There are well-equipped marinas at Duxbury with gasoline and diesel fuel, water, berthing with electricity, pump-out facilities, and most yacht services available. Small-boat launching ramps, both public and private, are available. The Duxbury Yacht Club, at the northwest corner of the turning basin at Duxbury offers various services to visiting yachtsmen.
Navigation:
Click the “Map View” button above to see a chart of this harbor.
Duxbury Bay is between Duxbury Beach on the east, Saquish Neck on the southeast, and the mainland on the west. It is about 3 miles long, with an average width of 2 miles. The bay is full of flats, mostly bare at low water, through which are several narrow and crooked channels. Shoals covered in spots by little water rise abruptly on both sides of these channels, and at low water the shoal edges are usually revealed by discolored water.
Prominent features
Gurnet Point, on the north side of the entrance to the bay, is marked by Plymouth Light (42°00’13″N., 70°36’02″W.), 102 feet above the water and shown from a white octagonal pyramidal tower with a white dwelling. A sound signal is at the light.
Rocky Point, on the south side of the entrance, is about 3 miles south of Gurnet Point. The rectangular reactor building of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station southeast of Rocky Point is conspicuous.
Duxbury Pier Light (41°59’15″N., 70°38’55″W.), 35 feet above the water, is shown from a brown conical tower with white upper half; a sound signal is at the light. The light, locally known as “Bug Light” marks the north side of the channel and the south end of the shoal between the main channel and Cowyard.
Captains Hill, on the peninsula between Duxbury and Kingston Bays, is about 200 feet high. On its summit is Standish Monument, 291 feet high, which can be seen from all directions when approaching the harbor.
Where the several bay channels come together in the locality westward of Duxbury Pier Light, a channel extends northward up Duxbury Bay until west of Clarks Island. This channel, Cowyard, about 200 yards wide and with depths of 20 to 35 feet, offers good anchorage for small craft. The channel splits at a point westward of Clarks Island. The eastern branch, Beach Channel, is reported to be marked by private seasonal buoys and continues up the easterly side of Duxbury Bay. A highway bridge at Powder Point, at the junction of Back River with Duxbury Bay, has a 25-foot fixed span with a clearance of 5 feet.
The western branch has a deep natural channel for about 1.5 miles from the area of Clarks Island northward of the fork in the channel. The channel to this point is buoyed and easily followed, and at this point connects with a dredged channel that leads northwesterly to an anchorage basin at the village of Duxbury. The dredged channel, marked by buoys, has a project depth of 8 feet.
