Written while lying Isle of Shoals in Maine
A week ago we pulled into Gloucester, Ma after a lovely day cruise up from Scituate. "Glosta" is a unique harbor for its diverse waterfront and history. This is where "The Perfect Storm" was filmed and was the home port of the boats lost in that storm. It is a rough-edges type of scene and remains a fully working fishing port. All that Gorton stuff comes from here. They basically own the town.
After picking up a mooring in the inner harbor we took the dinghy out for a "toot" to check out the scene and to look for the "Rudder" a great local eatery. And that's when we were stopped by the local Environmental Cops. Our dinghy is brand new and yours truly had not yet applied our registration numbers on the hulls. The absence of these numbers tends to attract the attention of these kinds of guys. So with Bella trying to board THEIR boat we we were cited for the followoing:
No life jackets
No registration numbers on the hull
No bailer
No anchor
No registration card aboard
No Kleenexes
No Deodorant
and so on
All this fuss over a 9 foot boat with a four horse engine. I could be more embarrassed, but I am not sure how. We are documented, registered, laden with safety equipment, and both of us are CPR trained, I am a licensed Captain, and then this....Made their day I think.
I did my best "oh gosh, did we do that?" routine, and so we got off wtih a warning ticket. Of course, it was really Bella that saved our bacon.
More to come soon, but the weather, harbors and cruising has all been very good and mostly problem free.
Dinner at the Rudder was really good and really pricey. The cops came in while we were there...just kidding.
On to Rockportt....
No comments:
Post a Comment