for the easy ride into Plymouth Harbor. Easy, except for the lobster pots, but you are beginning to expect that statement if you have been following our blog.

We had an easy tie up to a tee dock. It was so exciting to go up on our bridge and have this view of the Mayflower replica.

Aug 7-9, 2009 - Fairhaven and Onset, MA

We had an nice trip to Fairhaven, MA on Aug 7 from Newport, RI. Our new little backup gps functioned well with our Furuno chartplotter. We were traveling in Buzzard's Bay. I got a kick out of this because many years ago, when I was learning the navigational charting software, Nobeltec on our California boat, the tutorial examples involved plotting a course on Buzzard's Bay. To be there in real life was amazing. My tutorial did not include all of the lobster pots we had to dodge.

Coming into the bay, Fairhaven appeared to be a huge city with many commercial fishing boats. We learned that Fairhaven shares the bay with a much larger town, New Bedford, MA.

Our marina was home to many commercial fishing boats. We felt like Grand Fromage was now part of the fishing fleet. The biggest commercial fleet was across the bay in New Bedford.
We were in Fairhaven one night. On Aug 8, we traveled to Onset, MA. This picturesque town is located right before the Cape Cod Canal. The closer we got to Onset, the more the boat traffic picked up, from weekend runabouts to large commercial boats. The path through the markers leading into the harbor was filled with lobster pots.

Once tied up, we dropped our dingy, Brie, to do some sightseeing. The city provides a free dingy dock in town. Onset was celebrating Cape Verdean days with a festival in the park. From all of the hundreds, if not thousands of participants, this is a popular event. Click here to learn about the festival and the Cape Verdean heritage.

One of the many quaint buildings in Onset.
The village of Onset couldn't have been in a prettier setting.

After enjoying the world's best hamburger and walking around through the festival participants, we took a long dingy ride around the harbor.

Since I've frequently mentioned our great navigational challenge, the lobster pot, I thought you might like to meet one, up close and personal. The pot, or cage is lowered on a long rope to the bottom. Each lobster fishing company has a uniquely colored buoy to mark the location of the trap. This one you can see is red and white with a stick top. The ones with the stick top are extremely hard to spot out in the ocean, especially if there is chop. The buoy lays down in the chop and the dark tops are nearly invisible. We "like" the lobster pot buoys with wide tops that are big and brightly colored....orange, fuchsia, lime green are crowd pleasing colors. The hiss boo lobster pot buoys are either blue or black with little dark tops.The lobster fishers usually drop a string of pots, connected to a rope. If you see one lobster pot buoy, this is the sign to look for more.

To learn more about lobster fishing, click here.

Aug 6-7, 2009 - Newport, RI

From the water, the ride into Newport, RI is lovely. Coming into Narragansett Bay on either side of the bay are cliffs with many big, fancy homes and scenic vistas.

Here is a lobster boat with the cliffs behind On the north side of Narragansett Bay you can see people on a trail going to this small lighthouse. We learned later this is called The Cliff Walk and is extremely popular.
When I took this picture from Grand Fromage, I thought it was one of the mansions. In reality, it is a hotel. Oh well, it looks pretty darn mansionly to me.
Captain Robert and First Mate Glee wear ear phones when docking Grand Fromage. These ear phones enable a safe, sane and quiet docking. We were wearing our ear phones coming up Narragansett Bay. I kept hearing Captain Robert muttering "Holy Moly!", "Oh my gosh!". At first I thought there was a problem, but he assured me that the amazement was over all of the boats in the harbor. Coming in, I was too busy setting ropes and bumpers to take a look. On the way out, I snapped these shots that do not do justice to the impact of the hundreds of boats in the harbor. Once we were safely tied up, we went in search of lunch. You have to see Newport to believe it....thousands of people, hundreds of shops...quaintness and beautiful people abound. We did some serious people watching while enjoying an extemely guchi lunch.

Next summer we are planning to take Grand Fromage up into the Great Lakes and Canada. As we were sitting in Newport, enveloped by an overwhelming sense of "I could easily get used to this", I jokingly told Robert...."forget Canada". As a user definable option, you may feel free to substitute another word for the "forget". Robert thought that was pretty darn funny, after he recovered from his initial stark raving fear that his wife was going to attempt Newportization.

We only had one night in Newport, thanks to the fog delays in Mystic. However, here are a few examples of the interesting buildings.

On our way back up to New York City, we have scheduled a few more days in Newport, RI to do more sightseeing.

July 28-Aug 6 - Mystic, Connecticut

We really enjoyed Mystic, CT. It was scenic as all get out with many lovely homes. To see the sights, we rented a car for a few days.

Priority number one was to arrange for a marine-oriented gps backup. We had our car gps, but it didn't have the marine charts on it. First stop with the rental car was West Marine. We are very happy with our purchase of a Garmin Colorado with blue water charts. It came with a PC program to create waypoints and routes. This is very handy because the Garmin colorado has a teeny screen. However, after creating the waypoints and routes, with a usb cable, the data can be transferred to the colorado. We tweaked some settings and voila, the bearing and distance to next waypoint matched up perfectly with our Furuno chartplotter.

Second priority was to arrange for such neglected niceties as haircuts. This necessity always brings anxiety and dread...where do you go for a good haircut in an unfamiliar town??? On the other hand, a bad haircut can be remedied at the next port of call. Shorn and as lovely as we can get, we headed out for some major sightseeing.

I have to highly recommend Mystic Seaport, a living history museum along the waterfront. Although there are the standard maritime museum exhibits, there are also many colonial homes and businesses you can explore with docents to explain what life was like in the 1800's. There are also ships you can board.

When I was a girl studying American history, I first read about Williamsburg, VA. For a history buff, Williamsburg sounded like the mecca, with people dressed in period clothes, chatting, answering questions. A couple of years ago we visited Williamsburg. It was a dashing disappointment for both Robert and me. It was bitterly expensive with only a few buildings open for period interaction. Other buildings were curio shops. I won't go into all of our negative reactions, however, Mystic Seaport was what I'd expected Williamsburg to be, plus more. It was a very entertaining, relaxing, educational experience. We liked it so much, we went two days.

One of the period homes brought to Mystic Seaport.
Inside the home, this extremely knowledgeable docent explained in great detail the life of the housewife in the 1800's. Her stories were so interesting that we listened and asked questions for quite some time.
To make it living history, the docent was cooking on the hearth. Here she is going to check on the cake and on the cornbread.
The pot on the hook has hot water. The kettle on the left contains the cornbread. The kettle on the right holds the cake. Later on we ran into this docent handing out samples of the cake and cornbread to other docents. She remembered us and gifted us with a couple of pieces of the yummy cornbread.
An example of the lovely gardens in each yard, containing both flowers and herbs. In each backyard was a huge vegetable garden.

A couple of street scenes

We had planned to leave Mystic on Tue, Aug 2, however, we awoke to nasty fog. Gloom. We waited until 10 only to have conditions worsen. Robert found a local, George, for insider information. George strongly advised not to leave if you can't see Fisherman's Island. On a positive note, due to our delay, we became better acquainted with George and his wife. They took us to a very yummy seafood restaurant for dinner.

Robert and I were feverishly attempting to learn enough weather from Weather Underground to predict fog. Wednesday was foggy. We couldn't see Fisherman's Island. We stayed in port.

Our wait for a good day paid off. Thursday was a beautiful, clear, crystal day. Our patience was rewarded with an easy trip to Newport, RI. We needed constant vigilence for the ever present lobster pots, but the visibility made this much easier.

Leaving Mystic Harbor

Happily, we didn't need the services of the lighthouse at the mouth of Mystic Harbor One of the islands outside Mystic Harbor and one of the reasons we didn't want to leave in the fog.

A humble, rustic waterfront community we passed on the way to Newport, RI.

July 23-28, 2009 - Long Island Sound

Grand Fromage pulled out of Liberty Landing Marina on July 23 to head up the East River to Long Island Sound. I had planned to take many pictures of NYC from the perspective of the East River. However, as soon as we pulled out into the Hudson River, we discovered our gps was not functioning. Go back or continue on without the gps??? It was a cloudy day but with excellent visability. We had radar. We had the charts that Robert had been studying. We decided to continue on.

Manuevering into the East River, it was obvious we would need all eyes keeping watch for the many small boats, ferry boats, and barges. No time for pictures here. Traveling up the East River did not decrease the number of boats and activity. If anything, it became busier. I vaguely remember going by the UN building, but no time to grab the camera. We came to the area reknowned to boaters as "Hell's Gate", where the East River comes into Long Island Sound. Amazing current and rapids. We had no problems, but I could see it could play merry havoc with a boat with a small engine.

Hell's Gate behind us, we entered Long Island Sound and yikes, fog. At first the fog was not bad and we had adequate visibility. However, there was no time for relaxation. Constant vigilence was the key to avoiding boats and lobster pots, which were now popping up all over the place. A boater does not want to hit a crab or lobster pot. The line from the pot can get twisted around the propellor, necessitating a dive down to cut it out. Robert was very busy keeping our course manually on the chart. There were many buoys and markers in the water to make finding our place on the chart a little easier.

When Natalie was in NYC, I explained to her how boaters navigate, matching a numbered buoy in the water to the same numbered buoy on a chart. Natalie, here is an example of a green buoy...this one is number 5. For a short time it seemed that the fog was lifting, but then it came in with a vengence....does fog have vengence? Whatever the case, we couldn't see, plus interestingly enough, we didn't know where we were as the further we got up the sound, the further apart the buoys. When we realized our gps was out, we had fired up a hand held gps. Robert manally entered in the gps co-ordinates into our chartplotter. Now we knew where we were, but it is hard to locate boats and lobster pots when eyes aren't constantly on the water. Suddenly we realized we were right next to the harbor entrance of our day's destination....Stamford, CT. Whew!!!! We entered the harbor and the fog magically lifted.

We had planned to spend only one night in Stamford, but first priorty was fixing the gps. A very nice man from Jersey City drove over the next day and fixed us up. We enjoyed a nice dingy ride in Stamford, a large, industrial place with a lot of barge traffic, but with very scenic shoreline parks

We left Stamford on a beautiful clear day with fabulous visibility and had an easy run to Clinton, CT. We stayed at a fun marina on a lovely river. The marina provided a free shuttle into town. Our shuttle driver did far more than scoot us into town. She gave us the complete tour with commentary.

We chose to eat dinner at APizza, where we enjoyed a yummy pasta meal. A family owned business, we chatted with one of the sons who knew all about Modesto, Ca. He had gone there the year before to arrange for daily shipments of tomotoes. While at APizza, Robert had a celebetory first, a white birch soda. He reported it tasted like a cross between a cream soda and a rootbeer.
Clinton, CT was a wonderful town for a dingy ride up the river. It was such a peaceful place with people out enjoying the water.
Osprey parents enjoying an al fresco lunch with the kids. We enjoyed another New Enland first in Clinton....the all important lobster roll. According to the locals, the Clinton lobster rolls are the best of the best....just lobster chunks, butter and lemon juice. We will attest to the fact that they were delicious. According to reliable sources, too many lobster rolls are constructed like a tunafish salad...minced lobster blended with gobs of mayonaise. After two nights in Clinton, we had a nice ride to Say Brook, CT, where we spent one night. Here comes the same song, second verse...when we left Say Brook, it was a cloudy, but very clear morning. We get a few miles up Long Island Sound and here comes the fog. This time we have our gps working on our chartplotter so we can track to a waypoint. However, the radar shows boats everywhere so we are trying to match the blips on the radar to boats in the water. We blow our fog horn. We are looking for lobster pots and other boats. We feel confident with our position and our ability to manuever to our next destination. We do not feel confidence in the many small boats who don't have radar and who seem oblivious to the fact that the visibility is 50 feet. To confirm our fears, a little boat comes screaming out of the fog right next to us, going at least 25 mph, followed by another little boat going just as fast. Whoa Nellie!

Lighthouse at a harbor entrance with the fog behind.
We were very tired when we arrived safe and sound in Mystic, CT. We stayed at a very nice marina, Mystic Shipyard. I'd like to comment that the dockhand who helped us tie up was the best in three summers of cruising the East Coast. His name was Kenny and he was a wonder....Mystic Shipyard....time to give Kenny a raise. Kenny was not only endlessly energetic and cheerful, but he knew the procedures to logically tie up to their fixed docks.