On the agenda for today was a whale watching trip out to Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Unfortunately when the +/- 50 people signed up for the field trip arrived at Boston Harbor at a bit before 10:00 a.m. we learned that the trip was canceled due to a boat being out of service or something. Argh.
So a group of us Minnesotans rescheduled ourselves on a sunset whale watching trip through the Boaston aquarium at 6:00 p.m. That left a fair bit of time to explore the historic waterfront district and look at sailboats.
The harbor front was bustling with activity after the moening started to wear on a bit. It was not easy to find anything to eat until after 11:00 a.m. but after that the place started to come alive. The boat traffic in the shipping channel went from busy to crazy busy. There were lots of sail boats and powerboats and a few mega yachts. The Harbor Walk was great, following the very edge of the old piers and wharves for the most part. There were lots of neat old buildings that have been redeveloped into very high end condos and a nice variety of public spaces mixed in. The boat slips looked mighty tight and I watched one big powerboat take about 15 minutes and several dozen attempts to snug itself into the little space where it was trying desperately to tie up.
I was off on my own after CJL and DG headed back to check out the aquarium and I meandered my way through Boston's North End for a while. I ended up at America's oldest restaurant, the Union Oyster House for a late lunch/early supper of 1/2 doz. oysters and a bowl of "chaadaa" (known as chowder in MN). Both were very tasty. There were a bunch of street performers in the open air market and I got pulled into a show put on by Jason Escape.
I can now say that I've put someone into a straight jacket, wrapped him him ropes and hoisted him feet first 20 feet into the air. I hadn't had that on my lifetime to do list until now, but after today I can check it off. I also saw Paul Revere's statue and The Old North Church, break dancers, guys doing remarkable percussion music on 5 gallon buckets and old metal pots, and scary clown/mimes.
The whale cruise took us out to see humpbacks on the Stellwagen Bank. We saw many spouts and got a few fairly close looks at a trio of whales feeding together.
The sunset was pretty amazing too.
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