Sunday, July 5, 2009

Last Day at Sandwich - Provisioning and Goodbyes


Ahoy its Matt. On Friday my family came for a visit. They got a room at a motel. We stayed on the boat. After that we went to the playground and we had fish and chicken for dinner. Then I played my DS (Ed: Gameboy). Mom and the girls went to the motel and the motel gave their room away. So they gave them a huge room with two bedrooms and a kitchen. Yesterday I woke up and had pancakes and sausage. Then we went out for a day sail and I made lunch for every one. After that we went to the motel and swam in the murkiest pool I had ever swam in. Then we went to Seafood Sam's and I had full belly clams. Osh had chicken Parmesan. Then saw fire works at 10:00. Today we went to the kid museum. Then in the gift shop I got a boatswain's whistle. Then we had sandwich's and Buffalo wings. Then the family left after 20 hugs. Then I watched some of Spirited Away and went to the beach. I cut a finger (Ed note for mother: finger is fine, just a scrape). Then we returned to see a sail boat T boning are side of the dock. Then everything was okay. Write to you tomorrow

This is a tightly packed marina with not much room for maneuvering. We returned from a walk from the beach to see a sailboat about our size T-boned against the dock right next to us and swinging towards our aft section. I handed Hoolie off to Ann and hurried to my dock to "help out" with both the intention to help and to also prevent damage to Fleetwing. They had been caught by the 15 kts winds and lost control. With all of us pushing, he finally got off the dock without damage to anyone. They continued on to the slip next to us but looked a little flustered. As they approached the dock, there was no aft line, it was tied to the other side of the boat. The helmsman eventually received it and handed me the line, the only trouble was it was loose. It wasn't attached to anything. The guy at the helm finally picked up the other end and we looked at each other for awhile ("you want me to cleat this and you pull or you cleat and I pull...") Finally, I cleated it and he started pulling. Somehow, someway he avoided hitting the other boat in the slip. We returned to our 5:00 wine.

All weekend we had been enjoyed the comings and goings of the boat launch. They have two lanes, one for outgoing boats and one for incoming boats. Generally, the drivers were surprisingly good at backing down the steep ramp. What is even more surprising are the sizes of the boats. We've seen 32 foot cabin cruisers hauled routinely and today a large super speedboat, amazing. With a three year waiting list, I guess it's the only game in town. It does make for a noisy marina with all the traffic, especially in the early morning when the fishing boats leave. However, there are compensations that include the $2.00/ft dock fee, Joe's Lobster Market which has the best spread of fresh fish I've ever seen, hurricane hole level protection from the elements, a Super Stop and Shop within walking distance, two wine stores and a reasonable fried seafood place - Seafood Sam's.

So we ended our stay at Sandwich Marina with a walk along the canal to watch the sunset. Off to Scituate tomorrow.









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