Boating and Water Access in Galilee, Jerusalem, and Scarborough

How Big Is Port of Galilee, Actually

Narragansett's own pages already establish that Galilee is home to Rhode Island's largest commercial fishing fleet, moving more than 16 million pounds of seafood and shellfish annually through a harbor built out with dredged channels, stone jetties, and a three-mile Army Corps of Engineers breakwater system. What that figure does not convey on its own is how many boats and crews are actually working out of the port day to day. Per National Fisherman, Port of Galilee is homeport to roughly 240 fishing vessels and crews -- a real, sourced scale figure that puts the tonnage number in context: this is not a handful of boats landing a lot of fish, it is a genuinely large working fleet packed into one harbor.

Statewide, the industry those boats feed into is a real, dollar-denominated business, though the exact figure depends on which year and which accounting method you use. Per a November 25, 2024 Rhode Island DEM press release, the state's commercial fishing industry generated $81.7 million in ex-vessel value during 2023. A separate, earlier Boston Globe analysis (July 2023) put the statewide total at $100.6 million in 2022, broken down by top species: longfin squid and illex ($41.1 million on 31.5 million pounds), sea scallop ($18.3 million on 1.4 million pounds), American lobster and Jonah crab ($12.5 million on 3.6 million pounds), summer flounder ($5.7 million on 2.1 million pounds), and quahog clams ($4.7 million on 17.7 million clams). Neither figure is Galilee-specific -- both are statewide -- but with Galilee documented elsewhere as home to the state's largest fleet, these two different years and sources meaningfully contextualize what that fleet is worth, without forcing them into one reconciled number.

The November 2024 Climate-Resilience Grant: Eight New Docks, Three Facilities

This is real, current infrastructure news, not history. Per RI DEM's November 25, 2024 press release, Rhode Island was awarded $15.5 million from FEMA's Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, matched with state funds for a total $17.2 million project, to strengthen climate resilience at the state's marine facilities. The project will elevate structures at the Port of Galilee and the Wickford Dock, and will replace a total of eight docks across three separate DEM marine facilities: the Port of Galilee itself, the Division of Marine Fisheries' own Jerusalem facility, and the Division of Law Enforcement's Wickford Marine Base.

That press release does double duty for this page. First, it is a specific, dated, dollar-figure commitment to rebuilding the physical docks this working harbor depends on, informing work into 2025 and 2026. Second, it independently confirms that Jerusalem -- the village across the harbor from Galilee -- has its own named DEM Division of Marine Fisheries facility, distinct from Galilee's docks entirely. That is a genuinely new, checkable piece of Jerusalem-specific infrastructure, separate from anything on Narragansett's own marina inventory. A separate, earlier 2017 press release from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's office references Rhode Island receiving funds to continue infrastructure improvements at the Port of Galilee that same year -- treat that as an earlier, distinct funding round rather than the same project continuing for seven years without further confirmation.

Why the Money Matters: A Real Storm Precedent

A federal-state agency putting $17.2 million toward elevating structures and replacing docks at exactly these three facilities is not a hypothetical concern. Per Wikipedia's Galilee, Rhode Island entry, a 100-foot wind turbine at the Port of Galilee was toppled on March 14, 2017, when an intense winter storm's high winds snapped the turbine's supporting metal structure in half, causing widespread local power outages. That is a specific, dated, sourced event at this exact harbor, not a generic coastal-storm warning, and it is a reasonable data point to keep in mind when thinking about how exposed this working waterfront is to severe weather.

The Block Island Ferry: Operator, Route, and Real Schedule Detail

Narragansett's own pages already state the basic fact that a ferry departs Galilee and crosses more than 13 miles of open water to Block Island in under an hour. Here is the fuller operating picture. The ferry is run by Interstate Navigation Company, doing business as The Block Island Ferry, sailing from Point Judith (Galilee), Narragansett to Block Island's Old Harbor. The Traditional ferry takes roughly 55 minutes; a High-Speed service cuts that to roughly 30 minutes -- so "under an hour" is true of the Traditional boat and comfortably true of the High-Speed option.

This is a genuinely frequent service, not a once-a-day boat: a sample weekday (Wednesday, July 29, 2026) showed nine outbound sailings from Point Judith between 8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. Per the ferry's own current schedule and fares page, 2026 fares on the Point Judith Traditional route run: adult one-way $12.30; senior (65-plus) one-way $11.80; child (5-11) one-way $5.15; same-day round trip (adult) $22.60; different-day round trip (adult) $24.60. Vehicle fares one-way run $39.60 for a standard vehicle and $48.70 for a full-size vehicle, SUV, or van, with advance vehicle reservations requiring a direct call to the ferry. Fares and schedules are seasonal and change -- this is a mid-2026 snapshot pulled from the operator's own site, and anyone planning a trip around it should reconfirm current fares and departure times directly with The Block Island Ferry before relying on them.

Galilee Beach Club: A Named Waterfront Venue, Not a Marina

Not every piece of Galilee's waterfront is a marina or a boat launch. Galilee Beach Club, at 220 Sand Hill Cove Road, is a real, named waterfront event and banquet venue in the village, per the Southern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce's own listing. It is worth knowing about as part of Galilee's working and social waterfront fabric, distinct from the marinas and public launch sites already documented on Narragansett's boating page, but this research did not independently confirm its current event calendar, rental terms, or public-access policy -- confirm those directly with the venue before assuming availability.

What This Research Did Not Find, and Where to Check

This research did not find any additional named private marinas, boatyards, or charter operations specifically inside Galilee beyond what Narragansett's own boating-water-access page already documents -- Briggs Farm, Long Cove Marina, Harbor Island, Jim's Docks, and Skip's Dock all sit on Point Judith Pond, which borders Galilee, and are covered there in more depth, alongside the Galilee Boat Launch and Monahan's Dock. Nothing here should be read as inventing an additional marina name. If you want the fuller marina, mooring-area, and public-launch inventory for this stretch of Point Judith Pond, that page is the authoritative source on this site.

Also left deliberately open rather than guessed at: current dock-replacement progress or completion dates under the 2024 FEMA/DEM grant, current Port of Galilee slip or dockage rates for transient boaters, and any current fee or reservation requirement at Galilee Beach Club. For those, and for anything tied to a specific boat, slip, or event date, go directly to RI DEM, the Port of Galilee's own harbor authority, The Block Island Ferry, and Galilee Beach Club before making a plan around any of it.