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9/3/2012 - Boston Harbor Islands 2012

2012-09-28T02:51:27Z

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Boston Harbor Islands 2012

September 1-3, 2012

Written: September 4, 2012

As I write this I find myself stuck in the confines of a courtroom serving my civic obligation to the government in the form of jury duty. This bleak room is a stark contrast to Lovells Island, which I departed from not twenty four hours ago after a very enjoyable Labor Day Weekend in Boston Harbor.

My experience with the harbor islands started well before I stepped foot on the ferry and beheld them with my own eyes. Much to my dismay, my alarm went off at 7:00, again at 7:15, and finally at 7:30, at which point I was just able to drag my exhausted body out of bed to go food shopping with Westy Ford. Fast forward five and a half hours of criss-crossing BJ's and Stop&Shop (and some driving) and I was standing on Long Wharf next to the Marriot hotel with enough food to sink a ship, and hopefully keep twenty some-odd people well fed over the coming two days.

On the ferry ride over to Georges Island, between marveling at the view of the city and the commercial jets flying overhead on approach to Logan International Airport, the crew told us that they had held the water taxi to Lovells Island for us so that we didn't have to wait another two hours for the next one with all of our gear. Needless to say that when the ferry docked at Georges Island, we moved our gigantic piles of gear between boats in just about a minute, so as not to keep the taxi waiting any longer. At this point we met the crew that would shuttle us multiple times across Boston Harbor, Chris and Jen.

This was also the first of many times that we would hear about the boat itself, the Bayview, a canal boat from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. As we heard many times later in the weekend, it is driven up from Florida every summer on top of a flatbed truck. Also, because it is a canal boat, it doesn't play nicely with chop and wakes like you find in Boston Harbor. Unfortunately for us this meant that the boat would take water over the bow, and if the wave was big enough, could soak the people sitting at the front of the boat. Fortunately due to Jen's piloting skills, the waves only broke over the bow once or twice.

When we departed from the Bayview, we beheld Lovells Island, which was to be our home for the next two nights. We were greeted by the two resident DCR rangers on the island, one of whom looked strikingly similar to Shia Lebouf. They appeared to be around college age and they told us that they would be having an end of the season bonfire on Sunday night, as it was the last weekend that the island would be open to camping for the year. They directed us to our campsite, a wide open field at the southern end of the island bordered by small trees and abandoned gun emplacements from the time when the island had been home to Fort Standish. Immediately this worried me because I did not see any trees suitable for setting up my hammock, which I use in lieu of a tent. Eventually I settled upon a location up in one of the old gun emplacements looking out over the field where everybody else was busy setting up their tents.

After getting settled, we decided to take a swim on the eastern side of the island, as the other side had dangerous currents, or so said the rangers. As several of the others gladly swam along, I was standing in the water looking skeptically at it, as I have been spoiled by the crystal clear waters off of Cape Cod my whole life and was unsure about the quality of the water.

After getting over the fact that the water in Boston Harbor is not quite as clean as that in Wellfleet and swimming for a time, the group explored the entirety of the island, including several abandoned bunkers and gun emplacements. On this exploration we found a few features that looked promising for bouldering, but upon later investigation found that the concrete used to build the gun emplacements really sucks for climbing, despite how well formed a crack may be for it. The one feature on the island that I did climb successfully was a bunker which had since collapsed off the side of a cliff on the west side of the island, leaving a large block of concrete with a wall littered with potential holds. It was way sketchier than I had anticipated; about 80% of the holds I tested came out of the wall effortlessly, but I was able to navigate a route along the length of the block before topping out on its sloped roof.

Despite that fact that the water took forever to boil, we eventually had a very satisfying barbecue dinner with corn around sunset. Grace, Drew, and Jon even came to visit on Drew's sailboat, which was a pleasant surprise. After cleaning up, we started a fire at the southern tip of the island near the campsite. Keiji ate a mussel that someone had picked up at low tide, further cementing my endorsement for him as chum-bucket this coming year. After a short while, the length of the day caught up with me and I slithered into my hammock for some well deserved rest.

The next day brought us away from Lovells Island to Peddocks and Georges Islands, each time being shuttled between islands on the Bayview by Chris and Jen. We first explored Peddocks Island, home of abandoned Fort Andrews and the shooting location for Leonardo Dicaprio's film Shutter Island. After a greeting from the rangers, we explored the old mortar emplacements, cliff-top gun batteries, and several bunkers. Before departing the island, Keiji picked some apples from trees on the island, and a few rounds of ladder golf were played on the field in front of the ranger station. Some of the group had gone swimming toward the southern end of the island and Jason apparently found a sweet free standing boulder, which I learned of too late to take advantage of it. On Georges Island, we all explored the expansive Fort Warren, which served as a prison during the Civil War, where they apparently served "rats of the sea" (lobsters) to the prisoners. We tossed the frisbee around in the interior quad of the fort, and climbed one of the trees, only to find some crazy, nasty looking wasps had made it their home.

Upon returning to Lovells we set to making dinner again; the Cassano potatoes were a huge hit, which made me feel really good about my choice of menu. Adam and Liz returned with Gabe, who had brought his sailboat out to the island for the weekend, and Yarian, who had returned from Seattle for the weekend, after a day of sailing. The whole group then went down to the western beach to take group pictures with the sun setting over Boston in the background. After the sun set we checked out the rangers' bonfire for a little while, then returned to our fire pit to make our own. After some night swimming and lighter fluid shenanigans, it was time to call it a night again.

We woke in the morning to thick fog, which made it a little easier to face the reality of packing and leaving, but caused later headaches having to dry out gear from the condensation. This also made for an extremely eerie view of Boston's skyline from our little island. We said our last goodbyes to the rangers, Chris, Jen, and of course the Bayview, and transferred to the ferry bound for Boston. As we came back into the city, the clouds had lifted once again, and we were greeted by the glistening buildings on Boston's waterfront.

When all was said and done, we docked at Long Wharf to face the inevitable reality that fall classes start in two days. But summer didn't end without one last triumphant "Hurrah!"

-Lou Cassano, VP Trips Fall 2012

Trip Reports

2012-09-28T02:49:15Z

Revision as of 02:49, 28 September 2012		Current revision
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