Harboring: Kingston

Harboring takes us to Kingston today...

This isn't technically a Harbor, and is more of a river... but it has boats, and that's good enough for Cranberry County Online.

This little boat spot is nestled on the lovely Jones River. The Jones River runs between the Bay Farm area and Rooky Nook. Jones runs back to Silver Lake and then enters into the Taunton River Watershed. It drains a pretty good chunk of our reading area.

As you can see, it goes way back into the sticks.

The worst place in the area to walk around at night.

Being on a river introduces certain logistical difficulties. This marina has a 3 Hours Before/After High Tide policy regarding entry into the marina. Otherwise, the river runs shallow, and you get grounded. Exemptions are made for fishermen and old salts, who presumably have more skill and familiarity with the mud flats than the pleasure-craftin' Yachty types. Fishermen get 4 hours leeway.

I should have zoomed in more and clipped that other boat off of the right side, but that's why you can read this for free.

From here, the party moves out into Cape Cod Bay, via the PDK Bay system. P(lymouth) Bay, D(uxbury) Bay and K(ingston) Bay = PDK.

The sides of the river are mud/alluvium, but the bottom is bedrock. They tried to lay power lines across the river into Rocky Nook back in the day, but they had to give it up because they couldn't get through the bed of the river.

I love this boat.

I also have a weak spot for things like personal-use piers.

They lack the giant fishing boats you see in places like Fairhaven or New Bedford, as those boats would have trouble with the river depths.

She actually set sail to raid British commerce during the Revolution, and had orders to avoid direct battle with British warships. They screwed that second part up and inadvertently attacked a British warship (HMS Hope) off of Cape Sable Island in Nova Scotia. HMS Nancy joined the party, and that was all she wrote for Independence.

Independence, captained by Simeon Sampson, was outnumbered two to one in boats, guns and men. They still made a four hour fight of it, and only surrendered after the crew revolted. Sampson ran through several of his own men (who were urging surrender) with his sword before eventually accepting his fate and striking the colors. Independence fought so hard, the British sailors- the undisputed best in the world- cheered the crew of the Kingston-made ship in salute, and their captain refused to accept Sampson's sword in surrender. The sword is in the Kingston town museum, or whatever they call it.

Independence is what the former Independence Mall (I've never wanted to punch a mall before hearing the name "Kingston Collection") was named after, and it is that little boat that you see on the Kingston town seal.

There's actually a Jones River Landing further downriver there, but I'll check them out in some future article. I like to spread out my Kingston work.

If you had the right boat and could convince Martin Sheen to go along, you could go up the Jones River and pretend to be in Apocalypse Now all the way to Silver Lake.

Brown Water Navy

They enjoy spectacular barrier beach protection from Duxbury Beach and Plymouth's Long Beach. They are guarded from whatever gets past those two by Rocky Nook and the Standish Monument part of Duxbury.

Everybody parks nose-in, and the docks don't stretch out past the stern of the boat, so I was unable to pursue my Boat Name fetish in Kingston. If a particularly heavy photographer steps on the ends of these docks, the dock is pushed underwater... or so they tell me.

Little boats!

The multiple barrier beach thing allows you to build very close to the water without a seawall.

The nicely stocked Take A Vest, Leave A Vest stand restored my faith in humanity a little bit.

If they had a Take A Boat, Leave A Boat policy, I'd have had better pictures... OK, I'd have had the same rotten pictures, but from cooler angles.

The Kingston Harbormaster has a cool little beach shack working there.

The area around Rocky Nook, as well as Duxbury Bay and Plymouth Bay, are prime Sand Tiger Shark nursery grounds. Even STS that are born elsewhere will come into the PDK Bay system as juveniles. They are drawn here by the opportunity to feast on bunker/menhaden. They don't/can't eat people and only bite sloppy fishermen, so don't have a panic or anything.

This 4.5 foot tooth machine was caught at the mouth of the Jones River. I asked the Harbormaster, who is the owner of the picture, where the shark was caught. "Right there," he said, pointing towards Rocky Nook. " I wanted more details, and asked "How far offshore?" He smiled the way that people of the seas do to curious landlubbers, pointed more directly to a spot 50 yards from where we stood, and said "No... right there."

That's a nice tangent, as we have an article on River Sharks coming up. 

It really does add variety to a spot where God went a little too heavy with the GREEN crayon.

If you miss the tide cycle, you're hanging out in your boat for 12 hours or swimming/wading in.

Best house in Kingston, for my money.

Cordage Park smokestack, Manomet in the background...

Duxbury, with the Standish Monument barely visible and urging me to update the camera.

Thanks to my man KHM, who showed me around and told me most of the technical stuff in this article. For all the harbors I go to, I'm a bit of an idiot with boats. The only one I ever owned is at the bottom of West Monponsett Lake in Halifax.

Thanks for having us, Kingston!

Harboring: Onset

Onset is the star of today's Harboring entry...

I'm a better photographer when I'm not banging away with a Wal-Mart phone, but I go to cooler places with the cheap Asian telecommunication device. A good camera would hate going to me, it'd feel the same way that a car would feel being driven off the lot by an angry, lead-footed drunkard.

"I need a boat to get to my boat!"

People sometimes mistake us for serious press and sail away before we can get a good shot of them.

I rarely get a good shot of anything, to be honest.

This guy, who I think was by himself, is the opposite of that square-footage discussion we have later in the article.

Boat Name Rampage for the next few pics, no moderation.

Two If By Sea... Two 350 Mercs, blogga!

You gotta get that ish into the water, player...

Country Club over Country... sometimes, the political metaphors just hand themselves to you.

A personal use lighthouse/waterfall that was probably made just before they started making ashtrays that look just like it (OK, sans waterfall)... for the love of Mary, they had to build a garden around it.

I sank my only boat, but this one looks like it would be too costly for the square footage. The thing on the front to ram larger boats is pretty cool, however... very Monitor/Merrimack.

The best part is that they can probably afford a better shanty, but they know how cool this one looks.

The flag says SATURDAYS ARE FOR THE BOYS, and the demographics on board were like five girls and two guys... two guys who it is impossible to hate.

I love boat names, believe that all boats are female (even the Edmund Fitzgerald), and I love when someone names the boat after his wife or his mom or his daughters. However, single name girl monikers are weak. Does Jane not have a sister or a middle name or something?

All that broad daylight and clear blue sky messes up my pics.

I do better on cloudy days, although I just made Onset into a hill.

Later, Onset!