June 20 -- Another Day in Provincetown

Did  I mention that we took a dock last night? Easier for our passengers to disembark, but that is not why we paid $100 more than the cost of a mooring. The reason was water access. The club where ILENE wintered chased me off without water with a heavy per diem fee at a non-water dock. And the Harlem YC's hose, to bring water out on the dock, had not yet been repaired from the hurricane damage last fall when we left.They had higher priority repairs to make.  So on the dock we filled each of the two tanks, pumped them dry and refilled. Now the water no longer tastes at all  like propylene glycol, the non-toxic antifreeze we use to winterize the boat. And this morning ILENE got the first thorough scrubbing of her topsides this year. If I was really industrious, I would compound off the few black marks and give her a coat of wax.
We have some interesting neighbors at the dock such as the fleet of whale watching boats and this excursion schooner. I took a ride on her predecessor, "Hindu," with my two older kids, before I was a boater, in the mid seventies.

Here is ILENE with the big monumental tower behind her.

I climbed to the top of the tower in the afternoon with Alex, Mark and Sarah. (this picture is from the base of the tower after the descent.) Sad to say good by to Alex  until my next trip to Oregon in the late fall or winter.

And above is ILENE, back on a mooring again, from the top of the tower. She is the larger white dot, close to the end of the pier, to its right. The docks extend from the left side of the pier.

The tower was built as a monument to the Pilgrims. The "Mayflower" landed in Provincetown first,  for a few weeks, before its leaders sought a place on the mainland near Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, across Cape Code Bay. The tower was built between 1907 (cornerstone laid with Teddy Roosevelt in attendance) and dedication in 1910 (with President Taft present). This is the same general time period  (pre WWI) when The New York Public Library and Grand Central Station were built; a national edifice complex period.  Its granite blocks were cut in Stonington Maine, where we may visit, and shipped here by schooner.

When I hauled up and secured the dink on its davit bar tonight in preparation for our passage to Scituate Mass tomorrow, my thoughts turned to Ahab and Ishmael and all the other whalers who had to lower boats when they detected whales and raise them again after the hunt.