Gloucester, FOG, and Rain

When we woke up, the place was FOG City.  The fog lasted most of the morning. It has been on and off most of the day.  After a nice breakfast of blueberry pancakes and sausage on the boat, we headed to the shore to hook up with Paul Banados for an trip out to the hotel he is staying at.

At the dinghy dock we met a couple from Durban, South Africa who sailed over to the States on a 38 foot catamaran.  Sounded like a major adventure. They did a 13 day passage from Puerto Rico to the States by themselves. When they crossed over the Atlantic, they had two extra crew to stand watch.

We finally found Paul and headed out to where he is staying, the Atlantic Ocean View Inn.  It is now owned by members of the  John Dorrance family.  They do 2 to 4 weddings a weekend this time of the year.

John T. Dorrance, MIT 1895, invented condensed soup while working at the Campbell Soup Co  He eventually became President, bought out the Campbell family's interest and the rest is history. MIT people are everywhere.

Anyway, it is a old Inn, build at the turn of the century. Paul is hoping to redo the entire grounds as part of a large redo project, both buildings and grounds.

Couple of pictures of Paul and Joy and the Inn plus High Spirits hiding in the morning fog.

After a nice lunch at the Inn featuring molasses bread ( very tasty), Paul dropped us off at the Rocky Neck Art Colony.  He had to take us separately as three people do not fit into a Miata Sports car.

The Rocky Neck Art Colony started in the 1900s when many artist came to Gloucester to paint and create other forms of fine art.  They all ended up on this little spit of land, and there are still many artists and galleries(last picture below) open year round.  We walked around for a couple of hours and then took the bus ($.50) back into town.

Headed out to the boat at 4 pm, just in time to get caught in the first heavy rain of the afternoon.  Before that it was mostly drips, mist, and spit.

Tomorrow is the day that we will be doing the boat chores that should have been done today.  Mostly getting a propane refill ( 100 feet from the dinghy dock, can not ask for much better than that) plus the weekly clothes washing project. Do you know they charge $3.50 for a normal size washing machine load. Highest we have ever paid. Joy is headed off  to the super market to buy what might be our last week of groceries.  Hauling out in about 10 days.

Joe