42:21.71N 71:02.13W

Thursday & Friday – 19^th & 20^th July.

Actually, when I say ‘up early’ every day, it seems that I am tending to wake up at 0730, but Rob is already hard at work on his computer and doing the OCC radio net on the SSB, if propagation is proving helpful that day - and unless I can think of a good excuse to stay in bed and read, my day starts around then.   If we are going anywhere, and it doesn't completely foul the tides up, we get under way and have breakfast afterwards;  if not, jobs start then.

So on Thursday we set off to wend our way through the many island channels (and fishing buoys) towards East Boston and Logan International Airport, which is next door to the marina.  Strangely the aircraft noise was far worse in the anchorage and is barely noticeable in the marina.   On the way we skirted around the many small boats fishing in the main channel into Boston, unlike the large tanker who was trying to stay within his depth – whose loud hooting constantly barely registered with this hardy lot.

We arrived at the marina, Boston Harbor Shipyard and Marina, in East Boston.   I had got completely confused by the charts and guides which seemed to indicate ‘Boatworks’ as running one half of the marina, but this is actually a boat construction business on the same site.   So we berthed opposite the most tremendous view of Boston city in a nice wide berth (lots of room to get on with hull polishing, sadly) and unbelievably good water pressure, so Serafina has finally had the biggest clean of the season.   There is lots of sailing going on along the river, particularly as next door to us is a sailing school and they all go out and drift around.   In the evenings some people seem to get out on their boats until dark, but few seem to leave this marina where there quite a few liveaboards on a wide variety of craft including an ex-Royal Navy cutter.

We met the wonderful Pat Gately who is the Manager here, and she kindly took us out in her car to familiarise us with the locale, most importantly  the route to walk to the T (the underground) and she dropped us off at the supermarket from where we got a taxi back to the marina after an extensive shop.

The first settlement in New  England was at Plymouth by Puritans escaping persecution from the Church of England, arriving in the Mayflower in 1620.   In 1630 Charles I assigned land to the Massachusetts Bay Company and over 1000 Puritans set sail in eleven ships, naming the town Boston after their home town.   They were encouraged to trade only with the company and when they refused to do so, Charles II put the colony under his control.  After extensive and expensive French and British battles over the New World territory, the colonists were expected to pay their share of the costs in taxes, inflaming the colonists whose famous cry was "No taxation without representation" (all sorts of phrases are ringing bells here!).   British troops were sent to protect the customs men but taunted by an unruly mob they opened fire killing 5 in the Boston Massacre (I had in mind that massacres were on a grand scale?), the location commemorated by a cobbled circle.   A further revolt in 1773, the Boston Tea Party when men disguised as Mohawks boarded ships dumping their taxable cargo of tea into the harbour, became the spark to ignite the Revolutionary War (or as we know it, the American War of Independence!).   Bostonians were also vehemently anti-slavery, playing an active role in the slave underground railroad and supporting the Union in the Civil War.

Boston continued to attract immigrants, 1000s came from Ireland during the potato famine and today that influx continues, and is a major influence on the city.   Apparently it is only recently that it has become so genteel - just 20 years ago there would have been no-go areas dependant on your origins.   In fact Craig (Il Sogno) warned us that East Boston has a reputation for violence, but reassured us that he felt quite safe - we now realise this advice was from a man who made his living visiting all the world's worst conflict areas......

So we set off on Friday into town to initially find a more in depth guide, taking the T to Faneuil Hall (a sort of glorified Covent Garden area).   Unable to find any tourist information and only a very scrappy map, we got lost several times and eventually decided we would have to travel on to South End and a large shopping mall to find the nearest bookshop, there are no others nowadays in the central area!   The Old Boston area is a rare mix of old and new with old buildings crouching among the soaring modern towers.

So we went out to Prudential in South Boston, I went up the tower to the 50th floor for a panoramic view, and after more wrong turns (this city is not based on the lovely straightforward grids we are becoming accustomed to in the US!) we ended up at Copley Square.   Here we visited Trinity Church, a Romanesque Revival building voted among the top 10 buildings in the US.   Surprisingly many of the stained glass windows are by English artists such as Burne-Jones.   We then went on to the Public Library, a quite astonishing building (filled mainly by people using their laptops, not reading books) with amazing Pre-Raphaelite murals.

Boston seems to be fairly spread out, so we have invested in a weekly T pass at $18 each (each single trip is a standard $2 so it seemed to make sense) and will start covering more ground now that we have a decent guide to peruse.