Benilde

In the early months of the pandemic, as June loomed on the horizon and it was unclear if we could travel from Gloucester to Maine, we struggled with the choice of launching Billy Pilgrim. If we launched in June, would we be able to haul the boat at the other end? If we had Billy on the mooring, would the Gloucester Harbormaster be running the launch for us to get out to the boat? And a pile of other questions. So, much as it pained us, we decided to leave Billy shrink-wrapped.

Instead we turned toward Lesley’s 15-foot Boston Whaler for our pandemic boat. We upgraded the engine from an ornery 70-hp Mercury 2-stroke that billowed blue smoke and failed more often than it worked, to a beautiful white 50-hp Suzuki 4-stroke that purrs like a kitten. We keep Benilde tied up at our dock by the house on Walker Creek, from which we can scoot out when the tide is right—not so low that we scrape the rocky sill under the bridge, not so high that the shiny Suzuki scrapes against the underside of the bridge. The new engine changed everything— we explored the tributaries of Essex Bay, the Great Marsh, Ipswich, Newburyport. We took the kids tubing, enjoyed beaches without having to negotiate the Covid throngs, circumnavigated Cape Ann, buzzed over to CK Pearl’s in Essex for the pandemic bonus of cocktails-to-go. Despite the dark chord when we occasionally encountered Trump-flag-flying raft-ups, the new engine changed our quarantine game, and opened up the world.

And now, with Billy Pilgrim on the mooring in Gloucester Harbor, we have been trailering Benilde over to the boat launch after a day’s work in order to load Billy up with all the things as we prepare to head out. It’s such a good little boat.