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September 26th, 2009 – Boston, Massachusetts
by Herb McCormick
From sea, some fifty nautical miles out, the horizon is still pitch black. At forty miles, you begin to see the loom, the dim halo just starting to pierce the darkness. But when you’re twenty miles away, the skyline of the great city of Boston is clearly apparent: it looks like Oz, and to the crew of Ocean Watch, in many ways it was.
Almost four months ago, the 64-foot cutter Ocean Watch left Seattle heading due north, for parts mostly unknown. In the days before departing, on countless occasions, we were asked our route, what the plan was. I can’t speak for the entire crew, but I could never actually bring myself to say “Around the Americas.” At the time, the notion seemed so audacious, so ludicrous, that I couldn’t fathom it. So my answer never varied:
“We’re headed to Boston. Look, if we even get to bloody Boston, that will be a miracle. Ask me again in Boston.”
And then, in the very wee hours of this morning, there it was…
Boston.
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| The last three hundred sixty miles from Halifax were awful. Happily, the last twenty made up for it. |
It represents so many things: the Celts, the Sawk, the B’s; the North End, Back Bay, Kenmore Square, Southie; Duck Boats, the Commons, Sam Malone; the Charles River, Cambridge Square, M.I.T., Hah-vahd Yahd; Whitey Bulger, Larry Bird, Bobby Orr, Matt Damon; J. Geils, Aerosmith, Buffalo Tom, the Boston Pops; Legal Sea Food, Locke Ober, the late, great Inn Square Men’s Bar, sausage and peppers on Yawkey Way; the Tea Party; Paul Revere’s epic ride.
The Big Dig. The new skyline for the New Boston.
There it was.
When we pulled alongside our berth at Rowe’s Wharf in the heart of downtown, the ship’s log said we’d sailed 8,492 miles since leaving Seattle. Eight thousand. Four hundred. Ninety-two.
Frankly, the last three hundred sixty from Halifax were awful. It was a three-day sail that felt like a three-week ordeal. The first hard gale was from the south, the second from the north; painful if symmetric, they were bookends of misery. Maybe we were cocky. Four hundred miles in the North Atlantic in September can present rugged challenges. Now we remember.
Happily, the last twenty made up for it. Out of the maze of lights – flashing reds, yellows and greens; in multiple shapes, durations and patterns; Christmas in September – the channel into the inner harbor finally materialized. Planes were zooming into Logan. Our own Logan – first-mate Dave – had to smile. Fishing boats were outbound as we rolled in, the timing of our arrival in perfect synch with the new sun blinking awake from the east.
We were in Boston.
On May 26th, we were in the final throes of preparation and mayhem in Seattle, tearing out our collective hair.
On June 26th, we were motoring out of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, bound for Nome and the Bering Strait.
On July 26th, we made the acquaintance of one George Divoky, the Bird Man of Cooper Island, one of the countless unforgettable characters we met along the way.
On August 26th, we made our way through fields of pack ice and then, amazingly, into and out of ice-free Bellot Strait at the very top of North America, our last major hurdle in the Northwest Passage.
And on Sept. 26th, after some of the wildest sailing of our lives through icebergs and then gales in the Labrador Sea and the North Atlantic, we dropped our sails in Boston Harbor.
We were a third of the way around the Americas, at the end of the first long leg along the Yellow Brick Road.
Though there’s no way of telling what lies ahead, for now, the crew of Ocean Watch couldn’t be happier about being tied up safely and securely…in Boston.
- Herb McCormick with photographs by David Thoreson
This crew log submitted by Iridium OpenPort and Stratos
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