Aug 10-11, New Bedford, MA

Woke up in Newport this morning to a rainy overcast day. Bethany Horner leaves at 8:30 to fly out of Providence to Philadelphia to Detroit. We have so enjoyed having her with us. She brought a ray of sunshine to our cozy cabin. We said final goodbye's to Rick and Connie Bischoff and got underway about 10 am. We motored south to Long Island Sound in overcast weather and then east in the rain and 1-2 foot seas into Buzzards Bay and then through the hurricane barrier and into the harbor at New Bedford, Massachusetts. Supposed to rain all day so we are hunkered down in our boat with Owen on the computer and Linda making cookies with red hots (thanks Bethany).




Saturday is clear and beautiful. We tour New Bedford and the old town area.



First stop is the New Bedford Whaling Museum and lots of history about the whaling industry that made New Bedford "the Whaling Capitol of the World" and one of the wealthiest cities in the US in the 1800's. The author Herman Melville (who wrote MOBY-DICK) shipped out of here on a whaler in 1841. All the whaling activity is all gone now, with whale oil replaced by petroleum, and New Bedford is now proud to announce that it is helping lead the movement to preserve the whale.





New Bedford still has lots of commercial fishing boats but the boats are now mostly fishing for scallops, flounder and other fin fish. The legendary fishing area of the Georges Bank in about 200 miles offshore. The harbor here is protected by a 20 foot tall hurricane barrier (with a closable gate) to protect the harbor from a hurricane storm surge. It worked well in the 1990's when a hurricane produced a 7-8 foot storm surge, which did not get into the harbor because of the barrier, and no boats were lost.

Our daughter, Kim Alexander, is to arrive early this evening from California. She is flying into Boston and we are certainly looking forward to having her join us.