It was raining pretty heavily when I woke up yesterday morning. But I really, really wanted to ride. So I checked the forecast ... "gradually clearing". Good enough! I waited a half-hour until the heaviest rain let up, threw on my rain jacket, biking gloves and helmet, and headed out...
The light rain was actually pretty refreshing on this warm spring morning. I enjoyed hearing the swish of my tires on the wet roads. The rain ended after about fifteen minutes or so, and off in the distance the Boston skyline emerged from the misty gloom...
Inspired by the the beauty of the moment, I decided to ride out to Hough's Neck (pronounced "Hows Neck"), which is a rocky stretch of land extending into the southern part of Boston Harbor.
At the very tip of the Neck is "Nut Island". This was a true island until the late 1700's, when farmers built a connecting path to the Neck to give their cows more land to graze on (it's amazing how much influence cows had on Boston's landscape!). The path eventually became a causeway, and now the island is simply a little bump-out at the end of Hough's Neck.
At the far end of Nut Island is a long fishing pier. I got off my bike and walked out...
Pretty eerie, don't you think? Looks like a good place for a Cold War-era spy exchange (it wasn't actually as lonely as it looks though; there were some folks fishing just behind me). Standing there on the end of the pier, I looked out on the great expanse of Boston Harbor...
The air and sea were were quiet, but normally this is a place of constant movement. Planes roar overhead, tugboats pull in container ships from faraway places, ferries rush between islands, and speedboats leave foamy wakes in the paths. Beneath the water is a vast network of channels, drainage pipes, tunnels, and countless shipwrecks.
I thought about the unseen navigation grid that allows captains and pilots to move through this complex old harbor. Lighthouses, buoys, and the control tower at Logan Airport are its only visible signs. It reminded me that Boston Harbor is first and foremost a place of work. Thousands of untold stories are played out on its shores every hour of every day.
So the harbor did seem calm that morning ... but it was a deceptive calm. That's what makes this place so wonderfully mysterious.
Later that morning at about 9:30 am, I was sitting at a sandwich shop enjoying my morning coffee and bagel. The sun was shining brightly now; there was no hint left of the gray, atmospheric beauty that hung over the harbor just three hours earlier. That was a unique moment in time ... well worth a short ride in the rain.
Beautiful! I used to run a lot. It was always one of my favorite things on a hot summer day to run in the rain. I've been too chicken to try it on my bike yet. I don't have a feel for how those smooth, skinny tires will work on wet pavement. I guess there's only one way to find out!
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