A Sailing Adventure

The gang is all excited. They have been reading about the planned arrival of the tall ship Nao Santa Maria at Newburyport on the Merrimack River this weekend. If the name sounds familiar, you might remember it from your school history class. This is a replica of one of the three ships Christopher Columbus sailed to the Americas. I had planned on using my smart phone app to call us an Uber but Merry pointed out they didn’t have cars in 1492. The rest of the gang joined in and challenged me to make this a real history adventure. (They might regret this!)

While I was surfing the internet on my phone looking for some brilliant travel adventure ideas, I sort of wasn’t looking where I was going and walked into some gray painted oak boards. My phone went flying to who knows where, and I got quite a knock on the head. After the stars cleared from my vision, the answer to my adventure was right in front of me. The Woodpile’s pirate ship had been pulled ashore for some repairs. We could sail our own ship down the Powwow River to the Merrimack River to meet the Santa Maria. How hard could it be?

The Tropiflys were concerned that the harbor patrol might impound a pirate ship, so, they made a new flag. We re-christened the ship the H.M.S. Nutcracker. I am not sure if we came up with the name before or after we drank the case of champagne.

I am experiencing a “minor” technical difficulty.

Did anyone see me? Apparently not. Now how to I upright this thing?

Chippy “We’re all set, time go.” Merry to Chippy, “Ahem, I think we need to put it into the water first.”

We have reached downtown Amesbury without incident. Amesbury is a former mill town. Before electricity, combustion engines and even steam power, the mills were powered by water wheels and turbines. They took advantage of the steep drop in elevation afforded by the falls to run the machinery of the woolen mills … Hey gang, we need to stop the ship NOW there is a waterfall ahead!!!

Lucky for us, Spitfire can lift 20x her own weight. She flew the ship over the falls while the rest of the gang walked around.

We followed the Powwow River from downtown Amesbury to the mighty Merrimack River. The Amesbury stretch of the Merrimack River has a long history of boat building. The most famous landmark is Lowell’s Boat Shop. Originally started in 1793 by Simeon Lowell, it is the longest continuously operated boat shop in the United States. It is best known for its dories. Today it is a working museum.

Here is a fun fact: did you know that there was a silver mine underneath the boat shop? No, I am not pulling your fur over your eyes. According to the Newburyport Daily Herald, on November 11, 1875 a contributor wrote “… I refer to the mining operations on the land and directly beneath the shop of Wm. D. Lowell, Esq. Early in the fall Mr. Lowell discovered in a crevice a short distance from [the] high water mark, indications of silver and lead … The shaft now being sunk is some fifteen feet from [the] high water mark, directly beneath the boat shop.”

Spitfire flew over to take a closer look. Outside of the shop is the shallop from the Mayflower II undergoing restoration work using traditional tools and techniques.

Three dories are tied up in the river. The museum shop allows folks to rent one of them and take them for a row on the water.

We reached the mouth of the Merrimack River and we were engulfed in a fog bank. We couldn’t see a thing. Without modern navigational equipment we were in serious trouble!

We ran aground on the Plum Island side across from the North Jetty. Thankfully, we missed the rocks (just barely). After all of that adventure, it turns out the Santa Maria was running late and would becoming in on the midnight high tide.

The next morning we woke up to learn that the Santa Maria had dock in the wee hours of the night.