Mischief Managed
Guru
- Joined
- Oct 24, 2018
- Messages
- 702
- Location
- USA
- Vessel Name
- Mischief Managed II
- Vessel Make
- 1992 Tollycraft 44 CPMY
Decided to do a little cruising close to home. Anchored out in Great Bay a couple of times and explored by dinghy. We have anchored near the #7 green can and near the #4A red nun. Both were excellent anchorages with good holding and no boat wakes after sunset. Most boat wakes you do encounter are from small boats, so not a big deal anyway. Current was substantially slower by the #7 green can and that was our favorite place to drop the hook. However, it's really wide open there and can be choppy if it gets windy. When we were there, it was flat.
If you venture past the #7 green can, you need to make use of the private navaids. In my opinion this is small boat only territory. The navaids are tall but skinny and not always in pairs. There's a marked route through the bay, but in certain light, you have to look really hard to see the navaids
Newmarket is a pretty, but slow dinghy ride (almost entirely no wake) about 1.5 miles up the Lamprey River. There's a tiny town dock and plenty of restaurants in a nice little downtown. Definitely worth the trip outside of green head season. The river seems passable at any tide and Navionics/Garmin worked well once on the Lamprey.
Exeter is roughly 9 miles from the #7 green can, and about 5 of it is on the lovely winding Squamscott River, which only has three or four short no wake zones so you can make time if you want to. The Exeter town dock is pretty big but only has three cleats. Downtown Exeter is easily one of the nicest downtowns in America and has tons of shops and restaurants that all seem to be flourishing. A walk around the Phillips Exeter Academy campus and the surrounding residential areas is worth the effort as it is utterly beautiful (except for the library and skating rink, which don't fit in with the other architecture at all). The Squamscott River can get skinny in places at low tide so I recommend starting the trip to Exeter on a rising tide. The tide tables for Exeter seem to be off by at least -90 minutes, so a 5PM high tide is really closer to 6:30PM. We never saw less than 5 feet at high tide, but there's a typical 5 foot swing (and I'm sure if we had tried to, we could have easily found deeper water when we saw 5 feet). Navionics/Garmin charts are OK for the ride, but following the navaids is a must.
FWIW, perhaps this is all old news, but I've been boating most of my 58 years here in NH, know lots of local boaters, and I don't know anyone that's ever done what we did, except the friends that joined us on our little adventures. I highly recommend checking it out. I plan to do it again for sure.
If you venture past the #7 green can, you need to make use of the private navaids. In my opinion this is small boat only territory. The navaids are tall but skinny and not always in pairs. There's a marked route through the bay, but in certain light, you have to look really hard to see the navaids
Newmarket is a pretty, but slow dinghy ride (almost entirely no wake) about 1.5 miles up the Lamprey River. There's a tiny town dock and plenty of restaurants in a nice little downtown. Definitely worth the trip outside of green head season. The river seems passable at any tide and Navionics/Garmin worked well once on the Lamprey.
Exeter is roughly 9 miles from the #7 green can, and about 5 of it is on the lovely winding Squamscott River, which only has three or four short no wake zones so you can make time if you want to. The Exeter town dock is pretty big but only has three cleats. Downtown Exeter is easily one of the nicest downtowns in America and has tons of shops and restaurants that all seem to be flourishing. A walk around the Phillips Exeter Academy campus and the surrounding residential areas is worth the effort as it is utterly beautiful (except for the library and skating rink, which don't fit in with the other architecture at all). The Squamscott River can get skinny in places at low tide so I recommend starting the trip to Exeter on a rising tide. The tide tables for Exeter seem to be off by at least -90 minutes, so a 5PM high tide is really closer to 6:30PM. We never saw less than 5 feet at high tide, but there's a typical 5 foot swing (and I'm sure if we had tried to, we could have easily found deeper water when we saw 5 feet). Navionics/Garmin charts are OK for the ride, but following the navaids is a must.
FWIW, perhaps this is all old news, but I've been boating most of my 58 years here in NH, know lots of local boaters, and I don't know anyone that's ever done what we did, except the friends that joined us on our little adventures. I highly recommend checking it out. I plan to do it again for sure.
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