So as a bit of back story, Choate Island is where the majority of the 1996 film, "The Crucible" was shot. It contains several building that date back to the 1700's and is the cite of choate cemetery, which houses a bunch of really dead people.
We arrived at the entrance around 2pm only to find out that it was $25 to enter, which all complaining aside, is probably worth it when you could be paying that much just for a parking spot at any nearby beach. After parking the car we headed up to the information kiosk to find out what the cost/departure times of the ferry ride to Choate island were, only to be greeted by two of the biggest morons ever allowed into The Trustees of Reservations. If you work at a place that has a beach and a ferry to an island, don't you think you could find it within your ability to know about these two things? After having an aneurism at the mere utter of the word ferry as if it was the first they had ever herd of this mythical water machine of the future, they responded with, "There is no ferry. You guys can't get onto island." Challenge Accepted. Operation Pelican consisted of a two mile hike to the inlet that separated the island from the peninsula, a half mile hike along the end of the marsh, Stashing of our dry gear in a shitty $.50 poncho, Transfer of cameras and shirts to a dry bag wrapped in a life vest code named: water baby, a short trek out on the sandbar and a few hundred yards swim across a boat channel to the island where we promptly lubed each other up with sunscreen, all while two boats filled with sunbathers anchored in the inlet 50 yards from us watched intently for the 45 minutes trying to figure out, I can only presume, what the fuck we were doing. So after getting all set we headed on the gravel road up to a large barn. After exploring for a bit, we realized it was getting late and that the tide was coming in so we decided not to walk barefoot on jagged rocks for another mile up to the old houses and graveyard and instead headed back to the channel in order to swim across. So every good outdoorsmen and survival expert with half a brain knows that the worst idea is to swim across an ocean channel while the tide is coming in, especially if that channel is in a boat lane and you have nothing to distinguish yourself from the water around you. Unfortunately we didn't quite have that half of brain requirement and dove into the water and started swimming across the channel, which was now at least a quarter-mile wide. I would like to note at this point that my largest concern was that we carry the two sip left gatorate bottle back across the channel in order to chug it at completion "Is it in you" style, so thank Mike for risking your life to allow me to have that victory sip. So after almost getting hit by 2 boats, being asked if we were ok by a number of other watercraft, almost drowning to ensure water baby's head did not go underwater, and loosing sight of Mike, we made it safetly across the channel only a half a mile down current from where we started. After miraculously locating our gear, Patrick shredded the ultra protective two for a dollar coating and we set off Vietnam style in what was now 4 feet of water that had once been the half mile beach trail we took to get there. We got back to shore and impressed the shit out of an old man who asked us what we were doing then dried off and repacked our bags and headed back the remaining two miles of the dune loop to our cars. The trail system inside the park is completely awesome, I would say the best i've hiked on in the north shore area and I would recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind hiking that long in sand. Also it's worth noting that we saw no one else hiking the trails the entire time we were there. The $25 entrance fee is fully worth it for the dune hike alone, not to mention atmosphere, beach, and any half stupid plans you can come up with while your there. Oh and if the dude from the Information Kiosk is reading this, we got to that island bro. Mission Accomplished.
Mileage: Didn't use the boots!
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| Moon Dune. |
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| Barn. |
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| Inside of the Barn. |
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| Choate Island. |
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| Dune hike. |
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| Hike Guy. |
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| Mission Successful. |
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| Hiking in the Wooded section. |
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| Some folks were born to wear the flag. |
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| Operation Pelican. |
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| Dune Protection. |
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| Hiking back. |
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| View of the ocean from the dune trail. |
