Days 77 & 78, September 2-3 -- Isles of Shoals to Gloucester and Lay Day -- 29 NM

As rough as it was yesterday, so was it calm today. We passed close by the east side of Isles of Shoals and saw, for the first time from the sea, the rocks of Star Island on which we had scampered in 2013.

Sort of like those at Peggy's Cove but not so large and with many fewer people, none at that hour. See Blogpost of August 2013. No foot touched on land this year.
Not much wind so the motor was on until near the end We put up all big sails, close hauled on a starboard reach; they did not help much until we passed the twin lighthouses of Thatcher island (why did they put up two of them?),

just off Cape Ann. and then more so after rounding Eastern Point, the eastern entrance to Gloucester.

We also passed Ten Pound Island Light inside the harbor.

Labor Day weekend in Gloucester - the good news and the bad are both the same: this is the happeningest weekend of the year -- Schoonerfest, so no moorings were available for us. During the two prior visits to Gloucester we took a mooring of Brown's Yacht Yard. This time no moorings; but they had one spot available for us on their dock. It cost more but put us at the center of the action. But first ILENE got her first real scrubbing since the spring, with soap and a brush as well as water (all except the starboard freeboard which was not very accessible). A lot of dirt got rinsed off and the plastic inserts in the dodger and the side panels now let in a lot more light.
Come nightfall the annual parade of powerboats, with lights and sounds. Right past our dock which was crowded with spectators. The participants did a lot of work and someone won a prize. My favorite "float" was a fishing boat that hung lighted lantern from its poles, appearing as colorful jellyfish slowly pulsating in the air as the boat moved slowly past us in the dark. Superman flew from another with the soundtrack from the movie. The last time we saw something like this was Christmas in Florida 2014: but it's too cold do this at Christmastime in Massachusetts. The parade was followed by a pretty good fireworks show for a town this size and all the while rock dance music emanated from a wedding party in a rental tent 150 feet away. In 2013 we "did" Gloucester --  its shops, artists peninsula and museum so we did not feel compelled to go touring here.
We had planned a short passage to nearby Marblehead the next day, as we did in 2013, but it rained, causing the lay day in Gloucester.
The port was full of schooners,

including the biggest of the fleet of them the one we last saw in Shelburne, Nova Scotia.

A schooner race was planned for Sunday but it got put off to Monday because of the all-day off-and-on rain.
So we read and wrote, I booked a trip to visit family on the west coast, tried to set up for a rendezvous with Lee and Patty, friends on The Cape who we had visited at their home in Hyannis last summer, and with PC Mark and Marsha, from the Harlem, who are cruising their 31 foot sloop, "Leeds The Way," hopefully to Martha's Vineyard; and we paid our bills.
In the afternoon it was "date night" We took a cab across town (around the harbor) to see the new movie, "Wind River," a well acted but gory detective story set on an Indian reservation with empathy for the plight of Native Americans, followed by dinner at The Causeway, a family seafood restaurant with zero ambiance, next door to the movie, that was full of people because it serves huge portions of pretty good seafood at very reasonable prices. We could have saved money on the cab rides had we lowered the dink and driven it to the other side of the harbor before the movie and back after, but in the rain, Lene said no. She is wise

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