42.30.127N   070.50.497W

Pocasset

Despite the pleasures and beauty of Hadley Harbour we left mid-morning and headed north and after only 11 miles entered Pocasset Harbour where there is really insufficient room to anchor so we picked up a mooring. A short time later a dory came alongside and Toby Baker asked why we were not flying an Ocean Cruising Club Burgee! We were able to say that we had received an e mail that morning to say our membership had been accepted and Toby went off for a day sail ( his 75^th of the year in his lovely Alerion Express) and brought us the gift of an OCC Burgee!

A very pleasant harbour with some lovely yachts, motorboats and day boats.

We left Pocasset at 0600 Wednesday , left Buzzards Bay and headed into the Cape Cod Canal which is 7 miles long and over 500ft wide . There are no locks but the sea level difference is 4ft at either end so there is a good tide and we carried 5 knots with us most of the way so the trip did not take long with speeds of up to 11.2 knots!

                                                                                                                                                Cape Cod Canal

Glad we got the tide right! Note the SOG in bottom right of screen!

The morning was crisp and bright for a change and as we exited the canal the breeze was from the North-West and about 10 knots so we had a full sail beat north in perfect flat sea conditions. “Moonbeam” was in the groove and we overhauled a British Malo 42 which we had not seen before.

Perfect conditions

The wind went light off the City of Boston and we motored the last hour and a half into Marblehead Harbour where by chance we saw another David we had previously met in English Harbour Antigua and he quickly arranged a mooring for us and took us out to dinner!

Approaching Marblehead                                                                                                  Just a few boats in the harbour !

The harbour is packed with over 2000 moorings and a great variety of sailing and power boats and the mooring we had is usually used by a classic 12 metre.

There are 6 yacht clubs in the harbour and one purely for children with its own young Commodore and Committee!

Ashore the streets are narrow, the traffic gentle and the houses all old- some dating back to the 1600’s. There is a lovely atmosphere of peace and tranquillity.

Flags out for July 4^th Celebrations.