Sunday 19 August: Gloucester Massachusetts, walk in town and dinner at new friends.
Quite windy throughout the night, and we wake up to a chilly day. Warm gear comes out again, after we hoped we can stow it away… When the sun pops out between the clouds, it’s not too bad, and we go ashore for a walk. By the Harbormaster Office, we meet a very friendly lady, Annette, who gives us some very useful info on the prettiest harbors we should stop and visit on our way south. We are still amazed with how friendly and helpful the Americans are.
The aim of our walk is to find a car spares shop, and buy new speakers for the saloon. We do come across such shop, and instead of speakers we buy lots of tools: thread repair kit for generator exhaust, socket, fuses, etc. Hm, as boat owners, we do manage to spend some money in cars shops! However, they did seem to be very well supplied, except for car speakers which we went in for in the first place!
Our stroll back to the town takes us to a very nice cafe, where we sample an enormous blueberry muffin and of course, coffee. Yummy. Across the street from the cafe, we spot Cape Ann Brewery, and we pay a visit there too. Since our friend, Luca, became serious about his brewing hobby, we are now paying more attention to beers. And here we have a testing experience, 6 beers, which leads us to buying a pack of IPA.
While in there, we see a message from Larry & Brittany, the couple whom we met on Friday evening, asking if we are still in town and joining them for dinner. Well, we were contemplating to sail away in the afternoon, but since we can keep the mooring another night, change of plans: we have a social life this evening!
Back on Cloudy Bay, we keep busy pottering for a couple of ours. Glen tackles the outboard, and changes the 4 blades prop to a 3 blade stainless steel one. And he is convinced that this prop is better, as the dinghy planes much faster now. After that, he “enhances” the generator’s silencer manifold, by inserting the rubber hose we bought earlier, which should make it last longer against corrosion from within.
Late afternoon we go ashore and get a taxi to Brittany & Larry’s place. Very pleasant drive there, as we get yet another glimpse at the sea front boulevard. Our new friends have kindly opened their home to us, cooked a delicious dinner and entertained us with lots of stories throughout the evening. We were even treated to a fire pit on the terrace, keeping warm in the cool night breeze.
By midnight we are back at Cloudy Bay, ready to crash in bed. There is a bit of lapping on the stern, so earplugs in and we drift to sleep almost instantly.
Gloucester video on Sail Cloudy Bay YouTube channel
