We were able to make contact with Rob and Linda Kiley who own “Twilight” which is currently at AYC but we had met them last over 10 years ago when Twilight was previously at Ardfern. They live at Manchester by the Sea only a few miles away and they came to Moonbeam for drinks and then we went ashore for dinner.

On Friday  after removing the autopilot drive and delivering it to the local Raymarine agents to be sent back for rebuild we took Moonbeam across to a mooring at the friendly Manchester Yacht Club and Rob showed us the local town and we joined a BBQ party at his house in the evening.

Sunday we marvelled at the boat traffic on the holiday weekend as a continuous procession cruised past our mooring. A Yacht Club drinks party in the early evening followed by a fried clam dinner in the village of Essex.!

Everywhere we went people wished us a happy 4^th of July or called “have a fifth on the fourth” which we presume referred to a fifth of a gill!

Monday morning we headed back to “our” mooring in Marblehead where the whole mooring field was in party mood with yachts rafted up for parties, flying enormous “Stars and Stripes” and dressed overall.

The Eastern Yacht Club was firing its large cannon on the hour and on one occasion had a row of cannons lined up which were answered by cannons on some of the yachts! The yacht clubs have launches that service the mooring field and the immaculate launches from the Corinthian and Eastern Yacht Clubs have launch drivers ( including girls) who wear ties on important days!

We walked around the town listening to live music and watching street dancing, looking at local art exhibitions, musicians and kids entertainment.

All the houses and shops were decorated with lovely flowers

The fourth of July fireworks were preceded by a lightning storm which passed close by and as it went dark hundreds of red lights were lit around the harbour and then there was a superb firework display for half an hour from a moored barge at the mouth of the bay, with horns blowing on many of the moored yachts.

Our plan was to head north to Maine on Tuesday but the forecast suggested a better wind on Wednesday and we needed little persuasion to delay a day!