I’ve written a few times about Provincetown Massachusetts which is on the very tip of Cape Cod. The town is small but has just about everything you would need. It’s super well protected, has a solid grocery store, two hardware stores, and mail store, post office, etc. all within a short walk from two dinghy dock options.

The town also has a 100% free pumpout boat. Call the Harbormaster on VHF 17 in the morning and they’ll put you on the list for the day and when the pumpout person shows up (almost always between 11 am and noon you’ll get your visit. They’ll visit you anywhere in the harbor as often as you need.

The only downside to the town is that it’s a dry town. Meaning there is no fresh water. The town has to purchase water from a neighboring town and so getting fresh water comes at a price. There is a water dock that is coin operated so it’s not inconvenient.

My own love of Provincetown came the first time I visited with my son. We anchored in crazy fog and went to bed. The next morning I surprised him with a pride flag for the spreaders and he got to raise it. Then we went to shore. I think we had made it about 1,000 feet, not even, when he went from a hunched over gloomy teen to a standing tall hands on his hips proud gay man. I thought I’d done well. But pTown has it’s own magic for the LGBT community. From that moment I was hooked and credit the city with empowering my kid.

So I knew it would forever be an important place for me, and us all in general. The harbor is also super convenient for all of Northern New England with even the farthest points in Maine being just a double overnight away. And while the holding is excellent, we’ve held strong while it was blowing 40+ sustained, I wanted a mooring.

This summer (2023) I received an unexpected bonus from work. Well, the bonus was expected but it was significantly larger than I expected. Turns out that the surprise amount was almost to the dollar what it costs to have a permanent mooring installed by the local mooring company, to pay the fees to the city via the harbormaster’s office, and to pay for the first year’s annual maintenance. Just around $3,000 for the mooring, install, and town’s fees. Then $700 in the fall to have it pulled, serviced, and placed back in the spring.

I am looking forward to making this mooring my summer home. With the short term goals of a massive solar upgrade, a conversion to an electric galley, and perhaps getting a portable watermaker we should be sitting pretty in pTown next summer with just about everywhere we like to visit in the summer between 10 and 50 hours away.