We discover the friendliest town in the US

We ended up spending much longer in Gloucester than we had initially planned. We arrived in January and at this time, we were still struggling with some extremely cold weather. When we found the Cape Ann Marina, located on a sheltered river, we decided to settled down for a month or 2 until the weather would go above freezing. Being placed on a tidal river would hopefully ensure that the water wouldn’t freeze – Karl the dock-master had offered us a very reasonable deal to stay for a while, far better than anywhere else had offered. While the marina was in “winter mode” we had electricity on the dock, the use of a shower, and could get fresh water from a hose near the marine office. The hotel was being refurbished but the restaurant and bar were still open. This was perfect. It ended up being the coldest winter this area had seen in many years with lots of snow and with a few days with a lot of wind but we felt warm, safe and welcome in Cape Ann Marina.

The facilities at Cape Ann Marina are excellent. There is a full-service boatyard with two travel hoists, fuel, water, and pump-out services, along with toilets, showers, and a laundry. All floating docks are equipped with 30A and 50A shore power, and despite temperatures dropping below -17°C (0°F), we experienced no issues with the harbour freezing—just a thin surface layer forming overnight, which was quickly cleared by the current and tide. Water depths at some docks exceed 4 metres, though it’s worth keeping an eye on the tides; we saw lows of -0.6 metres. The marina is also very well sheltered, making it a secure haven in stormy conditions. The staff were all extremely helpful, and we received numerous parcel deliveries without any problems.

Nearby in Gloucester, you can refill or exchange propane cylinders, and there are several well-stocked hardware stores, chandleries, and working boatyards. Limited provisions are available locally, and several supermarkets are just a short taxi ride away. The supermarket near the railway station (about a 30-minute walk) closed during our stay, and it was unclear whether a new one would open in its place. We used the train service several times and also hired a car through Truro to explore more of the surrounding area.

One thing we’ve discovered is that most marinas in the US do not offer winter rates for transient moorings. They’re either completely closed—with pontoons removed from the water—or open at the same high rates charged during peak summer months, despite offering reduced or no facilities. Prices in the US are far from cheap; we’ve seen rates as high as $10 per foot per day, plus electricity (sometimes up to $50 per day), and that’s before tax—totalling up to $500 per day. We were even quoted $160 per day for a mooring buoy.

We genuinely cannot find a single negative thing to say about Cape Ann Marina. Everyone we encountered—whether in the harbour, aboard working fishing boats, or at the Mile Marker One hotel—was friendly and helpful. It’s the perfect place to spend the winter. That said, we’ve heard it gets extremely crowded during the summer season.

Gloucester a vibrant town full of music, literature, art and fishermen.

It takes 20 minutes to walk into the Main Street of Gloucester and most of the walk is on the waterfront promenade with the iconic statue “Man at the Wheel” and the memorial for the fishermens women and kids. It is also great to look at eider ducks dive at the Blymann’s Bridge, so the walk is really nice.

As we mentioned in the previous blog post, this area is used in many movies, so it is fun to watch them and then walk around the area and spot the places.

We became a little famous while were were here, appearing in the local news Good Morning Gloucester who interviewed us and wrote a story about our Sailing journey to get here, and when we left one of our new friends wrote a further lovely farewell article here

A town full of live music

We quite quickly heard rumours of a place with live music every night called The Rhumb Line. Those who know us, know we are suckers for live music. So we quickly found ourselves drinking beers with the locals and listening to live jamming sessions – especially Matt Rich and friend will be remembered for a long time. The place is great and it is hard to get a seat on most nights. Rumours are that the cocktails are very generous with alcohol, but we found that the very good Lunch IPA from Maine Beer Company is also a little strong.

We also had some brilliant nights at Minglewood, where there is a bigger dance floor and you can also have a nice meal. If Funbucket is playing you will be in for a dancing night, while Corey Wrinn will play some great original music.

At the Blue Collar Lobster you can get a great fish sandwich while dancing to live music overlooking the harbour. The place has a great location.

For a more cocktail bar experience you can visit the Drift.

To end the night in a perfect way, you should go to Pratty’s, for some authentic American bar atmosphere. Most people bring their own pool queue to the table, so you will look like a newbie if you pick up the bar queues. Eventhough the bar opens at 8.30 am, we’ve been told that this is where you should end the night.

Rocky Neck Art Colony

A longer walk will take you to the oldest art colony in America called Rocky Neck. If the weather is nice, this walk is highly recommended as you will see interesting wooden historic houses. You will walk past a former wooden church that looks like a norse fortress and an old dock building turned into an atmospheric print shop.

You will also walk past the Gloucester Writing Center, where the passionate local writers meet to feedback on each others projects and where they host local writing events. Sarah was lucky to join this place while we were visiting and met some lovely people!

At Rocky Neck there are so many galleries, which will make you want to rest your feet and recharge at The Salted Cod. Here we got the best espresso martini ever and some delicious spinach and archichoke bites. If you want to meet some friendly artist you can contact The Rocky Neck Art Colony and hear if you can join their Monday croquis drawing session or find out if they have a show on. These people are so friendly and welcoming. We enjoyed a show at Hammond Castle, which is a fascinating castle, built by the man who invented the Hammond organ in 1930s and looks like a medieval castle.

You can get anywhere from Gloucester

That might be an exaggeration, but the train line will take you to centre of Boston in an hour (and it is cheaper to take a night at a hotel than to moor the boat). On the train ride there you can visit so many historic places. We learned that the train has a weekend ticket that will let you ride all weekend for $11!

Boston for paddy’s day

We ended up going to Boston for St Patrick’s day and it was interesting experiencing the parade surrounded by young people drinking BORG, a gallon jug with vodka and a flavored soft drink.

Boston is a beautiful historic town, but also very pricy. So if you want to save money, then we found the Boston Tea Party experience quite unimpressive. Instead you should go to the free Harvard Collection and see the famous artist and walk around the historic college.

Mini trip to New York

We took little trip to New York and it was only a 6 hour train ride away. It is hard to figure out the prices in NYC as the hotels often have several taxes, facilities charges and a “resort fee” added to the room price, but we managed to find a reasonable and quite new one close to the central station (after Steve had been swearing at booking.com for 2 days). Last time Sarah was in NYC, she stayed at the worst rated hotel in the city and Steve wanted to prove he could do better. Which he did.

We went there to visit a family friend, who is an official guide, and who gave us a guided tour around lower Manhatten. We also did all the touristy things like walking on the Highline, going to a play on Broadway, experiencing amazing views from the EDGE and taking a walk in central park.

But when it comes down to it, we are probably more Boston people as we found it nicer with trees and cafees on the streets and historic buildings to look at.

Salem, Manchester-by-the-sea, Essex and Rockport

All around Glouchester you find old historic towns that are very picturesque. Most famous is Salem, known for the witch trials, where 20 people in 1692-93 got executed for being witches. These stories still haunt the town today and it is a bit of a Disneyland for people who love Halloween – we have heard. In more recent history the Satanic Temple build their church here to “encourages “benevolence and empathy” among all people”.

Manchester-by-the-sea is a real sailor town. We were lucky to get invited to do a short talk about our Viking Route adventure and it was difficult to keep it to 10 minutes.

Essex is interesting as this little town is filled with antique shops, but even more interesting is their Shipbuilding Museum where you can dive into their 300 year long history of building wooden boats.

Rockport is a real summer town and full of galleries and cafés (and packed in the summer we heard). You’ll want to take a pictures of every angle of the town if you visit.

Road trip to the OCC

While we were here The Ocean Cruising Club (OCC) were hosting their AGM at Newport. Thanks to a fellow sailor and member we got a ride to spend a couple of nights in this historic sailing town. We attended the event and this was a great opportunity to meet up with many of the members who we chat with online but rarely get to meet in person.

Boat stuff and Cape Ann Marina

Our stopover in Gloucester was also the perfect opportunity to receive some deliveries and carry out a number of important maintenance and upgrade tasks.

After a year of sailing, we had built up a list of small improvements and routine maintenance jobs to tackle. These included:

• Servicing the engine and transmission.
• Full inspection of all electrical circuits.
• Replacing our previously damaged raw water filter.
• Carrying out a full inspection of the rig for any signs of wear or deterioration.
• Updating device software and charts.
• Finding a solution to keep the iPads charging in sub-zero temperatures.
• Purchasing additional gas cylinders.
• Replacing some worn mooring lines.
• Replacing the damaged Navtex Screen (Hit by a flying coffee grinder in a big roll!)
• Replacing our now obsolete Drobo network storage device.
• Replacing the freshwater pressure switch.
• Replenishing various spare parts we had consumed over the year.

Toilet Upgrade

One upgrade we decided was essential and worth featuring was replacing our toilet. We had converted our manual Jabsco to electric three years ago, but the Jabsco conversion unit proved to be unreliable. It required an expensive service kit every six months to replace worn seals and components, and its poor design led to failure just after the warranty expired. To make matters worse, the conversion units had increased in price to nearly the cost of a complete toilet, and cheaper aftermarket alternatives from Seaflow fell apart after only a few months. It was also the noisiest toilet imaginable — you practically needed ear defenders! It was definitely time for a proper solution.

As with many boat projects, this one took far longer than expected. Based on Steves previous good experiences with Raritan toilets, we decided to switch to their Ph Powerflush model, which offered both manual and electric flush options. It seemed like a great idea, providing redundancy in case of electrical failure. However, after spending a couple of days removing the old toilet and installing the new one — which was advertised as having the same mounting pattern as our old Jabsco (true only for the manual version, unfortunately, as the powerflush model required new holes) — we quickly discovered some serious shortcomings.

The electric motor that drives the pump has a significantly shorter stroke than the manual operation, making it far less effective and noisier than our old Jabsco. Flushing performance was poor, and overall, the design just didn’t meet expectations. After discussions with the manufacturer and Defender Marine, our pipework runs are longer than recommended but I wasn’t going to move skin fittings to accommodate a new toilet, we know our plumbing worked fine with the old toilet so we arranged to return and exchange it for different make or model. We found Defender to be an excellent online retailer in Canada and the US.

As part of the upgrade, we had also replaced all the hoses — undoubtedly one of the most unpleasant jobs on a boat. Poor access was only part of the challenge; removing the old hoses required cutting them away from the fittings, which was messy and time-consuming. While we were at it, Steve decided to reroute both the inlet and outlet hoses slightly and install a pair of high-quality (and expensive) Groco Vented Loops or anti-syphon valves well above the waterline. This gives us peace of mind, eliminating any risk of flooding from syphon back flow once and for all.

Toilet upgrade Part 2!

Our earlier research had shown that the latest Jabsco Quiet Flush E2 would be a good fit for the space we had available. We had chosen the Raritan because it claimed to use the same mounting holes as our old toilet, but since we ended up drilling new holes anyway, we decided we might as well continue down that path.

The Quiet Flush E2 comes with some clever features. It’s very easy to convert between freshwater and saltwater flush, and you can even set it up to switch between the two. The outlet can be oriented in any direction, with the discharge pump mounted to the left, right, behind, or even in front—meaning no changes are required to the routing of the outlet pipework. The inlet feeds directly into the bowl, either via a remotely installed freshwater solenoid or a raw water pump. Perhaps the best feature is that the discharge pump can be removed without tools (well, almost—there’s a single screw securing the cover), so clearing blockages or carrying out maintenance or replacement is quick and straightforward.

We purchased a service kit and a complete spare discharge pump, as we’re sure this will need some attention over time. However, we didn’t feel it necessary to carry a spare raw water pump (we already have other spares onboard that could serve in a pinch) or an additional controller.

Installation was relatively straightforward. After removing the old toilet, we filled the existing holes with epoxy filler and, for a neat cosmetic finish, applied white vinyl wrap to the base plate. Fortunately, Steve was just able to reach far enough underneath to use stainless steel nuts, bolts, and washers to secure the new toilet through the freshly drilled holes.

So far, we’re happy with its performance. It’s quieter than our previous toilet—though not exactly “quiet flush”! We like that it uses a relatively large volume of water per flush, but it also offers an eco mode for use with the holding tank. It’s also easy to fully drain the bowl when we’re at sea, which is a definite plus.

Meeting fantastic people

Towards the end of our stay we were joined by a small fleet of scallop boats from Maine. All the skippers and crew were super nice and several times we had freshly caught scallops appear on the boat.

It’s always difficult untying the lines and setting sail for new destinations especially when the stay has been so enjoyable. We have met so many amazing people who made us feel so welcome in their town and in their homes and we would like you thank you all for your generosity. We will cherish all the memories and hope to see you again.