Too quiet? Here ya go...

[Monkey Butler]

Well I haven't been posting because real life has taken precedence over my boating fantasy life. I have put off one planned trip after another but I wasn't going to let anything get in the way of this Sunday so I said "I'm going early before anything can happen to wreck it so whose coming"? The only taker was my youngest son and he asked me how early and when I told him 3:30AM wake up he said "I might as well stay up all night". That's all I needed to hear. So we left the house at 1:00AM and were at the ramp by 2:30AM. We were going to take a nap in the car but at this point we were both so pumped up we both just wanted to hit the water so we launched and had a great adventure navigating Weymouth Back River channel in the dark. A great challenge and we had a blast! Our plan was to fish the inner harbor til near dawn then head just outside the entrance (Deer Island) where we heard the blitz's were happening. While it was still dark we passed this guy...



Couldn't catch the name but it was a NCL ship.

Just before sunrise we started heading out, along with everbody else it seems...



Then... sunrise! You just can't beat sunrise on the water. It is such a spiritual thing that I almost don't feel guilty for skipping church.









Ship and plane in the last photo really gave us the sense that the harbor was coming to life this morning. Oh, never guess what ship it turned out to be...



She didn't look as big as I thought she would, but more on that later.

Once we got outside Deer Island the sea was alive with fish...



... and fishermen



Shortly after these photos the wind shifted and increased in strength and suddenly we had 3'+ waves. The single boat shown in the first photo wound up being towed in by TowBoat but there were guys out there in 12' aluminum skiffs that I thought would be swimming eventually. The schools disappeared soon after so we decided to check out some other spots. We passed this on the way...



and we found some action in some of the most industrial waters in the Harbor...



We couldn't buy a bite all day but that's fishin, right? On the way back to the ramp we cruised by this beauty. My son promised to buy one just like it for me some day.



This photo shows the true size of the QM2 as it towers over the Black Falcon terminal...



I never noticed this in any other photos of the QM2. She really has a chopped of stern just like a container ship but they added this "Bustle" on just for appearance... Blech!



Almost back to the ramp in the Back River, this photo looks upstream of the Fore River. That large crane marks the location of the former Fore River shipyard. During WWII it employed 50,000 people and built the battleship Massachusetts and the carrier Lexington. It is now a desolate wasteland.



And finally just to keep it on topic...





Anyone know this guy? If you do tell him to pull in his fenders!