Onset - Cape Cod Canal to Gloucester

We slipped off our mooring at 0645 to enter the Cape Cod Canal with a favorable tide. The current in the canal can flow as much as 5 knots which can either give your a big boost if you go with the flow or slow your progress to a crawl if you buck the tide. We made the entire passage at the maximum legal speed limit of 10 miles per hour.



As a result of our quick passage and the beautiful weather, we decided to by-pass Plymouth and Boston which we could visit on our return trip and instead, we headed directly across Cape Cod Bay to Gloucester. It was a beautiful sunny day. Although the wind was very light, we had the ocean swells pushing us along and we made very good time.



Gloucester harbor has a wide approach and it was filled with lobster pots. We had to really stay alert to get through the hundreds of pots in the harbor before we got to our mooring ball at Brown's Yacht Yard. The inner harbor mooring field is very convenient, very popular and very tight. The clearance between boats on adjacent balls might be as little as three feet. The water taxi driver runs a narrow slalom course every time he picks up or drops off a boater in the mooring field.

Lobster Boat

The harbor is very busy as Gloucester has one of the largest commercial fishing fleets on the East Coast. Fishing vessels pass the inner harbor mooring field as they move to and from their slips or off-load their catch much of which is processed by the Gortons Seafood plant located in the harbor. Gortons was established in 1849. The Gorton logo of a fisherman dressed in yellow foul weather gear with his hand at the ship's wheel is quite familiar to most people as are the fish sticks first manufactured by Gortons.


One big convenience is the water taxi. We didn't want to fool with mounting our outboard on the dinghy. So, we took the water taxi to the marina office to pay for our mooring and from there to a dock at the foot of Pirate's Lane so we could do our laundry at the nearby laundromat. As soon as the laundry was finished, we walked to Rocky Neck to check out the arts district and restaurants. We eventually stopped for dinner at Rudders. After dinner it was back to the boat with full stomachs and clean clothes.