Gloucester and Fog

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Sat 28 Jul 2012 21:16

42:35.09N 70:40.23W

 

 

Wed, Thurs, Fri & Saturday – 25th, 26th, 27th & 28th July

 

Wednesday was to be our last day in Boston, so I got off to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum fairly early to discover that a) it doesn't open till 1100, and b) contrary to the guide book it is open on a Monday but not a Tuesday - information that would have changed the T mileage at least!

 

This is a completely idiosyncratic place funded, sourced and arranged by the amazing owner, ISG.   Sadly she lost her only son aged 2, her sister, then her parents and finally her husband died early, so ISG inherited bucket loads of cash and decided to realise her and her husband's dream, developing a building in the style of a 15th Venetian palazzo surrounding a beautiful garden courtyard, with 3 floors to house her collection to particularly to further education and on the 4th floor she lived above the ‘shop’.   She stipulated in her legacy that the way she had arranged all the artefacts and art must not be touched, but it is arranged in such a way that it looks like someone's house although this also makes you feel you are failing to give all the items your full consideration.   It is in many ways surprisingly modern with brilliant blue or red walls in some of the rooms.   Each room is themed with different wall and floor coverings, and the art from a specific age or country.   She was innovative in having an artist in residence, although her first artist was John Singer Sargent!   If you are named Isabella or it is your birthday you get in free.

 

It was here that 2 thieves dressed as policemen conned their way in on St Patrick's Day 1990 stealing artworks worth $500 million including Rembrandt's only known seascape, and a tiny self-portrait, Degas drawing, and a Vermeer.   The empty spaces are still left framed in the hope that they will be recovered, and this is still a very active investigation.

 

This place is not only a must if you are going to visit Boston, but worthy of a special trip - it is absolutely awesome (for once this is the proper use of this overused word!).

 

After that, I trekked off in search of birthday presents for a 60 year old, fairly unsuccessfully but found the very best shopping area just as the old pins were giving up:   if you get the T to Copley Square and cross Newbury Street, it is actually interesting proper shopping and not all the same chains as everywhere else.

 

When I got back to the boat we dashed off and did a food shop ready for our departure and treated ourselves to another evening at G’Day (the Aussie bar).   The next morning we discovered that the weather forecast was looking rather nasty "heavy and damaging hail" does not sound like the stuff you might wish to be re-anchoring in, nor was the possibility of a tornado, so we postponed our departure till Saturday.

 

Since then I have completed polishing the boat and Rob has done loads of work, ticked off lots of ‘to-do-list’ jobs and re-gassed the fridge with his new, all singing and dancing kit.   We were also visited by Cathy's sister, Maryann bearing three different banana breads that she made especially for us to welcome us to Boston!   She was just as lovely as her sister, full of chat about the area and again so keen to offer any help - so much so, that on Friday evening she came round specially and dropped off an Italian sub from the deli she works in, to further our education of course!  And jolly good they were too.

 

We also donned our patriot Union Jack T shirts and spent the evening watching, (along with the Aussie staff of the little bar G’Day who greatly enjoyed the small glimpse of Johnny Wilkinson drop kicking that goal!) the NBC recorded highlights of the Olympic Opening Ceremony, well until after the bar had officially closed but we didn't see the very final bit about who lit what, but Googled it when we got back to the boat.   We are a bit sad to be missing this all as well as the Jubilee, but thank goodness the weather has improved.   Go GB!

 

In the event the horrible weather did not fully materialise although it has been pretty grey, so we  finally bid goodbye to the wonderful Pat and un-glued ourselves from the dock and headed  north, to immediately get enveloped in thick fog with visibility of barely 100'.   As we had encountered lots of fishing boats and countless lobster pots in the fairly narrow channel on the way in, I watched from the bows (in full foulies) and Rob steered and hooted.   This is the first fog since we first arrived in Portugal back in 2008 and it always is a somewhat surreal feeling:  no horizon to give you any perspective, so that things looming out of the gloom could be a buoy or a boat, it’s difficult to tell.   We could see a large motor yacht pursuing us on the AIS and it transpired they had taken on a pilot to see them out of the harbour - they took things a lot slower once the pilot had been decanted on to his vessel!

 

We had intended to go to Rockport but what little wind there was would be blowing a surge into the bay there so we headed for Gloucester with occasional breaks in the fog and warm sunshine - plus the endless fishing buoys to avoid.  By lunchtime we were anchored behind the mooring field of the Eastern Point Yacht Club enjoying all the wakes of the fishing and trip boats!