America's Oldest Seaport

We had a very uneventful and short trip from Salem to Gloucester, “America’s oldest seaport.” We were unsure of where exactly in Gloucester we were going since we had reservations at different places. First we got a mooring with the Harbor Master. But… they only had availability for one night. Bill and I agreed we wanted to stay for two nights so we called around and got a mooring for both Thursday and Friday at Brown’s Marina. But… we found out they don’t have a launch service and since we don’t have a dinghy, we would be stuck on board for two days. We called back and got a slip at Brown’s. All set. But…when we were about 20 minutes away, they called to say that the slip where we were supposed to go wasn’t going to be vacant for awhile. So we called around and finally got a slip at Mad Fish, a restaurant in Rocky Neck, which is actually an artist colony. It is nice and quiet in here. And very pretty. This part of Gloucester is where Capt’ Dave suggested we go in the first place, so it all worked out in the end. Not having a dinghy really limits where we can stay, especially if there is no water taxi service. And staying in marinas is a lot more expensive in New England than it was in St. Thomas (believe it or not, it is almost twice as expensive!) So we decided to make getting a dinghy a priority.

After we settled into our slip, we took a cab to another marina where they sell dinghies. Success. We are very happy with our new tender (it is so new and clean) and two stroke engine (which is MUCH easier to start and is MUCH lighter and easier to handle than the engine that we had before). We drove the dinghy back to the boat and enjoyed happy hour at one of the restaurants here.

Today has been fairly cold and rainy, but the forecast for tomorrow looks great. We plan on taking a cab downtown and seeing some of the sights. Today we found out that we are here in time to experience some of St. Peter’s Fiesta. The St. Peter’s Fiesta is a “five day festival honoring the patron saint of the fisherman St. Peter.” The picture below is of a Navy ship that is in the harbor for the festival.