Gloucester Town
Can a vegan eat ice cream? Not really, but this one does...
July 4. Gloucester, MA:
I spent last night on a mooring in the inner harbor. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I decided to put into Gloucester, but I like it a lot.
First, in addition to a well-organized transient mooring field, Gloucester maintains a small harbor-front anchorage. Tenable downtown anchorages are disappearing all up and down the Atlantic coast, as mooring fields expand like an invasive weed to cover every square foot of good water. Any harbor that commits to preserving a well-situated area for cruisers to sail in and drop the hook—a core element of freedom on a sailboat—automatically wins my gratitude and affection.
Second, anyone on a mooring has free launch service to any part of the harbor. That is always appreciated, and I admire the skilled work of a good launch driver (the less skilled ones have left a mosaic of scuffs and dings along Lauging Gull’s starboard side). If you prefer to dinghy in, there is a good public dinghy dock (also an increasing rarity in privatizing waterfronts—Lake Worth in West Palm Beach, the prime cruiser jump-off for the Bahamas, for example, makes it almost impossible).
Finally, Gloucester is an intriguing mix of working waterman and boho color. This was the home of the Andrea Gail, the fishing boat that perished in “The Perfect Storm” of 1991. There are still lots of fishing boats tucked into the wharves, and a Gorton’s plant just up the harbor. Just off the harbor, though, there are cool bakeries, bookstores and cafes. There is also a thriving arts and music scene.
It was all enough to make me want to stay for a few days. That meant dropping my mooring and moving to the anchorage this morning. The anchorage is pretty small, and the water is 30 feet deep, so there is not a lot of room, and careful positioning is required. I surveyed it all, ran my mental anchoring algorithm, and dropped LG’s anchor just astern of two other boats, falling back on as much chain as I could let out while remaining clear of the mooring field behind. Despite skeptical looks from my future neighbors, I ended up well positioned. My inflated sense of accomplishment and contentment didn’t last long, as later-arriving boats shamelessly planted themselves in the perfectly judged spaces I had left between LG and the boats around me. By evening, the anchorage was primed for overnight bumper boats if any winds or currents swirled. Prime waterfront real estate is always in high demand, it seems.
Everyone stayed skeptical but calm and enjoyed being in the perfect location to watch an eve of July 4 fireworks celebration. I have to admit I find it hard to carry on as usual, and pretend everything seems normal, as the American experiment threatens to snuff itself out. If it fails, or falters significantly, any hope for serious climate and environmental policies will likely fail with it, with terrible implications for the planet. That is a shameful legacy to leave future generations, and it leaves me feeling a little heartbroken at how our current epoch is unfolding. I am trying to maintain faith in the common sense and basic decency of a somewhat silent majority, but I can’t say I’m not (very) worried.
At least on Laughing Gull, I can moderate my news consumption and maintain some distance from political (un)realities, which is part of the point of this alternate lifestyle (but I am doing, and will do, whatever I can from my floating, Starlink-connected, HQ to help buttress the forces of democracy and sane environmental policy). I’m not sure how I would be feeling if these days I was waking up every day in Washington DC, where the conversation is politics 24/7. There was a reason I felt like I was living in a black hole. I’d rather wake up to a timeless sun and lapping, salty, waters.
July 5. Gloucester, MA:
Actually I wake up to fog, and then light rain. I don’t mind at all. There is nothing more atmospheric than a quiet harbor in the soft and grey, with a few fishing boats making their way to sea. Mozart’s Requiem is the perfect soundtrack on a morning like this.
Last night I went ashore for a Beyond Burger and fries. After, I went searching for ice cream and found my way to the Holy Cow Ice Cream Cafe. And, Holy Cow! Was their ice cream amazing (so good, in fact, I went there a total of three times in three days).
But wait. I am a vegan. Supposedly. How is ice cream on the menu? Here’s how (warning: elaborate, and undeniably self-serving, rationale about to unfold):
I am almost entirely vegan (because I think that is the single most powerful choice a person can make to reduce environmental impact and animal cruelty that is beyond imagining; be the way, it is also really good for your health and life expectancy). But I am not 100% vegan. Partly because absolutism and cultism have no appeal to me. But mostly because almost everything we do in life has an impact on the environment and on animals. If you drive a car, you kill and harm animals. If you contribute to climate change, you kill and harm animals. If you order stuff from Amazon that ships across oceans, you kill and harm animals. All of these things obviously have a less direct impact on the lives and well-being of animals than raising them in factory farms and then slaughtering them in an industrial facility that not even Dante could conjure. But my point is that it is very hard to live a human life without harming species one way or another, and any absolutist vegan who believes their life doesn’t cause pain or suffering to other species is deluding themselves.
So it doesn’t make sense to me to, for the sake of righteousness, preoccupy myself with 100% harm reduction in one specific area (food) rather than focus on across-the-board harm reduction. Instead, a more realistic and permissive concept of veganism—where every increment of meat and animal protein reduction is considered an increment to the good—as part of a general lifestyle strategy of harm reduction that includes thoughtful choices about consumption and climate as well as what to eat, makes more sense to me. In veganism and in life, as in religion, 100% purity is pretty hard to achieve. We can’t all be saints; we all sin a little. What matters is the sincere effort to keep doing better.
This is a philosophy in which the occasional ice cream is to be enjoyed. Life is short. And being 98% vegan is hard enough in a world in which most restaurants—especially in the US—remain unaware that there are some weirdos out there who don’t eat meat. So I will sometimes eat vegetarian if I am out at a restaurant or a friend’s house and there are no vegan options. My hard line is at eating meat itself, which after many years has zero appeal to me. And while I am fine with friends and crew having dairy or eggs on the boat (again, absolutism isn’t very appealing), Laughing Gull is a no meat and fish-zone, which also makes managing food safety and refrigeration way easier. (Okay, I guess I have to admit to at least one form of absolutism).
I find this softer and more flexible approach to the vegan ideal is way more appealing to non-vegans and anyone trying to live more thoughtfully and ethically. Plus, did I mention, it means you can still eat ice cream every now and then?
Food For Thought (and Thoughts For Food):
Compelling, and recent, science on the benefits of plant-based diets.
People who follow a diet rich in plants cut their mortality risk by almost a third, while simultaneously slashing the climate impact of their food by a similar amount. These results come from the largest study ever to analyze the health and environmental impacts of the widely-publicized EAT-Lancet Planetary Health Diet.
I like to think the mortality boost from plant-based eating is canceling out any mortality hit from recent reports that moderate drinking is not in fact good for you (which reverses longstanding conventional wisdom).
Nailed it:
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