Cape Cod Canal
We started our morning in Cape Cod Bay and headed south through the Cape Cod Canal. Started in 1909, the canal route connected the Manomet and Scusset Rivers. When it was opened as a privately owned toll canal in 1914, it was as much as a 100 feet wide and at least 25 feet deep. The government purchased it in 1928 and decided to deepen the canal to 32 feet and increase the width to 480 feet to ease navigation and decrease the chance of accidents. The southern entrance was also redirected to Buzzard’s Bay and it became a free public waterway.
The calm water would soon give way to large swells as we left the protection of the canal. As expected, the eye of Hurricane Kyle hovered just 60 miles east of Martha’s Vineyard, making our scheduled activities for this afternoon less than appealing. In true expedition fashion, we changed the plans and headed for Newport, Rhode Island. In every direction we looked there were sailboats taking advantage of the afternoon wind. We were fortunate that the weather held and we went ashore to explore Fort Adams and the Yachting Museum. It is a testament to the skill of our expedition team that we were able to have such an educational day with such short notice.
We started our morning in Cape Cod Bay and headed south through the Cape Cod Canal. Started in 1909, the canal route connected the Manomet and Scusset Rivers. When it was opened as a privately owned toll canal in 1914, it was as much as a 100 feet wide and at least 25 feet deep. The government purchased it in 1928 and decided to deepen the canal to 32 feet and increase the width to 480 feet to ease navigation and decrease the chance of accidents. The southern entrance was also redirected to Buzzard’s Bay and it became a free public waterway.
The calm water would soon give way to large swells as we left the protection of the canal. As expected, the eye of Hurricane Kyle hovered just 60 miles east of Martha’s Vineyard, making our scheduled activities for this afternoon less than appealing. In true expedition fashion, we changed the plans and headed for Newport, Rhode Island. In every direction we looked there were sailboats taking advantage of the afternoon wind. We were fortunate that the weather held and we went ashore to explore Fort Adams and the Yachting Museum. It is a testament to the skill of our expedition team that we were able to have such an educational day with such short notice.
