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Read more about our 2024 programs and offerings in the new brochure!

BROCHURE.

New this year, we are rolling out a user-friendly platform for all class and rentals. You can set up your new account in MyRec by visiting this link: MyRec Account Set Up

FALL NAVIGATOR 2023 Read the Fall Navigator to learn about all the exciting things that took place in 2023. Celebrating our 20th anniversary this year, we were thrilled to see more than 3,800 participants on campus this year!

June 28 is just around the corner! Be sure to plan ahead and purchase your tickets early. We have a wonderful evening planned this year so come join us to mix, mingle, and take in the sweeping views of Pleasant Bay while learning more about the meaningful programs PBCB offers to the community. Enjoy hors d’oeuvres, raw bar, carving station, desserts, complimentary wines from Truro Vineyards, local beers from Hog Island, and more.

HEADS OR TAILS GAME | SILENT AND LIVE AUCTIONS | RAFFLE DRAWING: 2023 TAHITI BLUE TOWNIE GO! ELECTRIC BIKE | FUND A NEED TO SUPPORT PBCB’S PROGRAMMING AND COMMUNITY OUTREACH

Tickets are $175 ($200 after June 1) and can be purchased HERE.

The United States Coast Guard Auxiliary is offering a BOAT AMERICA course on campus at PBCB in Harwich. BOAT AMERICA is a boating certificate class that offers an in-depth and interesting boating safety course, and provides the knowledge needed to obtain a boating certificate. Some insurance companies will also offer discounts on boating insurance to boaters who successfully complete this course. The course is one full day 8:00-4:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 20. Course fees are $55 for adults age 18+ and  $35 youth ages 12 -17. Payment must be made at the time of registration with US Coast Guard Auxiliary by April 13. *Please note when you register through the link, please disregard the date and time. REGISTER HERE 

 

Register today to reserve your spot HERE.

Pleasant Bay Community Boating is continuing its’ efforts to promote environmental stewardship. We will be discussing the importance of environmental stewardship, ways to get involved, and about our current projects. Currently we are designing and implementing two different environmental stewardship projects:

• A kelp pilot study, in which we are attempting to grow sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima) in shallow water in Pleasant Bay as a bioremediation tool. We will be discussing the project, the benefits of kelp as a remediation tool, our goals, as well as other uses for kelp.
• An Eelgrass restoration project, in which we will be discussing the benefits and importance of eelgrass (Zostera marina) as well as our upcoming workshops to learn more about eelgrass and recruit volunteers to assist in collecting citizen science data.

GUEST SPEAKERS

Jamie Nye started at PBCB in May of last year and is our new Science Coordinator. Previously he worked at the Catalina Island Marine Institute teaching Marine Biology, and at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the Marine Biological Laboratory working in both aquaculture and animal husbandry. He also has worked at Walrus and Carpenter Oysters in Rhode Island where he started a kelp farm. Jamie is loves to teach, free-dive and scuba dive, hike, go clamming, and grow kelp!

Lily Gooding is an AmeriCorps Cape Cod year 24 member originally from Beverly, Massachusetts. Lily recently graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor where she studied Global Health and the Environment. Lily is serving with Pleasant Bay Community Boating, helping with estuary stewardship and our citizen science program. She has been working on and developing our current eelgrass project.

Save the Date for the 2023 Sailabration Gala

We hope you will join us this June for an evening of celebration and kick off the summer season at our largest fundraiser of the year. Held at the acclaimed Wequassett Resort on Pleasant Bay, it is guaranteed to be a lively evening with delicious food, cocktails, live and silent auctions, Heads or Tails, and picturesque views. Come learn more about the meaningful programs we offer to the community and help support PBCB.

We are looking forward to Sailabration 2023! Check back to reserve your tickets.

 

US Sailing, the national organizing body for the sport of sailing, has selected Pleasant Bay Community Boating (PBCB) to receive the 2021 Creative Innovations in Programming Award for their popular Sailing & Science Summer Camp program.

The Creative Innovations in Programming Award recognizes those programs, or individuals, who have successfully found new, and different, methods for teaching sailing. The purpose of this award is to highlight those that think “outside the box” and through their ingenuity have further connected their organization to the community.

“We are thrilled to be recognized by US Sailing for our work integrating science and sailing. Our staff has worked hard for years to make this idea come to life”, stated John Dickson, PBCB President.

Pleasant Bay Community Boating’s very successful Sailing & Science Summer Camp program pairs discovery science and exploration with sailing. This program allows students to spend half their day out on the water learning sailing and other boating-related activities, and the other half learning marine science and education curricula.

During science class, campers may make aquariums, care for baby oysters in an upweller, build and race cardboard boats, use a beach seine, observe marine habitats and wildlife such as seals, use microscopes, and measure phytoplankton levels. On the water, they will be sailing, kayaking and rowing, rigging boats and tying knots, along with learning the ‘science’ of sailing.

“We wanted to encourage creative thinking and problem solving to appreciate, for example: the sources of tides, currents, weather and climate; the connection of eelgrass ecosystem health and fisheries; climate impacts on coastal areas; and to overall build new stewards of the sea”’ according to Sarah Griscom, PBCB Science Advisor, who created the Sailing & Science program.

This past summer PBCB collaborated with other organizations to enhance its marine science curricula. Collaborators included: MIT who PBCB collaborated with on a prototype autonomous floating buoy/docking platform project for underwater drones; the National Weather Service for classes on weather and climate; Cape Cod Ocean Community on shark detection technology; the Cape Cod Climate Change Collaborative; the Center for Coastal Studies; and the Towns of Chatham, Harwich and Orleans on an aquaculture propagation program hosted at PBCB.

A new addition this year to PBCB’s Science & Sailing Camp is its Floating Classroom Research Vessel. The ‘Friend of Pleasant Bay’ is a 37’ long solar-powered pontoon vessel that is the new flagship of PBCB’s marine science education program. Donated by The Friends of Pleasant Bay, she serves as a dedicated research vessel for scientists, an educational platform for Cape Cod children, locals and visitors to the Cape, and is available to other organizations seeking a unique learning experience on Pleasant Bay. The shallow draft of this floating classroom will help students and scientists to access remote areas of the Bay and the near-silent electric motors will allow quiet approach to seals, birds and other wildlife that live on Pleasant Bay. The ‘Friend’ can accommodate up to 29 passengers and crew, including 10 wheelchairs.

She harvests power from the sun, sends data to the sky, and just might transform underwater research. Oh, and this MIT-led autonomous prototype spent the summer practicing her moves in Pleasant Bay.

Yellow, Chubby, and Transformative from Lower Cape TV on Vimeo.

We are retooling the halyard system on the Flying Scot fleet to traditional, simple rope halyards. Sails raised in seconds. No more whiplashed crank boxes… it should be a great season!

 

See a quick demonstration video here:

Simple Rope Halyard Demo