Duxbury to Hull in an old rowboat

December 2024

By Ron Woolley

I’m definitely not a boater. I realized that about two hours into what turned out to be a 9 1/2 hour row from my town of Duxbury, Massachusetts to my old town of Hull about 35 miles north along the coast. I had completed the row 20 years ago in the opposite direction in a 14’ plywood rowboat I had built, and wanted to see if I could still manage it in the same boat with a significantly older body.

Duxbury Bay is protected on its east side by a six-mile-long barrier beach that extends south from the mainland. The barrier beach is shaped like a backward capital letter “L” with Bug Light projecting out of the water like a period after the L and Clark’s Island in the crook of the L. I planned to head out from Shipyard Beach toward Clark’s Island and then southeast around the bottom of the L. In clear conditions, the exit from the bay would have been easy for me with Saquish and Gurnet Hills on the bottom of the L providing guiding landmarks on the eastern side and Bug Lighthouse on the southwest side. Once I got outside of Duxbury Bay and into Cape Cod Bay, I planned to stick close to the coast and head north until I reached Hull, a peninsula that marked the southern end of Boston harbor.

At 6 a.m., when I arrived at Shipyard Beach, conditions seemed perfect. The water was smooth, the sun was rising with beautiful orange light, and the clouds in the sky seemed to offer the promise of some protection from the blazing sun later in the day. High tide brought the water all the way up the boat ramp, so getting my row boat from the car roof and into the water could be done in a single move. As I loaded my gear into the boat and fitted the oars into the oarlocks, a guy came down the ramp, and we started talking about the beautiful morning. He took out a really nice camera and offered to photograph my launch. As I rowed out he said he’d share the photos with me. I shouted my name to him, but I wasn’t sure he got it.

Wayfinding in a rowboat is always a little tough for me. I crane my neck to sight some landmark to head toward, and then as I turn to face the stern of the boat I draw an imaginary line from the landmark I want to head toward and one to my stern. As I row, I try to stay on that line. So as I started out I sighted Clark’s Island and as I turned to get into rowing position I scanned the barrier beach stretching up to the north with several boats anchored around me. I planned to stay on a line from the boat ramp clearing straight out to Clark’s Island. Within 20 minutes that plan was utterly futile. An unexpected fog rolled in unlike anything I had ever experienced. Like I mentioned, I am no boater. For about 10 more minutes I continued rowing. I kept the same stroke rate and pulled the oars equally, so I was pretty confident I would be continuing in the right direction. At this point I was enveloped in fog. Visibility was maybe 10 yards.

In the east, the sun was a bright spot, the only object I could even vaguely identify. I stopped rowing; the water was flat, I couldn’t tell where the water ended and where the fog began. The situation was beautiful and terrifying. I heard boats passing in the channel (I was pretty sure I was on the far side of it) and planned what I would do if suddenly I were no longer in the boat. I thought I could swim east toward the sun, then probably land on Clark’s Island or somewhere inside the backward L. Then I worried that if I were already below the L, swimming east would dangerously take me out into Cape Cod Bay. Then the fog got so thick that I lost sight of the sun. I felt like I was about to hyperventilate, but realized that that wasn’t going to help.

I checked the mapping app on my phone. I was so close to Clark’s Island, but I couldn’t see anything. I headed south, checked my phone, and realized I was now just south of the backward L, so I turned east to move along the bottom of the L. I could clearly hear the fog horns from Gurnet Lighthouse just to my north and Bug Light to the south. Occasionally I could hear horns and motors from power boats, but I only saw a couple when they passed close by. Then suddenly what looked like the edifice of a giant white colonial house rapidly emerged from the fog. It was the front of a giant fishing boat – I had rowed way out past the barrier beach and into Cape Cod Bay. I avoided the fishing boat and headed north west for about a mile at which point the fog had lifted and I would see Duxbury Beach stretching for miles north. I had only been rowing for 2 1/2 hours.

The southernmost part of Duxbury Beach was empty, but as I headed north along the coast a few 4x4s appeared along the drive-on section of the beach. Though I didn’t stop to talk with anyone, I was really happy to see people in the clear light of day. Eventually I noticed someone taking a picture of me in the boat, and I wondered how I might get a copy of what they got. The drive-on section of the beach transitioned to the walk-on section and eventually I crossed into Marshfield where houses lined the shore. I burned through miles without having to think about navigation at all.

About midway through the town of Marshfield I turned to see white water splashing around a collection of partially submerged rocks. The coast jutted east a bit, so I turned east and continued. I heard seabirds squawking as they landed on the rocks. Then the sound of the seagulls turned into some weird barking and huffing noise. Several seals popped up ahead of me when I turned around to look. More seals were languidly lying on some of the bigger rocks. Some of them slid into the water, and suddenly seals were popping up all around the boat. I tried to count, but new seals joined the group as others swam away. There were over two dozen. I did my best seal impression, and a few of the seals followed me. People had told me that if you see seals, you’ll see sharks, so I worried a little about that. But the area was a shallow, rocky maze, so I enjoyed the seals while trying not to crash into any of the rocks. Eventually the sea bottom plunged down and became sandy. One intrepid seal followed me into the open water for about a mile and a half.

Although I had looked forward to getting in the zone and rowing straight along the coast without having to consider navigation, I started to think that Marshfield was really long. As I passed from one group of houses to the next I tried to convince myself that I was now in the neighboring town of Scituate. With lots of people out enjoying the beach I wanted to row into shore to ask what town I was in. But I held back, because deep down I knew that I was still in Marshfield, and to have a stranger confirm that would have really crushed me. When I saw the sand bluff called the Fourth Cliff I knew that I had left Marshfield.

Did I mention that I’m not much of a boater? So the decorum and obligations involved in crossing a channel aren’t second nature to me. Generally that’s not a problem, but this was a Sunday afternoon and apparently every boat in the area was using the channel. I crossed close to the end of the channel, and increased my stroke rate considerably, as I gauged my distance from boats that were entering and exiting the channel. I was either able to speed past oncoming vessels or turn slightly to not become a nuisance until one really big and very fast power boat roared toward me on its way out to sea. The pilot didn’t seem to be in the right of way, but my survival seemed more important to me at the time, so I took evasive maneuvers and got tossed around in his wake.

Once I crossed the Scituate Harbor channel I headed out toward Minot Lighthouse to avoid so many extra miles along the winding coast of Scituate and Cohasset. This got mentally tough because Minot light is a mile off shore and about five miles from the channel, so I didn’t have many reference points to assess my progress. I periodically looked over my shoulder to check that I was headed straight to the lighthouse, but for a long time the lighthouse didn’t seem to get any larger. I wondered if I was moving at all. I got excited any time I passed a lobster buoy. Despite the gray sky, the darker gray water, and the gray stonework, Minot Light was beautiful.

From Minot I would vaguely see the hills in Hull, but except for the wind turbine on the border between Hingham and Hull I couldn’t see much to determine how much distance I had left. So I settled into counting strokes to 100 and starting over again. Even though the water and wind were so calm, I must have looked ridiculous rowing out there. Fortunately passing boaters kept me entertained for most of the last leg. A group of shirtless guys on a powerboat sang “there goes my hero” [from a song by the Foo Fighters] and I assumed they were encouraging me, but maybe they were mocking me. In another boat a guy shouted to his friend – “this guy is far away from home.” And a woman on a third boat asked if I needed any help. With under 8 miles left, I told her I was having fun.

When I could distinguish Strawberry Hill from the other hills in Hull, I knew I was almost finished. I saw Hardings Ledge over my left shoulder, and began to cut in toward shore hoping to land just north to Strawberry Hill. After 35 miles of rowing, I turned perpendicular to the shore and rode a small wave right up onto the beach. I leapt out of the boat to keep it from becoming a nuisance, when I realized how wobbly my legs were. I asked a guy nearby if he could help me drag the boat up to the road. His entire young family pitched in to quickly move the boat in a way I never would have been able to manage alone at that point. I checked my watch. Nine-and-a-half hours had passed since I left Duxbury. I beat my time from 20 years ago by 2 ½ hours and the old boat handled itself well, but I still wasn’t much of a boater.

When he isn’t trying to earn a living, Ron Woolley enjoys being uncomfortable while running long distances, hiking with ungainly loads, and occasionally rowing for extended periods of time. He lives in Duxbury, Mass., with his wife and two sons, who are both better rowers than he is.

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