Sunday, July 29, 2012

How about a long walk instead?

The weather forecast seemed promising enough. With light wind through the weekend, we'd stay relatively close to home, spending Saturday night on the hook at Lovells Island.

All seemed nice enough as we left Marina Bay mid-morning. As we motored through Dorchester Bay though, the fog settled over Boston Harbor. South Boston Yacht Club mooring field: gone. Castle Island: gone. The radio was buzzing with ferries, "approaching the Long Island bridge," "entering The Narrows" and the like. I watched Spectacle Island disappear into the mist.

I've been in fog before. I deal with it. Not this time, though. The thought of being on the hook, in the fog, at an anchorage that's just a bit of bad navigation away from some heavy traffic didn't seem like the best way to spend the weekend. So reversing course, back we went to Marina Bay.

Naturally, the fog seemed to lift and the sun came out. By then though, we had shifted plans and were heading for a walk to the end of Quincy Shore Drive and back, with a stop for fried clams along the way.

We had a good walk, met a good handful of people, some with dogs, some not, found a nice park where Bear could swim, ate clams and steamers at Tony's, walked back to Marina Bay and took a nap. Then of course the rain came.

We might have had a nice hike on Lovells Island, too, and there was enough food on board that we wouldn't have missed the steamers and clams. But the prospect of being on the hook, rowing to Lovells with Bear, in the rain, before dinner, after dinner, before bed, IN THE RAIN...

I'm pretty happy with the way the weekend turned out.