Dear Readers,
We are in New Bedford, MA , on Buzzard's Bay, the home of the biggest whaling fleet and a working harbor. We are on a mooring waiting out windy, ornery weather to go through the Cape Cod Canal and head to Georgetown, ME and Robinhood Cove.
It has occurred to us that we have seen all types of fishing from the shrimpers in Key West, FL and GA and SC to the clammers we saw in Raritan Bay, NJ and now we are in harbor with many scalloping boats. There are boats that also get cod, halibut and flounder. It is amazing to see the different rigs. The New Bedford harbor sometimes has a slight fishy odor, must have been like that in many harbors in times past.
We had a good ride up the coast of NJ and got into Atlantic Highlands in the morning and we slept. Ferries go from Atl. Highlands into New York City and we could see the skyline as we came into the lower Hudson Bay/Raritan Bay.
The next day we headed to NYC and the infamous Hell Gate on the way to Long Island Sound. We took lots of pictures of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, the Statue of Liberty and the sites from the East River. It was spectacular and I loved seeing NY from the water.
We went by La Guardia airport on the way to Manhasset Bay and Port Washington, the planes were landing and taking off constantly. Fun!!
We moved quickly along the Sound, a free mooring in Port Washington and a good meal at a market/restaurant. On to a place called Mt. Sinai, small with lots of small powerboats and finally to Fisher Island part of NY and a very exclusive place, we anchored in the west harbor. Two days later we were in New Bedford checking out the Whaling Museum.
We think the museum is terrific. It has whale skeletons hung so you can imagine how big they really are and then they have a 1/2 model of a whaling ship that you can really walk on and examine. It was wonderful. I took some pictures so you could see the highlights. Mike liked a large, long chart from 1843 of the Pacific Ocean that someone had actually charted on. It didn't tell us where it had come from but it also had routes that Bligh and Cook had taken. Lots of artifacts from the places the whalers had gone, from the Arctic to the South and North Pacific.
We are off to Maine later this week.