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News & Features
Cruising Boston Harbor with Bernie
By Sandy Marsters
For Points East
There's a beach bar at the end of the airport runway on the Caribbean island of St. Martin where bored cruisers like to go to watch the big jets come in from Europe. Boston Harbor's version of that is the deck of my friend Bernie's 30-foot S2 sloop, Gremlin, which he moors in Winthrop Harbor, directly under the busy approach and takeoff lanes at Logan Airport.
There's a good chance you've flown right over it.
Jet after jet roared overhead as I sat on deck with a cold drink on a very warm August evening last year. It was fun imagining where the jets were going to or coming from and wondering why the big, lumbering jumbos didn't fall right on top of me.
Despite the racket overhead, I felt at peace. I was on a boat. There was a fine restaurant just a short row to shore. The bottle of bourbon I had bought on the way down from Maine had only mostly leaked into the car's carpet, leaving enough for a couple of drinks. And tomorrow Bernie would join me for a mini-cruise through Boston Harbor and its many islands.
Bernie and I have been sailing buddies for years. We've logged hundreds of coastal and offshore miles together, some on his boats, some on mine. We also worked together on a newspaper. Oh, and we founded and ran this magazine until selling it to Joe Burke a couple of years ago. We know each other so well that when we're together, not much needs to be said.
Which doesn't explain why, when we're on a boat, we never shut up.
"What's that boat over there?"
"I think it's a Bristol 32."
"No, that's no Bristol. The cabin's too long."
"Sure it is, you idiot."
"No it isn't."
"What's that noise?"
"I don't hear anything."
"There…You can't hear that?"
"If you'd shut up maybe I could."
"What airline is that jet from?"
"American."
"No…American fuselages are silver. I think it's Delta."
"Well, maybe."
"There's that noise again."
"I still don't hear it. You're nuts."
"There, that one's definitely a Bristol!"
"No."
"Did you read that Frank Rich piece in the Times Sunday?"
"Wait a minute, Delta's jets are silver, too."
"I don't like Frank Rich."
"Yes, I'm sure that's a Bristol. Maybe not a 32."
"What island is that again?"
"I can't remember."
"I think it's Spectacle."
"No, it's Long."
"I don't think so."
"Where's the chart?"
"Somewhere."
Such was the level of discourse the next day as we set out from Winthrop under power in benign conditions. To port was the modern Deer Island sewage-treatment plant, actually one of the park islands, which is largely credited with making Boston Harbor a nice place to go boating. To starboard was Logan Airport, and beyond that the spectacular Boston skyline. Ahead lay the 34 islands of the Boston Harbor Islands National Park Area.
And directly in front of us – OK, maybe Bernie had been right this time – was Long Island, easily distinguished by the lighthouse on Long Island Head.
Long is connected to the mainland by a causeway that also runs over Moon Head. Closer to the Inner Harbor are Spectacle Island and, at the mouth of Dorchester Bay, Thompson Island, home of the Outward Bound Education Center. Most of the park, where we were bound, is south and east of the causeway.
Before hitting the park, though, we needed to take on some fuel and water, so we made a hard right toward the busy Inner Harbor, sliding right along the city waterfront. Urban cruising is cool, with lots going on and plenty to see. As traffic hummed on the Southeast Expressway far above us, we fueled and watered at the Mystic Marine Fuel dock in Charlestown's Little Mystic Channel. Then we took a tour up the Mystic River, passing under the Tobin Memorial Fixed Bridge and past the tidy little Chelsea Yacht Club and upsetting some Coasties guarding an LNG tanker.
After lunch on the go, we put up some sail and headed back out the harbor. As we rounded the north end of Long Island, via Nubble Channel, leaving Gallop's Island to port, all that urban energy dissipated, and we slipped into a world of green and peaceful islands. Just a few miles from downtown Boston, we felt a world away.
The first stop on any tour of the islands is Georges Island, the site of Fort Warren and headquarters for the park. Although there is some dock space available at the island, cruisers are better off taking a mooring just offshore and dinghying in. We called Spectacle Island Marina and rented one for the night for $25, using a credit card. There are 30 moorings available at Georges, Bumpkin, Peddocks, Rainsford, Gallops, Long and Spectacle.
Ashore, day visitors were heading back to the docks to catch commercial ferries that connect Georges and several of the other islands to Boston's Long Wharf and Hingham, Hull and Quincy. Around a corner of the headquarters, we found the snack bar, which had just closed. But after a day of touring we were hungry. We gazed longingly at some great-looking leftover ribs. Finally, the kind proprietor took pity on us, filled an aluminum tray with ribs, and told us to come back for coffee in the morning.
Gnawing on the delicious ribs, we toured the massive granite battlements of Fort Warren, built in the mid-1800s and used during the Civil War to train Union soldiers. Later, Confederates also got to know the fort - from behind the prison bars. By the time we returned to the dinghy, the day-trippers had left, and only a few boaters and park rangers remained.
As we sipped sundowners in the cockpit and watched the sun set behind Boston, a couple of other boats dropped their moorings and left. By nightfall, we had the place to ourselves. Though a half-million people went about their daily lives just a few miles away, we could just as well have been far Downeast for all the peace and tranquility of our anchorage.
We didn't make it to shore for coffee the next morning because we were too busy troubleshooting a very sticky jib-furler. We're particularly adept at brainstorming problems, coming up with a plan of action, then solving nothing and risking life and limb in the process.
It was late morning before we'd finished not fixing the furler repair and then retelling and embellishing the story. We still had lots to see. Since this was a mini-cruise, and we'd gotten a late start, we decided to forgo Peddocks Island, which was closed to visitors at the time anyway, and the other islands in Hingham Bay.
We were especially sorry to miss World's End, just north of Hingham Harbor, whose miles of trails were laid out by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead. Things could have been much different at World's End. It was one of the finalists in 1945 for the headquarters of the United Nations. And in 1965, developers suggested it would be a neat spot for a nuclear power plant. The island wasn't safe until 1967, when it was acquired by The Trustees of Reservations.
We decided instead to round the northeast corner of George's Island and set a course across Black Rock Channel for Boston Light on Little Brewster, then around Outer Brewster and head for sea, where the light easterlies would offer a fine beam reach.
I'd flown over these islands many times on flights to and from Logan, but up close from the water they seemed wild and remote. Except for excursions to Boston Light, the oldest and last-manned lighthouse in the United States, the ferries don't come out here, and visitors to these islands are few. We saw only an occasional fisherman as we sailed northeast along the islands then turned toward the northwest.
The outermost - and by far most remote of the Harbor Islands - is The Graves, a lonely looking pile of rocks topped by a lighthouse that signals the approach to Boston Harbor. We left The Graves to port, then - enjoying the sun and the sailing - we took a long tack toward Salem, then tacked back, winding among Green, Little Calf, and Calf islands before rounding the south end of Lovell Island, anchoring off the landing and rowing ashore.
On this fine day Lovell's seemed about as dangerous as my backyard, but harsh conditions here killed 13 sailors in a 1786 wreck. Lover's Rock is named for a young couple from the ship who had been found frozen to death, their arms entwined. A hut of refuge was later built here by the Massachusetts Humane Society, a pioneering idea that eventually led to the development of the U.S. Coast Guard.
At one point Lovell's was nominated as a site for the Statue of Liberty. It's a wonder nobody thought of putting the Empire State Building out here somewhere. Now the only structures on the island are a couple of yurts and numerous foundations, including the stone remains of Fort Standish and the massive concrete supports for the big guns of Battery Williams and Battery Whipple.
It was late afternoon before we got back aboard. We decided to head back to the mooring in Winthrop and had a lovely sail across President Roads and into the channel between Logan and Deer Island. Toasting the cruise with glasses of dark rum, we used the quiet intervals between jets roaring overhead to relive our mini-cruise.
"What was your favorite island?"
"Oh, I don't know. The one with the big gun placements. I don't remember the name."
"I think it was Long."
"No, that's the one with the lighthouse."
"Oh yeah. Where's the chart?"
"Somewhere."
"I thought Cow and Little Cow looked really interesting."
"That's Calf and Little Calf, you idiot."
"Whatever."
In the morning I was up with the first jets. As I popped out of the cabin, I was astonished by the sight of the Boston skyline. It was positively afire with all the glass and metal reflecting the rising sun, and we grabbed our cameras. Later we would argue about who got the best shot. But at the time we were, for once, speechless, content to take in the unique beauty of Boston Harbor from the deck of a boat.
Frequent shipmates and fourth-estate colleagues, Sandy Marsters and Bernie Wideman are co-founders of Points East magazine.
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