Tuesday – September 19 – Today was quite a nice day, sunny by late morning and in the 80’s. We decided to do Mystic Seaport and what an interesting place it is. – a recreated 19th century seafaring village. There are the general store, drug store, bank, church, schoolhouse, cooperage, print shop, shipcarver’s shop, houses, tavern etc. There is a boatbuilding shop where they actually build boats and there were many excellent exhibit buildings – one was ship's figureheads which was really interesting. They also have a special exhibit on blacks at sea which was interesting.

There are historic vessels which can be toured and one was the Charles W. Morgan which is an 1841 wooden whaleship. It was interesting to tour it and we had seen a video on whaling and I just couldn’t imagine being on a ship like this for up to 5 years while whaling – not an easy life! The video showed how they stripped the blubber and boiled it for the oil and harvested the semen but other than the outside skin for the blubber and the semen they just threw the rest away.

There was also the L. A. Dunton which is a 1921 fishing schooner and although it wouldn’t be great to be on a fishing boat at least they weren’t gone for up to 5 years at a time! All in all, it was a great day and very interesting and informative.

We got back just as it started to rain so we sat out under the awning for a bit then made dinner. It rained off and on all evening but better in the evening than during the day.