With a gale in the forecast, temperatures in the teens, and a very good friend who is captain of a freight boat to Martha’s Vineyard, what better time to go boating than 4 am in early January aboard a sturdy little newspaper & bread boat?
I was feeling very landlocked after New Year’s, surrounded by sick people, smug in my vaccinated cocoon of invincibility but itchy to get outside and away from the winter of discontent. Walking the schnauzer on the beach, my gaze went to the horizon and I thought about a ferry ride to Nantucket to read some whaling logs at the historical society. But then I remembered Captain Jeff and the Quickwater, so I wrote an email and asked if I could be supercargo some morning.
This morning was that morning and it was awesome, bouncing over Vineyard Sound across the narrowest stretch between the Cape and Martha’s Vineyard in a howling northwest gale, rolling over unseen waves, the spray freezing on the railings, searchlight casting for the channel cans and day markers on the end of the jetty in Oak Bluff.
I snubbed the spring line, helped unload the papers into a waiting van, and for all of 120 seconds stood on Martha’s Vineyard before we cast off and headed right back to Falmouth where the daily bread waited.
All in all the best morning so far in 2025.