Posted August 25, 2024Aug 25 An image of the relevant chart section is attached. The two spots marked with arrows are places to land for a break or lunch. Here is the signup sheet. The landing spot at Straitsmouth Island is a ramp and stairs leading to walking paths and picnic tables overlooking a view of Thachers Island. The islands no longer collect landing fees, which was news to me for sure. The landing spot on the mainland by the abandoned radio tower is a rarely used beach. There are a half-dozen or so plastic Adirondock chairs everyone is free to use. So participants can avoid Sunday evening traffic returning home, we'll meet at 10:00 a.m. for a 10:30 launch. There's Granite Pier (marked) with its $12 parking fee. Yvonne and I will be launching from the small asphalt ramp in downtown Rockport around the corner from the Rockport Harbormaster's shack. If others want to try this ramp, please message me and I will tell you where to park for free. We can link the two pods at the Rockport Harbor breakwater (not the offshore breakwater) on VHF ch. 72. We'll use the callsign NSPN 2 calling NSPN 1. Please note: There is a large herd of grey seals and their young at the Salvages. We have to take care not to approach so close as to disturb them. If they begin to inch-worm towards the water from the ledge, we're too close. If one paddles backwards, two or three seals are likely to follow you. The Dry Salvages used to have a beacon. All that's left of it now is an iron bar. This is generally a benign trip but it does require transiting Sandy Bay to the offshore breakwater and the Salvages. A heavy but non-breaking groundswell frequently lifts at Avery Ledge at the breakwater's southernmost submerged end. Once we are in Sandy Bay there are no bailouts between Granite Pier and the Salvages other than the arrow-marked landing spots at Straitsmouth Gap. Limited to 10 paddlers comfortable with open water, limited bailouts, and landing on beaches or sometimes slippery ramps. If anyone is a literary type, T.S. Eliot spent summers on Cape Ann. One of his Four Quartets references the Salvages: The starfish, the horseshoe crab, the whale's backbone; The pools where it offers to our curiosity The more delicate algae and the sea anemone. It tosses up our losses, the torn seine, The shattered lobsterpot, the broken oar And the gear of foreign dead men. The sea has many voices. T.S. Eliot, The Salvages, 1941 during the German air raids on England Eliot wrote under the title of the poem, "The Dry Salvages—presumably les trois sauvages—is a small group of rocks, with a beacon, off the north east coast of Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Salvages is pronounced to rhyme with assuages."[3] The location is a place that Eliot knew, and the poem links the image of Cape Ann to Eliot's boyhood sailing at Gloucester Harbor. The Dry Salvages also invokes images of the Mississippi River and Eliot's childhood in St Louis. Originally, these images and the other personal references were intended to be discussed in an autobiographical work that was to collect a series of essays about Eliot's childhood.[4] Edited September 9, 2024Sep 9 by Bolonsky Adam typos
August 25, 2024Aug 25 I’m interested in joining. This is a nice route and the dry salvages are always interesting.
August 26, 2024Aug 26 Author Thanks for your interest, everyone. Obviously we'll keep an eye on the marine forecast. Yvonne and I and friends who rented a tandem in Rockport, where the teenaged boys at the rental shack are frequently chastised for jumping off the shack roof into the harbor, were at the Salvages this weekend. All the bull seals segregated on the northern end of the wet Salvages a few weeks ago had vacated the frat house and were on patrol elsewhere to the east. Likewise the females babysitting their pups in the center channels. The waters as we approached yesterday were spotted with pups bottling at rest, or sleeping on their backs, or popping up to gaze at us. The pups had lost their white lanugo fur and were as cute in the water as inquisitive toddlers playing hide-and-seek in a lagoon. A half-dozen or so white pups were still fattening up on the dry ledge. I read that grey seals can stay submerged for up to an hour and are comfortable diving 1/4 of a mile beneath the surface to forage. They don't eat while raising their young. Edited August 29, 2024Aug 29 by Bolonsky Adam typos
August 29, 2024Aug 29 Author Here's a section of the relevant chart marked with the Cigarette boat route and the WW2 Liberty Ship engine block still visible at spring tides. The vessel sank in Sandy Bay on its way to New York after delivering coal to Newport, England after the war. The freighter was running at 215 degrees magnetic in a heavy southeasterly. Several days after grounding, she broke in half. Then the freighter's aft section rolled over and capsized. The freighter was sold for salvage for $500 a few days later. By 1958, the bow and stern had broken off from the ship and the stern section sank. The bow still projected about 10 feet above water; the mid-section of the ship, 40. In 1965, the ship broke up entirely, until only the main engine lay above water. One can still see at spring tides the cylinders of the freighter's enormous steam engine. Best times to see the engine block are around 36 to 48 hours after a full or new moon. Edited August 29, 2024Aug 29 by Bolonsky Adam images
August 29, 2024Aug 29 Hi Adam - thanks for initiating this. From the poll it seems that almost everyone here wants to launch from Granite Pier. Does it still make sense to try and coordinate the launch of two groups via VHF? It feels like this is adding a point of complication we may not need—perhaps we could unify on one launch location if this how the group is rolling.
August 29, 2024Aug 29 Adam - and I believe that a father/daughter hit the engine block last year on their new power boat and had to be resuced. Isn't it marked with a red nun?
August 29, 2024Aug 29 9 minutes ago, Joseph Berkovitz said: Does it still make sense to try and coordinate the launch of two groups via VHF? It feels like this is adding a point of complication we may not need—perhaps we could unify on one launch location if this how the group is rolling. We would be glad to chip in towards Adam's parking fee at Granite Pier if that is an issue since it is much easier parking.
August 29, 2024Aug 29 Author 4 hours ago, Bob H said: Adam - and I believe that a father/daughter hit the engine block last year on their new power boat and had to be resuced. Isn't it marked with a red nun? Yes. The engine block is marked by a red nun. I'll poke around on the internet and see what sort of report comes up about that crash.
August 29, 2024Aug 29 Author 1 hour ago, nancysan said: Interested (am I too late?). What is estimated mileage of this trip? Hi, Nancy. Never too late. Total distance is about 8 NM. But paddlers can lengthen or shorten the trip as they wish. A nice side shot west from Straitsmouth to Thachers Island with its keepers' houses, camping area, helicopter landing pad, and twin light towers adds about 4 NM total. This summer one can climb the south tower. I like to keep everyone's options open while we paddle. Once we get to the Salvages via the northwest end of the offshore breakwater, my plan was to ask who wants to do what. I certainly enjoy heading straight down to Gap Head to land at the ramp on Straitsmouth. Others might want to push on to Thachers if they want to put in extra miles. If the surge is too intense at the Straitsmouth ramp, there's the beach on the mainland directly opposite. Edited August 29, 2024Aug 29 by Bolonsky Adam
August 29, 2024Aug 29 Author 5 hours ago, Joseph Berkovitz said: Hi Adam - thanks for initiating this. From the poll it seems that almost everyone here wants to launch from Granite Pier. Does it still make sense to try and coordinate the launch of two groups via VHF? It feels like this is adding a point of complication we may not need—perhaps we could unify on one launch location if this how the group is rolling. Hi Joe - I marked on the poll by mistake Yvonne's and my intention to launch from Granite Pier. We're going to launch not from there but from downtown Rockport - not only because it's a shorter drive but because it has us finish the trip close to Bearskin Neck, Roy Moore's Lobster Pound, the Rockport Art Association and the Mercury Gallery which carries art she and I enjoy. I think we can manage the channel 72 connection around 10:45 a.m. halfway between Granite Pier and Rockport Harbor. Edited August 29, 2024Aug 29 by Bolonsky Adam link to Roy Moore's
August 29, 2024Aug 29 Author 21 hours ago, Bob H said: We would be glad to chip in towards Adam's parking fee at Granite Pier if that is an issue since it is much easier parking. Thanks for the offer, Bob. Yvonne and I like to launch from downtown Rockport for a variety of reasons. One of them is, a local selectman some years ago made a concerted effort to re-open and add signage to the public ways to the Rockport shoreline that date back 100 years or more but which had fallen into disuse. The more spots like those get used, the less likely they are to be hidden or blocked or marked "Private" by adjacent homeowners. For example, there's been a recent contentious and litigious dust-up over access to Hoop Pole Cove and Andrews Point around the corner from Halibut Point. The dispute has been ugly, the litigant doesn't come off so well, and the lawsuit probably won't end until the either the property owner or the town run out of funds to maintain the fight in court. A developer tried to pull a similar stunt in nearby Pigeon Cove about thirty years ago after buying the Cape Ann Tool Company property. The lobstermen there were having none of it. As Rockport lobsterman Bob Morris said: "In ’87, the tool factory (Cape Ann Tool Company) closed and there was a lot of questions about what was going to happen to the wharf. We were in purgatory for a few years until 1993 when a once fisherman decided to work with the developers, who approached us with leases. "We had them examined by state representatives, politicians and lawyers and the answer came back to us that those were death sentences, we would be signing away any power, any type of hope for a future in Pigeon Cove Harbor. "Then the war began, called the Battle for Pigeon Cove Harbor not the Battle for Pigeon Cove Wharf. The wharf wasn’t ours to battle for, the harbor was clearly ours and if any private developer wanted to argue that, they would not be dealing with us the fishermen, they would be dealing with United States Congress to try to get Federal Project 69.2 unauthorized. "Through sheer determination and a lot of luck, a lot of public support, we were able to secure the wharf and harbor at Pigeon Cove and now both are under the control of the Town of Rockport. "It is not to say that the harbor isn’t under threat, it always is and those that hold it dearly must always be vigilant and ready to go back to war if necessary. I do worry about that today with the current generations, I don’t know if they have the fight that we had. I hope they do, but that is kind of where it sits now.” The NSPN women-only trip out of Lanes Cove this summer landed at Pigeon Cove for lunch. After remediating a faux-pas or two related to taking up too much space on the gangway dock, all was good, Yvonne reported. Edited August 30, 2024Aug 30 by Bolonsky Adam Bob Morris
August 30, 2024Aug 30 15 hours ago, Bolonsky Adam said: Hi, Nancy. Never too late. Total distance is about 8 NM. But paddlers can lengthen or shorten the trip as they wish. A nice side shot west from Straitsmouth to Thachers Island with its keepers' houses, camping area, helicopter landing pad, and twin light towers adds about 4 NM total. This summer one can climb the south tower. I like to keep everyone's options open while we paddle. Once we get to the Salvages via the northwest end of the offshore breakwater, my plan was to ask who wants to do what. I certainly enjoy heading straight down to Gap Head to land at the ramp on Straitsmouth. Others might want to push on to Thachers if they want to put in extra miles. If the surge is too intense at the Straitsmouth ramp, there's the beach on the mainland directly opposite. Sounds great, thank you.
August 30, 2024Aug 30 FYI FloatingTrails chart w links to 9/8 tides etc. Granite pier 42º40.04'N, 70º37.39'W Directions: Google Forecasts: NOAA Windy.com Nearby observations: NOAA
August 30, 2024Aug 30 Author 23 minutes ago, Joseph Berkovitz said: FYI FloatingTrails chart w links to 9/8 tides etc. Granite pier 42º40.04'N, 70º37.39'W Directions: Google Forecasts: NOAA Windy.com Nearby observations: NOAA Thanks for posting these links, Joe. Very helpful. I pulled in a screen shot. First time I've seen Floating Trails. Edited August 30, 2024Aug 30 by Bolonsky Adam screen shot
August 30, 2024Aug 30 Author 1 hour ago, nancysan said: Sounds great, thank you. I'm glad to have you along, Nancy. Just keep in mind that if the wind builds from the southwest or northwest, conditions will get bumpy. If you're confident in your ability to return to the put-in unaccompanied should conditions change not to your liking mid-route, come along for sure. Here's a couple of considerations: the crossing from Rockport Harbor to the Salvages can be intimidating (about 2.5 miles (1 hour)) given the time we'll spend on open water likewise the transit from the Salvages to Straitsmouth (1.0 mile (20 minutes)) there are no bailouts for either crossing Rule of thumb for distance/time is 20 minutes per nautical mile. Edited August 30, 2024Aug 30 by Bolonsky Adam typos
August 30, 2024Aug 30 12 minutes ago, Bolonsky Adam said: … If you're confident in your ability to return to the put-in unaccompanied should conditions change not to your liking mid-route, come along for sure. That’s not how we do things around here, Adam. If conditions deteriorate and a paddler needs help, we provide it.
