Advertisement
Published: August 19th 2013
Edit Blog Post
Our next stop will be Provincetown, at the North tip of Cape Cod. To get there, we will leave Buzzards Bay and head East through the Cape Cod Canal into Cape Cod Bay. This is a 40 mile trip and normally we would do it in two stages, stopping overnight at the Sandwich marina, very conveniently located at the Cape Cod end of the canal.
But rain is forecast for Tuesday, so we make the 40 mile run in one go from Marion to Provincetown.
Tides in Buzzards Bay are four feet (from low to high). Because of the geography of Cape Cod, the tides in Cape Cod Bay are ten feet and high tide arrives there three or four hours after high tide in Buzzards Bay. The canal joins these two bodies of water. There are no locks. As a result, water rushes through the canal from East to West for about six hours and then changes direction and rushes the other way, always trying to compensate for varying water levels at opposite ends of the canal. Fortunately today, the water will be “going our way” all morning. This is not accidental. We have been doing a little
planning ... :-)
We take on 17 gallons of diesel before we leave Marion. This is our first fill-up since leaving East Greenwich ten days ago. We are away out of Marion harbor at 9am. The seas have calmed down and we have a beautiful run across the bay to the canal entrance. The water is beginning to run quite strongly through the canal in our favor so, with our throttle set at “cruise”, our speed gradually increases from our normal cruising speed of seven knots. Soon we are doing ten knots, which is the canal speed limit. This does not stop a couple of boats passing us. Within an hour, we are through the canal and out into Cape Cod Bay, which is quiet, peaceful and sunny.
It is twenty miles across the open waters of Cape Cod Bay to Provincetown. When we get within ten miles of Provincetown, we begin to see the Pilgrim Monument in the middle of Provincetown. From then on, navigation is easy. By 3pm we are snugly tied up at a dock in Provincetown Marina.
The marina here consists of one enormously long dock, well protected by a correspondingly enormous pier.
This marina appears to be owned and run by the town. The bathrooms and showers up on the pier are, in a word, primitive. Your one-dollar shower token buys you one minute of ice cold water followed by three minutes of too-hot-for-comfort water. And this luxury is available only to people who have paid $140 or more for a slip. Or perhaps people on moorings are allowed to shower, too? Ah well, at least we are clean ... :-)
We find that marinas that are owned and run by local authorities tend to have their own arcane set of rules. Take to begin with the fact that the marina charged us $140 per night. We are pretty sure that this is based on “$4 per foot” but with the additional rule that any boat (like Pavane) under 35 foot will be charged for 35 feet! But our favorite rule is that you are permitted to buy a maximum of four shower tokens at one time! Have they stopped manufacturing shower tokens? Did some errant sailor load his boat with bags of tokens and sail away with them? Or does the hot water tank hold only enough water for four
showers??
It is six years since we last visited here. Provincetown is still crazy and fun and wall-to-wall full of people. We have come 40 miles from Marion and it is as if we have come to another world. It is nice to see that Provincetown has not just survived the past six years but seems to have prospered. It is as exuberantly over-the-top as ever. We love it here.
We go for a late afternoon meal at “Local 186”, which has a beautiful deck with a view of the water. This is a very classy burger place. Classy because you get to choose what kind of meat you want in your burger and the choices include two "named" local farms who raise grass-fed beef. Our burger is excellent but the star of the meal is a foie-gras “torchon”; a perfectly cooked and generous-sized portion of goose liver, served with an elegant selection of condiments.
This is a great town to hang out, window shop and people watch. We have treated ourselves to dock-space at the marina, which is slap in the middle of town, so we can come and go as we please, without needing to
get in the dinghy or call for launch service.
Tuesday, as promised, arrives with fog and light drizzle. By lunchtime, this has developed into quite brisk showers but these do little to reduce the crowds of people parading up and down Commercial Street.
We have a snack lunch at an open-air bar where customers and staff get creative hanging golf umbrellas above the bar so that at least the food stays dry. Our star dish here is a perfectly arranged plate with small portions of four different local cheeses, each with its own accompanying relish. In the evening, we dine at Pepe’s ... on a patio with our feet practically on the beach. Here in Provincetown, you could eat in a different beach-side restaurant every day for two weeks.
Provincetown runs a one-dollar shuttle bus to the beach. There are in fact two main beaches and two shuttle buses. We catch the bus to Herring Cove and walk along the very popular cycle track. It is a challenging walk as the path swoops up and down over sand dunes and through scrubby pine trees. All very pretty. Eventually we are pleased to find that the track emerges
at the visitor center near the second beach and we can catch the second shuttle bus back into town. The rain has all blown through and we have perfect weather once again.
This is where we have been for the “next” few days ...
Thursday & Friday, Aug 15 & 16 - On a Mooring in Scituate, MA
Saturday to Monday, Aug 17 to 19 - Brewers Hawthorne Cove Marina, Salem, MA
Advertisement
Tot: 0.058s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0308s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb