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The voyage from Plymouth, England, to Cape Cod took the Mayflower 66 days, and for most of them the 102 passengers and 30 crew on board were cold and miserable. The fall weather was often brutal, the aging 100-foot-long square rigger couldn’t sail into the prevailing westerlies, and it leaked. The Mayflower finally dropped anchor off Cape Cod on Nov, 27, 1620, and everyone spent that winter on the boat; half of them died of malnutrition or exposure. The next spring Squanto, a Pawtuxet who spoke English (he had been kidnapped by a British sea captain), got the Pilgrims together with the local Wampanoags, who taught them how to grow crops and hunt. That November the surviving Pilgrims and the Wampanoags got together for a three-day feast – the first Thanksgiving. With that bit of history, the crew of Cruising Odyssey wishes all of you a Happy Thanksgiving holiday. We’ll be back to our regular schedule next week.
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The First Thanksgiving
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