Gloucester Harbor is very well protected, but it's also very dirty. The water is full of diesel, dead fish, flotsam, and glop. It's intended for commercial fishing boats, not recreational boats. There are no facilities at all for recreational boats, although there are a dozen or so anchored or moored in the center of the harbor.
We paddled in to the town dock, which is located in the filthiest corner of the harbor. When we went in, it was high tide, so it wasn't too bad, but when we returned at low tide, yuk!
We strolled around town. Found a tourist information center where we were able to get some maps and other info. Found out there's a trolley-bus that runs on weekends and will take us all over the area for $2, so we'll ride that tomorrow. There are regular buses, too, that only cost 35 cents, but we didn't succeed in catching one.
The streets in this town twist and ramble all over the place. None of them runs straight, so the blocks aren't square or rectangular; they're all sorts of oddball shapes.
Like most New England towns, Gloucester is very old. Many of the houses were built in the 1700's. Also like many New England towns, it is poor, dingy, and dying.
We wandered around a while and then ate lunch in a little cafe. Then we wandered some more. Went to the City Hall, because we had read that visitors could go up to the third floor and get a great view. Guess what--on Fridays the City Hall closes at noon. Crossed the street to the library to get a bus schedule. On Fridays, the library closes at one o'clock. We got there at one-fifty. Yup.
Some more wandering, and we found the train station, a bus stop, a super market, and a McDonald's. Roy wanted to take a ride on the train, but I didn't like the idea of paying a surcharge for not having tickets in advance. We waved down a bus, but it was just going around the downtown area, so we didn't get on. The driver gave me a schedule. They have buses going all over the place. We waited a while for one, but it was after three by then, so we decided to buy our groceries, take them back to the boat, and paddle around the harbor. We spent several hours paddling around, and Roy stopped to talk with a number of fishermen. Some were unloading big barrels of eels. We also watched a barge being loaded with rocks. Found a beach we can land on if we don't want to go back to the town dock. Saw a sign that said "TOONA BATE". Oh well, if you know how to fish, I guess you don't need to know how to spell.
When we were back on the boat, we noticed another sailboat very close to us. We don't know if it was dragging its anchor or if we were dragging our anchor, but we would have collided if Roy hadn't pushed the other boat away, so we raised the anchor again and moved to a better location.
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