We enjoyed two easy days in Salem MA on a mooring ball at Hawthorne Cove Marina.
I think I have finally come up with a good way of attaching Intermezzo to mooring balls. We run a line from the cleat in the windlass locker out through the bow roller near the center of the cross beam. We then run the end of this line through the eye of the mooring pennant and back through the bow roller. Now we have a two part purchase to haul the pennant through the bow roller for the desired length, at which point we tie our hauling line again to the cleat in the anchor locker. The boat is now secure and mooring ball is close to the boat to limit rubbing on the bows and how far it can travel under the boat between the hulls.
Now I tie a bridle line to the mooring pennant a few feet forward of the bow roller with a rolling hitch run each leg to a bow cleat, snugging them tight. This reduces how much we can swing, chafing of the pennant on the bow roller and further limits the mooring balls movement relative to the boat.
This system seems to work well, but I need to test it further in more challenging conditions to be sure or tweak it some more.
With the weather cold and damp, we haven't been able to do laundry so dirty clothes were building up. We took advantage of the nice laundry facilities at the marina to take care of this. Afterwards, we walked around town for a bit, mostly along the historic waterfront, and then had a big, filling Italian dinner.
On Friday we visited the Peabody Essex Museum, the oldest continuously operating museum in the United States. The history of the museum is particularly interesting, summarized as follows on its website,
The roots of the Peabody Essex Museum date to the 1799 founding of the East India Marine Society, an organization of Salem captains and supercargoes who had sailed beyond either the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn. The society’s charter included a provision for the establishment of a “cabinet of natural and artificial curiosities,” which is what we today would call a museum. Society members brought to Salem a diverse collection of objects from the northwest coast of America, Asia, Africa, Oceania, India and elsewhere.
The range of art and items on display is pretty amazing. I particularly enjoyed the maritime collection, especially the ship models of the Queen Elizabeth and Joshua Slocum's yacht, Spray. I also enjoyed the "Salem Stories" exhibit, 26 vignettes of Salem in alphabetical order. Did you know that Parker Brothers, the creators of board games Monopoly, Clue etc. was founded in Salem? I do, now.
As I've come to expect, the weather was all over the place yesterday. Sunny, warm, rain, cold. The day ended with a crisp, clear calm evening and then the night turned quite cold.
We're now moving Intermezzo south with purpose, on our way to Provincetown today. My goal is to be in Old Saybrook to visit my sister next weekend and then get ready so we can push off for Norfolk VA as soon as it looks safe from hurricanes and we have a good weather window.
 |
| New Holland Lines poster from the maritime collection at the Peabody Essex Museum. Just like on board Intermezzo. |
