The Hewlett Basin footbridge opens twice daily

The footbridge over Hewlett Basin connects the waterfront promenade to the Point Street shops, and it swings open exactly twice each day to let sailboats through. Most visitors expect it to stay locked down between openings, but the mechanism works the other way: the bridge stays raised most of the day and drops only for two crossing windows.

Morning and evening windows

The bridge lowers at eight o'clock in the morning and again at five-fifteen in the afternoon. Each window lasts twenty minutes. If you arrive at 8:19 and the mechanism has already started its lift sequence, you wait until evening. The basin keeper will not halt a cycle once the hydraulics engage.

I keep a photocopy of the 1987 operations memo in the filing cabinet. That was the year the harbor office reversed the schedule to accommodate the larger sailboats that started wintering in the basin slips. Before that the bridge stayed down and lifted on request, but three mast strikes in one season convinced the town to flip the default position.

The hand-crank backup

When the electric motor fails—usually in January—the basin keeper operates a hand crank mounted inside the bridge house. The crank lowers the span at the same two times, but the window shortens to twelve minutes because the manual descent takes longer. A chalkboard outside the bridge house announces crank days, though the keeper does not always update it promptly.

If you are walking from the Point Street side and see the bridge lowered ahead of schedule, it means the motor has failed and someone is already cranking. Do not assume the bridge will stay down; cross immediately.

What the maps show

The walking-tour map sold at the chamber of commerce still shows the footbridge as a fixed span, which leads to confusion. The map was printed in 1983 and no one has corrected it. Cale insists the map predates the reversal by four years, not two, but the operations memo I have is dated April 1987 and references "the new policy." Either way, the printed map is wrong.

Alternate routes

If you miss a window, the nearest alternate crossing is Mariner's Bridge, three-tenths of a mile upstream where the basin narrows. That bridge is fixed and open at all hours. The walk adds twelve minutes each way, but it avoids the wait.

Some visitors try timing their day around the Hewlett windows. That works well enough if you are already near the waterfront at eight or five-fifteen, but building an entire afternoon around a twenty-minute bridge opening usually means rushing through the Point Street shops or standing idle on the promenade.

Checking the schedule

The basin keeper's number is posted on the bridge-house door, but calling ahead accomplishes little. The windows do not shift with the season or the tide, and the keeper will only confirm that yes, the bridge lowers at eight and five-fifteen unless the motor is out. On crank days the keeper sometimes lowers the bridge five minutes early to allow for the slower descent, but that courtesy is not guaranteed.

If you plan to cross on foot more than once during your visit, consider staying on the Point Street side. The inns there are smaller and book quickly, but you eliminate the bridge question entirely. The Anchor House is two blocks inland from the Point Street end of the footbridge and serves supper twice a week if you time it correctly.