My View of Life on the Dock
You are invited to join the “Light Up Mattos” Committee and Cape Ann Women’s Softball League for the opening of the new lights for the
Joseph S. Mattos Jr. Field
Webster Street, Gloucester, MA
Wednesday June 7, 2017 7:30 P.M.
Refreshments will be available… hot dogs, chips and bottled water.
Please feel free to invite family members and friends for this long anticipated occasion.
Join us as we celebrate the re-launch of the Museum’s Flagship, the Lewis H. Story! Music, food, libations and family activities in the Shipyard, it will be a great way to kick off the summer season. Saturday, June 4th, at 4pm at the Essex Shipbulding Museum.
Photo: Wooden Boat Magazine
In 1998, the Essex Historical Society and Shipbuilding Museum commissioned Essex builder Harold Burnham to construct a Chebacco to serve as the museum’s flagship. She measures 30 feet on deck and her hull, deck arrangement and rig are typical of post-Revolutionary War inshore fishermen.
The STORY is named in honor of Essex shipwright, carver, designer, modeler, researcher and the town’s foremost maritime historian, Lewis H. Story, 1873-1948. All contemporary studies of Essex history and the design of the American fishing schooner are based on his life-long study and scholarship.
During the American Revolution, the British nearly destroyed the New England fishing fleet. Since capital was lacking to build replacement schooners, a low-cost, quickly built vessel was needed. A little two-masted boat, then popular for the inshore fishery, seemed to fit the bill. Because it was developed in Essex which was then a parish of Ipswich called “Chebacco”, the vessel was known as a “Chebacco Boat” if pink sterned (pointed) and “Chebacco Dogbody” if square sterned (the origin of the term “Dogbody” is not known).
Chebacco Boats were built by the hundreds not only in Essex, but in other coastal towns as well. Typically, they measured between 22 and 30 tons and averaged from 24 to 48 feet in length, had two masts and no bowsprit. They were usually a flush-deck vessel with several cockpits, or “standing rooms” in which the fishermen stood to fish. A middle hatch gave access to the fish hold.
Local Essex tradition has it that the first Chebacco Boat was built in the attic of a house. This is likely more legend than fact. However, Chebaccos were almost always built near the dwelling of the builder and sometimes no more than a few yards from the front door. When finished, the boats were loaded onto pairs of wooden wheels and hauled to the launch-site by teams of oxen. Boat hauling went out of favor about the year 1835. Thereafter, all Essex vessels were built on the river’s edge.
“There are Chebacco boats building for the Bay Fishery not only at every landing place, but in the yards of farmers some distance from the shore“.
1817, The Reverend William Bentley, of Salem
Check out photographer Nicole Dahlmer’s new series inspired by road trips across America and Iceland along with her Gloucester motifs. She’s created 3 different sets of limited edition photo greeting cards based on new work, and is donating 10% of the proceeds to the Sierra Club.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/NicoleMDahlmerArt
Dahlmer’s is excited to announce that she’s opened an Etsy shop where you can buy her work. She participates in local art fairs and exhibits, and you can find her cards at Pauline’s Gifts.
Follow Nicole M Dahlmer on Facebook
Our Open Faced Benedict with asparagus & black bean hash #PerfectlyPoachedEggs #PutSomeHappyInYourBelly
3 Duncan St
Gloucester MA
In the former Alchemy space
Join us for a week long Open House celebration in honor of the 5th Anniversary of our Christopher Cutler Rich Animal Shelter! Featuring adoption specials, photo opportunities, snacks, prizes, donation drive and more!
BRING 5 DONATION DRIVE!
We invite you to bring donations and 5 is the magic number! …5 cans of pet food | 5 rolls of paper towels | $5 dollars | 5 gift cards | 5 pet toys | 5 packages of treats etc. Thank you!
Open House Hours:
Saturday 6/3- 11am-4pm
Sunday 6/4 – 12pm-4pm
Monday 6/5 – Closed
Tuesday 6/6 – 11am-5pm
Wednesday 6/7 – 11am-4pm
Thursday 6/8 – 11am-7pm
Friday 6/9 – 11am-6pm
SPECIAL HIGHLIGHT — SATURDAY, 6/3, 11am-2pm:
Gloucester’s ‘Love Fest’ Project is coming to Cape Ann Animal Aid! This interactive community art project is traveling throughout the city this summer, spreading messages of LOVE and POSITIVTY. ♥
Annual multi-family indoor yard sale to benefit Cape Ann Animal Aid on Saturday, June 17th from 9am-4pm. Rain or shine! Meet shelter pups and shop for great items to support a great cause! Generously hosted by Cape Ann Auction, 82 Main St., Gloucester, MA. 
Check them out for your pellet stove and hearth needs
Address: 7 Pond Rd # 1, Gloucester, MA 01930
If you want to know what Monday night’s Schooner Challenge is all about watch this video interview with Captain Harold Burnham and Captain Anne-Seymour St. John from Barry O’Brien 🙂
MONDAY NIGHT’S SCHOONER CHALLENGE NOW INCLUDES THE LEWIS H. STORY!
Proceeds to benefit the Evelina M. Goulart, the Essex-built, Gloucester fishing schooner.
Tickets may be ordered online at essexshipbuildingmuseum.org or call 978-375-3337.
I have been hoping to take a photo of a female Eastern Towhee, and here she is, with a mouthful of breakfast for the nestlings! She hopped from tree limb to tree limb with her treasure, ta-weeting all the while; no small accomplishment while tightly clamping down on that big bug.
Look at the beautiful white-tipped underside of her tail feathers
Pretty sunrise over Jones River Marsh
Snapshot of a male Eastern Towhee taken several weeks ago in the same location. I wonder if they are a pair? It’s unlikely we’ll get to see the nest. Female towhees build their nests on the ground and they are well-camouflaged, being made of bark, twigs, and dried leaves. There is a dense tangle of undergrowth where I am filming and it’s probably fraught with ticks, so on the path I stay.
A few more from this morning sunrise over the river
“Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form inself on the edge of consciousness.” ― Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
As the fog was thick on Wednesday and the fog horns were sounding, the flags on the Blvd. were looking great.
Rubber Duck and the A01 Buoy both say it’s time to go for a swim!
The 80.1 F is just the seaweed warming up at low tide but that 53.8 F is a sensor three feet down and it’s real. Just Google “A01 Buoy” which is a couple miles off Gloucester Harbor and you get the exact same temp.
What’s it all mean? It means it’s time to go for a swim! It’s time to toss a few poppers because Mrs Striped Bass has arrived. She waits until it is 50 F. What are you waiting for?
If you’ve gone, go again. There’s always new work to see. If you’ve never been this is a must see event. The 2017 spring Cape Ann Artisans studio tour route features 20 sites, 14 in Gloucester and 6 in Rockport. Participating artists include Beth Williams jewelry; Sinikka Nogelo painting and assemblages; Rob Diebboll painting; Mary Ann de Buy Wenniger’s paintings and prints; Mi Robertson painting and sculpture; Margaret Rack sculpture; Jacqueline Ganim-DeFalco sea glass jewelry and accessories; Sara Wright handwoven works; Camilla MacFayden textiles; Bond Street Studio; Marcia Rae; Ruth Worrall; Bart Stuyf; Twin Lights Studio; Pam Stratton; Elizabeth Harty; Cynthia Curtis; David Archibald; Anni Melancon; and Deborah Gonet.
“For more information, visit www.capeannartisans.com or download a brochure and map. You can also come visit us during the Columbus Day tour, October 7-9 and look for us during the holidays. There will be updated information on our web site.”
Shep Abbott, (film/video producing, directing, and writer), video tapes an interview with Wayne Soini author of “Gloucester’s Sea Serpent”, for the documentary “Gloucester Speaks”.
Wayne Soini Shep Abbott
Happy Belly is chock full of talent. Bakery? Check. Happy Belly will have hand crafted foodie heaven pastries, cookies, and all manner of can’t wait to see what’s made daily baked goods. How do I know since it’s not open? Trust me they have it covered.
Master pastry chef extraordinaire, Melissa Hays, is in the house
Sticky Fingers is sticking around. And I can’t wait to look up! Artist Danny Diamond will be tackling that chalkboard wrap around. Diamond painted a showstopper for Happy Belly sister restaurant, Minglewood Tavern at Latitude.
Happy Belly, 3 Duncan Street, Gloucester, MA, a Serenitee Restaurant Group property.
Another Door Opens sneak peek inside Happy Belly ‘before’ buildout in process April 2017
A visitor with her dog from Nashua New Hampshire
A visitor originally from Vietnam, I recall taking to him last year on the breakwater.
Good Morning Gloucester 