Dulcinea

We have spent the last three days in this beautiful place called Edgartown.  Edgartown sits at the eastern end of Martha's Vineyard and is a small town and harbour set on the entrance to a well protected bay.  You enter from the North and into a marked bay and head what looks like straight towards a beach.  As you get closer you start to see a narrow channel off to the right and you steer in towards this channel.  The start of the channel has a beach on one side, which is Chappaquidick Island, and a sand spit and lighthouse on the other.  As you move down the channel there are boats moored everywhere and you can see the town off to the right.  Its composed of a number of jetties and mooring piles jutting out into the water from a tree lined shoreline rising gently.  The buildings are all low rise and there is a holiday feel about the place.  The channel winds in along the front of the town and then curves around to the left into an opening bay which is filled with mooring buoys on the water and grand holiday houses with beautiful lawns on the shore.  

Edgartown lighthouse

Edgartown Waterfront

We had contacted the Harbourmaster earlier  for a mooring allocation.  Due to the time of year its easy to get moorings now as the hoilday season is over.  We were allocated a mooring at what seemed the extreme end of the mooring field behind a large catarmaran called Casa de Mer.  We were wondering why we were so far away from the town and assume this has nothing to do with the fact that we are a pommy registered boat but more due to our size.

On the first afternoon Peter and Claire went into town for a look around while Scott and Nic had a quick tidy up and then had an early one as Scott was still pretty shattered from the sail down.  The next day it was back into some school for the kids in the morning.  The schooling is getting easier in terms of execution but the volume is still quite daunting and we are worry that we will not complete the entire syllabus.  What we keep telling ourselves is that any deficiency will be made up in the life experiences from the trip - helps to assuage the parent guilt!!

Note the coffee

Unfortunately our electronic navigation equipment only works for the boat

The next few days we all had a look around the town.  Its got to be one of the nicest places we have visited.  Really relaxed feel to the town and it does not rely too heavily on the nautical themes .  As with most of the islands there are no franchises to be seen so the shops and restaurants are all quite unique.  There are trees everywhere lining the streets and with the perfect weather its just enough to wander around and enjoy the sunshine.  When we come ashore its a real treat to be able to go and get a coffee and some simple food of some sort.  We were treated to a meal out by Peter and Claire one night in a restaurant which is a once or twice a month type experience these days.  It was at a wharfside place called the Atlantic which have there own boat to go out over the continental shelf to get fresh fish for the menu.

The meal was great.  Its interesting in American restaurants because generally they are a lot noisier than elsewhere.  It seems that each table has to talk slightly louder than the one next to it in order to be heard and so slowly the volume in the entire restaurant rises.  It is not something that you notice immediately as it kind of envelopes your table gradually over the evening and you yourselves are forced to talk louder, but at the end of the night if you sit back it is deafening.  It is most noticeable in New York and Boston.  We were sitting outside with a view of the wharf and at around 8:00 o'clock they had the weigh in for a fishing competition being held - "Catch the biggest fish, win the baddest truck" was the advertising slogan.  Some of the game boats were just returning and we saw them unloading the fish which were not huge but certainly big fish.

The rest of our time here has been spent relaxing and buying a few souvenirs.  Peter and Claire managed a bus tour around the island. 

Interesting Sculpture

So the interesting facts about the island are a) this is where Jaws was filmed.  This was the town of Amity and b) as mentioned above also the setting for the Chappaquidick scandal involving the Kennedy's.  (I am assuming that everyone remembers Jaws but the younger members of the audience will have to google Chappaquidick and possibly Kennedy's for this to be of any relevance.)

Interesting plaques like this all over the towms

200yr old tree

We are off back to Newport in about an hour.  Wind is 5 to 10kts  but may be too westerly for it to be of any use to us.  The transit will take us about 5 to 6 hrs.  We now have a period of about 1 to 2 weeks in Newport to carry out some further work on the boat before heading down to New York.  Pete and Claire will depart in the next couple of days.

We would definitely recommend this part of the world to anyone looking for a great holiday.  The towns are beautiful, the people more than hospitable and the weather is perfect most of the time.  I guess for people outside the states it may not be the first place to think of for a vacation but it really is a great destination.

Edgartown in the morning from the anchorage

Edgartown from the anchorage