Off to Nantucket and why you should never use the showers at the marina

Oak Bluffs in Martha's Vineyard was becoming very busy yesterday as we were getting ready to leave. Everyone was going "shark fishing" and so we needed to pack up and get on over to Nantucket. Here's a picture of the boat next to me with about $12,000 (no joke) of fishing poles sitting in the rocket launchers behind the helm:
Susie was not impressed... I was.

We went up to a little place called The Sandbar and had some breakfast about 8:30:
After that we walked into town and I had to get a couple pair of short pants and a belt. I've actually lost 2 inches on my waistline since my surgery. Oh yeah... the clothes here are really expensive. Here's the shops looking up the street:
There is also an arcade up the street there and Timmy has been loading up on these damn cap guns. I have these guns and cap blanks everywhere on the boat now. I think he has like five guns...
We finally got ready and left Oak Bluffs about 10:30. I was a little concerned as the ride over to Nantucket is only about an hour and that would put us in early but I figured we would give it a shot and see if we could check in early. Here's the view as we were leaving Martha's Vineyard:
And a shot of the ferry service as we passed:
The Nantucket Sound had waves about 1-2 feet when we left and was just wonderful weather:Once we got about half way there, the wind started kicking up to about 15 knots gusting to 18-19 knots out of the SW so the waves started to build up a little but it was fine. Here's a shot of how to track the fridge that the coast guard said was floating somewhere:I told people later in the day the coodinates were for the great white we were chasing. I went down below for a second and found this guy sleeping on the back and violating the life jacket rule:Everyone now fights over who can lay on the seat since I had it redone this year. It is very comfortable.

We pulled into the inlet to Nantucket and here's a sight:Mr. and Mrs. Sailboater and the guy has on a tight speedo and big ole' boner going on... probably was all worked up about my wake.

Here's a few pictures of the harbor as we entered:I radioed Nantucket Boat Basin and sure enough we were a little early. We got here about 11:30 am. They were very nice and said they would try and work us in so we just hung out in the harbor. John dropped the jet ski off the back and went over to the fuel dock and filled it up while we waited. There were some pretty big boats waiting around with us:I don't have pictures of this but this guy in a fairly new 48 Sea Ray Sundancer comes flying in (with a big wake rocking all the boats moored out) and radios the Boat Basin. They tell him, very politely, "We have a line in front of you but will try and work you in as soon as we can." The guy on the boat get's on the radio about 5 minutes later and barks out "Boat Basin, this is 'XYZ' (I forgot the name) and we need to get into a slip now. We have *reservations* unlike the rest of the clowns waiting out here." Whoaa... That wasn't nice. The only response from the Boat Basin was "Four Suns? We have your slip ready for you. Thank you for being patient." The guy in the Sundancer was pissed. The people here at the Nantucket Boat Basin are extremely polite and top notch so that was really bad IMO.

We got our boat docked and here I am showing off my hairline... or lack thereof:The dockhands here actually knew how to help dock a boat. Amazing... So here we are all tied up and no where to go for ahwile. Thank goodness.We wandered up town to look for a place to eat some lunch. There was this smell of burgers on the grill coming over the boat basin and making everyone hungry. The docks here are right on the edge of town:And we ended up going to this place for lunch:We got a nice corner table upstairs:Everyone was apologizing about the "heat" here. It's like 80 degrees. You've got to be kidding me... Here's a shot of Susie blowing Coke out her nose after we got her laughing so hard:We came back to the boat after lunch and did a little boat cleaning and I needed to head out and pick up the Jeep I rented for the week. I wanted to get a car so we could go to the beaches and let the dogs run and stuff.

So now about the showers. The docks here have little cottages on them that I guess you can rent. Also, the shower stalls and laundry facilities are all in these little buildings on the docks. As I'm walking down to the street to meet the car picking me up, I am coming up on the shower stalls. This is not a good picture as I had to whip out the camera but I don't think anyone would believe this if I didn't have this picture:This woman with her kids is walking by and taking pictures of people IN THE SHOWERS over the upper windows!!! The kids are yelling "MOM! STOP IT!" and she is happily holding her camera over trying to get these pictures... and yes... someone was in there with the shower running. Unbelievable... There is a "no discharge" rule here so they want you to use these showers instead of the ones on your boat... not happening. She took pictures of all the shower stalls...

I got down to the end of the street and met my driver:Would you trust this guy? He drove me through the city here:And all the backed up traffic:
By the airport (the FedEx plane is looking for some packages from Martha's Vineyard):And to the airport terminal so I can pick up the car:And yes... I thought "Hmmm... I could actually book out of here and go somewhere else now."

So this is the little deal no one told me about when I got this rental jeep. I *assumed* I could park it at the marina. There is no parking at the marina. In fact, there is no parking ANYWHERE around here unless you buy a $2000 parking permit for the year. So what I am dong now is illegally parking the car over in the "employee parking lot" by day, and moving it to a parking lot in town after 8pm but have to move it back to the employee lot by 8 am. What a pain in the ass! Oh well... we really wanted to do the beach thing here so we shall see how this works out.

Later in the day, the fog started to roll in to the harbor and it really cooled down. We ended up going out to dinner but I'll write about that later.

The town here and people have far exceeded my expectations so that is really great. I'm also glad I don't have to run the boat for a few days. Off to the beach today... if my jeep is still there.