Rockport, Massachusetts

We woke to sunlight reflected from the seawater beneath our window and dancing on the ceiling above our bed. Yellow and blue lobster traps were stacked above the sea wall opposite, like a seaside condo development.

The sight that greeted us on our first morning in Rockport.

Rockport can also look like this.

That was six years ago, and we’ve been coming back to Rockport, Massachusetts ever since. The traps are still stacked in the same spot, and many of their former tenants end their days at Roy Moore’s, just around the corner. Roy Moore’s is famous. In sunny weather, people line up all day for lobster rolls, stuffed clams, oysters and whatever else the harbour boats brought in that morning. Patrons sit out back, at three picnic tables, as Roy Moore’s athletic crew shout and laugh, heaving plastic tubs of crushed ice onto the tables of fish and plucking lobster from the boiling water.

While buying fish for dinner, I asked why cod wasn’t on offer, as in previous years. The young guy serving me was uncharacteristically curt: “They say we shouldn’t fish ’em anymore. They say not enough cod.” They clearly meant government and ocean scientists. The know-it-alls who make life so hard.

The front of Roy Moore’s is dominated by several gurgling tanks, where the doomed lobster slowly pace and pace, shouldering each other aside in the murky green.

You like hot sauce?

Asians love Roy Moore’s, and I’ve been speculating loudly, as I do when I don’t know if a thing is true, that Japanese travel guides to American points of interest must devote entire chapters to the thumb-size shack. After all, they stand so patiently in the street on the little spit of land called Bearskin Neck, waiting their turn for the legendary lobster roll in its fluffy, tasteless bun.

But Ken, the current owner of the business, sets me straight when I ask about the Asians. He gets some Japanese and Chinese tourists, but most of his Asian customers are Thai-Americans who live in the Boston area, less than an hour away.

I am crushed, and not a little embarrassed, because I’ve been to Thailand and thought I could tell the difference.

“You like hot sauce?” he asks.

“Who doesn’t,” I say.

“My Thai customers bring their own hot sauce and leave it here so it’s always in stock.”

He takes a small tub from the fridge and dunks a cooked shrimp into the sauce. I take the shrimp whole and my eyes brim with tears.

There’s a lot to see in Rockport, for just twenty-five cents.

Rockport and Cape Ann generally can be aggressively picturesque.

A punch in the nose in Gloucester

In previous years my Saturday long run would take me to Gloucester, on the other side of Cape Ann, but now that I’m waiting for my Achilles tendon to heal, I’m reduced to riding my clown-issue orange folding bike.

People who’ve never seen a folding bike point when I ride by. Sometimes I get a thumbs-up, and most cyclists grin and wave. One woman slowed down beside me, rolled down her window and demanded that I “get off the fucking road!”

Rockport is clean and orderly, and a ghost town by sunset. But Gloucester is none of these things.

Rockport can be deadsville in the evening, which suits us fine.

Down on the waterside and in the boatyards, Gloucester is rusty chains and busted concrete and ancient leaning buildings covered with peeling paint. Rogers Street, a block or so inland, is cluttered with waterfront bars and liquor stores. Men loiter outside. Tattooed, unshaven, of indeterminate age. Wearing old shoes with no laces and pee-stained pants. You see a dozen places where any number of patrons would be glad to punch you in the nose. A folding bike would be provocation enough.

Dredging was in progress when I arrived in Gloucester. Might be more waterfront redevelopment for the tourists, which is nicely done and for some reason attracts a lot of Brits.

Just across the water, another Gloucester icon. Every fishing boat heading out to sea stops at Cape Pond Ice to load up. You can buy your ice in blocks, crushed, cubed or bagged, wholesale or retail. You can also order ice sculptures and dry ice for your arena rock show. Cape Pond Ice markets itself as the “coolest shop” with the “coolest gifts.”

Up the hill, commanding views of the harbour, you find lovingly maintained old houses where the ship and factory owners lived, and where captains’ wives, generations ago, produced needlepoint samplers with homespun sayings, as they waited with a cup of tea in the gathering gloom.

When the whaling ships docked here, the sea was churning with fish. Gloucester ships fed the world, put oil into lamps and stays into corsets, while the lowest-grade fish fed the slaves. There’s still fish, but not as much of it, and the Gorton’s plant (Trusted since 1849) continues to dominate the waterfront.

Italians and Portuguese arrived in Gloucester in the nineteenth century, and their descendants still work on the boats. While I was in town, preparations were underway for the annual San Pietro festivities (St. Peter is the patron saint of fishermen), which features parades, carnival rides, boat races and solemn processions with holy icons and statues. The priest blesses the fishing fleet, says Mass, and leads nine evenings of prayer. The festivities culminate in a greasy pole contest.

Up from Rogers, there’s a main street, called Main Street, with shops and restaurants and places to buy second-hand books and costume jewellery. You can get an excellent espresso at a Sicilian café, called The Sicilian Café, but their cookies and pastries don’t measure up to their coffee.

Plaques declare Gloucester to be the oldest port in the United States. Samuel de Champlain came to Cape Ann twice. The second time, in 1606, several hundred Indigenous people met his arrival and offered a hand of friendship. Within ten years, three-quarters of the Indigenous people of Massachusetts were dead from diseases brought by the Europeans. During his second visit, Champlain also drew a map of the harbour, and called it le beau port.

The name didn’t stick.