Ship Happens!

Well here's one for the books. Last Friday night I was sitting in the backyard, having a little fire in the backyard kettle when I got a call to go by a larger fire at a friends house. I was on what I thought was to be my last beer and my intent was to go in and get ready for the night.
Well, as I was explaining my intentions the caller hung up on me after declaring,"Every party has it's pooper and you're this one's."

I didn't mind being hung up on, but getting called a party pooper was just too much to bear. So I banked the fire and grabbed myself another beer and walked on down Littleneck St.
When I got there, there were 3 other people and a nice warm fire. Within a few minutes 4 more people arrived and slightly later, one or two more. In a short time we had about 10 people sitting in a nice ring around Sid's fire pit, well on the way to a good conversation.
As I was grilling John, sitting to my right, about the finer points of his being an extra in the Providence Irish Mafia based TV series "Brotherhood", someone asked what's that out in the water?

There was a light, apparently atop a boats mast, along with a bow light. I suggested it was a sailboat that was getting awfully close to the shore. In fact there is a sand bar and ledge that extends out in the area. Within seconds someone else stated that the sailboat was in actually a sport fishing boat. Within seconds of that, I said it looked like a 90 foot fishing boat. Suddenly the deck lights showed that it was indeed a very large boat within feet of the beach, about 500 feet south of us. They were practically in someones back yard, as beachfront rights go, of course.

Stacy ran down to the boat to see what the hell was going on. In a few minutes she came back and said "they don't know WHERE the hell they are." Shortly after that there were only 2 of us sitting at the fire, but we did see (but barely hear)the Martin's Prius go back and forth between the house and the beach 3 or 4 times.

Eventually some of the people who showed up at the beaching were Phil Lacerda of the Fairhaven Police, Beth David of the Fairhaven Neighborhood News and Eric Dawicki of Northeast Maritime Institute. Eric can be credited (and seen in the photo) with wading out waist deep and shouting instructions of how to free the Hilena M to the skipper of the boat, who by the way refused to throw down a ladder and from what I gather, spoke little English. Check out this Thursday's edition of the Neighborhood News for the real poop.

In these days of radar, depth finders and GPS, how the skipper of that boat missed the country's richest seafood producing port by a literal mile eludes my senses. Although it did happen before in 1932.
Never the less it provided a night of mild excitement and curiosity. In fact it spilled over to the next day. On Sunday afternoon Stacy 'rounded the troops, or should I say crew, for a New Bedford Harbor Boat Tour. Coincidentally, John who sat to my right at the campfire, was our boat's captain. John did a magnificent job, both piloting the craft in and about the fishing fleet docked at the various piers, despite my interruptions of useless information and questions. There was also an outbreak of 'International Talk Like A Pirate Day' leftovers.
Such as, "What's your favorite letter of the alphabet?"
"Arrrrrrr."
By the way I got to ride in Louise's Chrome Yellow Saturn convertible. A very nice ride with the top down on a sunny September Sunday. Thanks Louise!

The tour left from the wharfinger building on State Pier in New Bedford, where we parked our cars. The brick building is also the original home of the New Bedford Seafood Display Auction, which has been recently reintroduced. After the "3 hour tour...a thrrrree hourrrr tour", no it was more like an hour. As we were returning to the pier we went under Route 6, between Fish Island and the Crystal Ice building when John shouted, "Is that the Hilena M?" And lo and behold thar' the blue ship was!
All along the boat sat within eyesight and less than 100 feet from where we parked. Because it was berthed 4 deep at the pier we couldn't get close enough to place the "Neighborhood News" sticker Stacy had brought along. Several pictures were were taken of the stern and her name to prove our 'sleuthiness'.