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We awoke this morning back at the slip we left from ten days ago. It was a bright and sunny day again-looks like the weather has finally changed for the better. In fact we learned that there is a heat wave headed this way and that we should expect temperatures close to 90 degrees for a few days. Talk about seeing both sides of the weather spectrum.

The ship had all of us off by 8AM. I had arranged for Enterprise car rental to pick us up. We rented an SUV, required because of all the luggage (and purchases) we had to transport.  The question was would we also need a trailer?  Luckily we managed to squeeze it all in although there was a large suitcase situated between Yvonne and Cindy in the back seat. It was a tight fit.

Stan had planned for us to drive up the coast to Rockport, MA to stay at one of their favorite old inns: the Emerson Inn. On the way, however, we were going to stop in a few famous towns. Our first stop of the day was Marblehead, MA where we visited Abott Hall, which still serves as the town hall. There we were met by an 86 year old volunteer who spent a good 45 minutes telling us about the history of the building and some of the historical items on display there. We actually had to cut him off as I was certain he would have spent the rest of the day telling us stories. Two items of particular interest to me were:

1. George Washington in essence started the United States Navy  in 1775 by acquiring and converting the Marblehead fishing schooner, Hannah, into an armed warship.

2.  The other fascinating item was a huge painting hung in the town hall meeting chambers. It is the original painting by Archibald Willard, called “Spirit of 76” (often referred to as Yankee Doodle). It found its way here through the efforts of a local resident, General John Devereux,  a descendent of Robert Devereux ((17th century). His son is the drummer boy in the painting.

Also on display in Abbot Hall were letters from George Washington, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere and John Hancock. They have quite an amazing museum of history in their town hall.

Another little known fact about Marblehead is that Elbridge Gerry, our 5th Vice President, was from Marblehead and is mostly known for his name being associated with the term “gerrymandering”.

After extracting our selves from the knowledgeable, talkative docent we went to the “old town” section of Marblehead where there are an astounding number of 16 and 17th century homes still being occupied. The meandering narrow streets are lined with beautifully painted structures from the past. There is a little shopping area of boutique shops that kept Cindy and Yvonne busy for quite awhile.

We were able to pry our wives away from the shopping area only because we were hungry and Stan wanted us to eat at a little waterfront place he had often gone to in the past called the “Barnacle”, noted for its seafood chowder and fish. We managed to snag a table on the small outside deck overlooking the Marblehead harbor, where we had a tasty lunch as the sea breezes kept us cool.

Marblehead was a delightful place to visit and loaded with history. I would love to have more time to wander around the area.

We ultimately drove to our final destination for the day, Peabody, where we had reserved rooms for the night. Tomorrow we head to Salem, Manchester by the Sea, and ultimately Rockport.

Our first visit to Cape Cod. We spent the day visiting the town at the outer tip- Provincetown. This beach town (commonly called P-Town) has a population of less than 3,000, but that grows to 60,000 during the summer as people flock to its sandy beaches. It is located on the eastern edge of the cape and is blessed with a great well-protected  harbor which was utilized by sailors over the centuries.

Provincetown’s main claim to fame is that the Pilgrims landed here first before finally settling in Plymouth because they could not find a source of fresh water near Provincetown. It was a fishing and whaling community in the 1800s and became the home of many Portuguese sailors who came here from the Azores. There is still a large contingent living in the town.

U.S. Route 6 starts here in Provincetown and goes all the way to the west coast. It ran right through our home town of Gary, Indiana.

The Provincetown Players, started in 1915, produced some prominent playwrights like Eugene O’Neill and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

The waters off the east coast of Provincetown earned the name “oceans graveyard” as over 3,000 shipwrecks have occurred there over the past 300 years.

We were offered a trolley tour of the area. Unfortunately, it began to rain as we left and I was unable to get many photos along our route. It did stop about half way through the trip and I was able to record the rest of the trip.

After the tour Stan and Cindy went in search of antiques and Yvonne and I spent several hours walking the main downtown street sightseeing, shopping and having lunch at a beach shack that had gotten high ratings by Yelp.  Our first stop was visitng the Portuguese bakery recommended by our tour guide to have a “flipper”, a Portuguese pastry called malassada, a fried dough dipped in cinnamon and sugar. It reminded us of Indian frybread. The bakery also made “pasteis de belem”, a favorite custard tart of the Portuguese that I had learned to love when we visited Portugal.

Tomorrw we will be back in Boston and so this evening after dinner we had to repack our luggage and make room for all the items we purchased along the way.

The day broke sunny and bright and we were ecstatic!  It also happens to be our 54th weeding anniversary. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since that day in 1963 we marched down the aisle in Gary, Indiana and began that wonderful adventure called marriage. I am grateful I have Yvonne along for that journey.

How did Martha’s Vineyard gets it name?  The general feeling is that British explorer, Bartholomew Gosnold, named it after his daughter, Martha. There were wild grapes on the island whichever gave rise to the rest of the name. Now you k ow the rest of the story.

This is the second day in a row with nice weather! The tour offered today was a sightseeing bus tour of part of the island with a stop in the largest village on the island, Edgartown.

The first surprise was our bus. It was surplussed from an army base in Kentucky, God knows how many years ago. It ran smoothly so we had no complaints. Our driver and guide, Karen, was simply a “hoot”. She is a native so, obviously she regaled us with local stories and humor. She dropped us off in the small village of Edgartown for local shopping and sightseeing. She said she was going home to hang out her laundry (no dryers in these parts) and would be back for us in 1.5 hours.

Edgartown  was lovely: not very large (population 4,067); one main street with many small shops; surrounding streets with very old, the colonial houses with white picket fences, some of which were B&Bs and others occupied by families. It was truly a Norman Rockwell kind of place. We shopped a little; admired the old homes, including the one owned by the sea captain of the whaling vessel Acushnet, the ship Herman Melville sailed on and was the inspiration of Moby Dick. I would have loved to have spent more time wandering those back streets and taking it all in.

On the way back to the ship we drove through the small village of Oak Bluffs, where there was an Methodist summer camp which consisted of dozens of beautiful 19th century gingerbread homes. Many still exist and they are lovely.

After lunch we both went to listen to a lecture by a local writer, Cynthia Riggs, who at the age of 68 went back to school to study writing and published her first murder mystery at the age of 70. She was also a “hoot” telling us tales of her life as a sea captain; finding and getting reunited (and married) to a work colleague who she had not seen in 50 some years. She told us how she incorporates people (anonymously) she knows on the island in her novels and conveniently murders off those she dislikes. People are always trying to figure out who she is portraying in her stories!

After today I think Martha’s Vineyard makes my favorite places list.

Our first really nice weather day since the trip began! It started out party cloudy but by mid-day there was not a cloud in the sky and we all thoroughly enjoyed being out in the sunshine. We even got to lounge on the outdoor deck of the ship after we returned from our visit to the town.

Newport:  Elegant homes dot the landscape; big sailing yachts bob in the harbor; private beach clubs with member only signs line the beaches; home of the international tennis hall of fame; and  site of the famous Newport Jazz Festival. This is the playground of the very rich and famous.

Newport was founded in 1639 and currently is home to about 25,000 people. It was and is the summer destination for the rich. It is also the home of the Naval War College, the Naval Undersea Warfare Center and the most elegant college I have ever seen: Salve Regina, a small Catholic school with dormitories housed in a series of former mansions bought by or donated to the university by former owners. John F Kennedy married Jackie Bouvier in Newport. Newport is noted also as the site of past America’s Cup yacht races.

Our trolley bus tour took us past the summer home of President Eisenhower, the family estate of Jackie Kennedy’s family, the mansion being restored by Larry Ellison (Oracle), and the former home of the Vanderbilts, the Breakers. We soon learned that each of the grand homes had a name, not simply an address. Most estates were really hard to see as massive hedges and fences keep them from clear view. Newport truly emerged as the poster boy of the “gilded society” of the early 20th century. As is becoming more common the estates have become costly to maintain and many have been sectioned and sold as elegant condos.

Our tour included a visit to the Breakers where we took the audio tour of the mansion. It is definitely “over the top” in decor and opulence. The mansion is owned by the Preservation Society of Newport County who also owns 5-6 other such mansions which have been restored and are open to the public to visit, at a reasonable price. $35 will get you admission to all of them which seems like a bargain to me. We spent almost 1.5 hours visitng the Breakers before moving on with our touring trolley.

The tour returned us to the ship through the downtown area so we could get a feel for it, as after lunch we rode the ship’s launch to the town pier to do more sightseeing and a bit of shopping.

11,000 steps later we were back on the ship, sitting outside on the aft deck soaking up the sun. It was the first time this trip we were able to do that.

The entertainment this evening was a local trio of women who paid a tribute to the wartime songs that  the Andrew Sisters sang. They were quite good and sounded just like the Andrew Sisters. They did a nice tribute to all the veterans in the crowd by singing all the different service songs (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard).

We managed to miss the worst of the weather last night (mostly wind) by diverting through an inner channel which brought us safety to Fall River without the guests suffering another bout of seasickness.

We had originally planned to dock in New Bedford but the captain was unable to secure dockage space and Fall River was a back-up. I was a bit bummed as I had hoped to see the whaling museum there. The good news is that New Bedford is only a 20-30 minute bus ride from Fall River and the ship arranged for a bus to take us to the whaling museum this morning.

Fall River was founded in 1803 and currently has a population of about 89,000. By 1811 the first textile mill was in operation. The industry grew during the 1800s.  At one time Fall River was the leading textile manufacturer in the US and # 2 in the world.  Population peaked at 120,000 by 1920.   As we all know the industry and the jobs eventually left the area and the United States. Today we saw a lot of still empty buildings left by the textile industry as the area is trying to adjust to the new economy and rebuild.

New Bedford is 15 miles from Fall River and was one of the two major whaling ports in the US back in the 19th century (the other was Nantucket). It now has a population of 95,000 down from a peak of 120,000 in the 1920s. In the mid 1800s it was one of the major whaling capital in the US.  It also became a textile manufacturing city in the 1880s and employed over 30,000 people in the industry at one time.  It was the home of Wamsutta, a name we all knew. Commercial fishing also was important to the area until the fishing grounds got overfished in the 1990s.

As is typical there was not enough time to really appreciate all that was on display at the whaling museum, which was extensive. Of special note is their exhibit of scrimshaw and a 1/2 scale replica of a famous whaling vessel, Lagoda. We saw a movie describing the history of whaling in the area before touring the museum on our own. I enjoyed seeing displays of equipment whalers used to both catch and process the blubber from the whales. I also enjoyed seeing some of the original written logs from some of the whaling expeditions of the era. Needless to say the life of a whaler was dangerous and many lost their lives during the process.

Across the street from the museum is a famous church (called a bethel) where whalers came to pray before leaving on the always dangerous whaling expeditions. In that church is the pew where Herman Melville sat and a replica of the ship shaped pulpit mentioned in the book, Moby Dick.

In the afternoon I walked over to the nearby Battleship Cove where there are several naval vessels on display, including the battleship Massachusetts, several original PT boats, a submarine, the Joseph Kennedy destroyer and a Russian corvette. I was interested in seeing both the PT boats and the battleship as I had seen the others before. I was impressed with the enormity of the battleship. I wandered below deck and almost got lost its vastness. The two PT boats were larger than I imagined (80 feet) and made of wood which surprised me. Most were burned after WWII so these are valuable vessels. You cannot board them but there are viewing ports on the sides to allow viewing of the inside.They were fast and effective and played an important role in the Pacific campaign.

Tonight the duo of Kenny (guitar) and Lee (piano) put on a show playing famous songs from the 50s and 60s. They are very entertaining and even Yvonne joined me for their “concert” and quasi sing-a-long. I multi-tasked and wrote this blog as I listened to their music.

For all you linguists out there, it is ” Glau Stir”, not “Glau Chester”. End of lesson. We have left Maine and are now plying the coastline of Massachusetts.

It was cloudy, quite cool and very breezy as we arrived at 7:30 AM in the harbor. ‘Tis definitely sweater weather today. In fact the weather so far has been darn right cool. We should have brought our puffy jackets. This part of the country may have shorter summers than Seattle!

It will be a short visit as our ship will leave right after lunch so there is only time for a quick bus tour of the city.  The weather is bad enough that they are even cancelling the other offered tour-a ride on a lobster schooner out in the sound.

This was to be the first port where we were to actually be at a dock, but when we arrived we found the dockage space was being used by another local boat so guess who had to dock off shore…again! This then threw off our tour schedule for the morning and we had to rush through our visit to the local small maritime museum which focuses on the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Preserve off shore. There were also sections on the history of Gorton seafood (remember those fish sticks you ate when you were young), and the evolution of methods to protect boat bottoms, which ultimately led to the development of bottom paint here in Gloucester. The museum also is restoring the 1849 marine railway, which was and still is used to haul ships out of the water for maintenance. The “sled-like”structure is powered by a steam engine located in the building next to the rail system.

We then had a bus tour of the local area. We learned that although Gloucester is a famous name it really is a blue collar town that relied heavily on the fishing  industry. In the early 1900s there would have been over 400 fishing schooners moored on the harbor, working the offshore fishing banks and having lucrative careers. Today there are about 20 active fish trawlers. The fishing industry here is a disaster.

We stopped at the famous statue dedicated to seafaring men and those who died at sea. There are plaques naming the some 5,400 men who have died at sea over the years. Of the 1,000 ships that have been lost, 265 lost all hands on board. From the period of 1860-1906, 660 ships sank with a loss of 3,880 men. A single storm in 1862 claimed 15 schooners and 120 lives. Another storm in 1879 took the lives of 159 men. The life of a fisherman is a dangerous one.

We saw the local establishments that were part of the story of the “Perfect Storm”. The trip then took us through a neigborhood of more expensive homes on the seashore, a quick visit to the town of Rockport and all its shops, and then back to the ship so we could depart.

Late yesterday the captain indicated there was to be yet another change in our itinerary. Turns out New Bedford could not give us moorage space so now we will be headed to Fall River, MA after we leave Gloucester.

We began the day with a narrated bus tour of the town. One of the interesting differences here compared to Camden is that the big homes owned by the sea captains were not located on the seashore. They were located away from the shore. I am not sure why.

Perhaps it was because the shoreline was very industrialized with ship builders and processing plants for limestone. The local saying is “Camden by the sea; Rockland by the smell”.  As it turns out there are a tremendous number of limestone quarries in the area and the mined product was brought to the shore for further processing and then shipped to other parts of the world. We were driven past quite a few old quarries which are now filled with water and have become local swimming and fishing holes. Some quarries are 1/2 mile deep. I saw pictures of how they looked when mined in the 1800s by hand and horses used to carry the product out of the quarries. Limestone was the big business in Rockland.

Not being a big town (again about 5,000 people) the tour did not last very long. We were then driven the the now famous Farnsworth & Wyeth Museum where a docent led us on a guided tour of the exhibits. It turns out that Mrs. Farnsworth left several millions of dollars to the city after she passed in the 1930s to create an art museum. Later the Wyeth family donated many of Andrew Wyeth’s artwork to the Museum because his family had a summer home in the area and most of his watercolors  featured subjects in the area. I was amazed to see many of his pencil sketches he made prior to making a finished watercolor. Those sketches were works of art themselves-detailed in every way. Many of his watercolor originals are located here but his most recognized painting ” Christina’s World”  is owned by the NY Metropolitan Art Museum. Andrew’ s son, Jamie, also has a summer place here and I would imagine some of his work will eventually end up in this museum some day. Ironically 2017 is the 100th anniversary of Andrew Wyeth’s birthday and there is a special exhibit on display. If you recall we saw the special 100 year exhibit of John F. Kennedy a few days ago. There was really not enough time to really experience the museum as we were scheduled to meet at Sharp’s Point for our special group lobster boil.

We were greeted by a 4 piece folk band in a big tent with picnic seating. Nearby was a big wood fire blazing away with huge pots of boiling water. As we arrived the staff began throwing in dozens of lobsters and topping them with mussels, corn on the cob, seaweed and burlap. Twenty minutes later we were called to collect a plate of steamed lobster, corn on the cob, melted butter, mussels, cole slaw and potato salad. Ship staff showed us how to clean the lobster. Bibs were supplied and were needed as it became a messy proposition getting that delicious lobster meat out of the shell. Staff wandered around offering seconds to those who wanted them. Needless to say the lobster was tender and sweet. I was surprised at how good and mild the mussels tasted as they were fairly large in size. It was a wonderful, abiet messy meal.

Some people left to go to a transportation museum in town while we stayed around to visit with our host, Captain Jim Sharp, who proceeded to give us a narrated tour of his personal maritime museum that he built here. We all were blown away by the quality of the exhibits he has put together on boat building in olden days, lobster fishing equipment, sea navigation, tools used for building boats, ship models, and historical pictures of famous schooners built in the area. Captain Jim loves to tell stories about the history of maritime technology and his time spent as a schooner builder and sailor. He would have talked for hours had we not had to return to our ship. His maritime museum is truly world class. It was an impressive afternoon.

 

We returned reluctantly to our mother ship where we were treated to an after dinner lecture by Sam Ladley, the historian who led us on the walking tour in Camden. His subject tonight was on Coastal Maine and the lobster industry. The gentlemen is a native and a wealth of knowledge about the area and its history.

 

Maine was originally populated by Europeans who wanted to farm. Unfortunately they quickly learned that there is no soil here (typically 2-3 inches); it got pushed into the ocean during the ice age. People had to turn to fishing. Centuries ago fishing was abundant because of the currents and continental shelf. Early reports said you could “walk across the water on the back of fish”, but, as expected, the area eventually was overfished. The famous Grand Banks and much of the area is closed for fishing as they try to rebuild the fish stock. That will take generations to do.

Sam explained how Maine prospered in the 1820-1830 era because of its ship building expertise and all those trees. Not surprisingly he said at one time there was not a tree left within 20 miles of the coastline; they were all cut down for boats  and for firewood. Eventually the industrial revolution and steam power killed the schooner business here.

Unfortunately, it has been downhill for Maine since those days. One very bright spot however is the lobster industry. Lobster harvest has grown from 20 million pounds/yr to 150 million pounds/yr, mainly because the loss of cod (because of overfishing) permits more lobster eggs to hatch. Sam explained how there is rigid  self-policing by the local lobster fisherman to conserve and maintain this family oriented industry. Yes, there are commercial lobstermen but they are tightly controlled and monitored. Again we could have listened for much longer than he was willing to speak.

The entire day was special- full of new experiences and knowledge.

Awoke to bright sunshine and cloudless skies, the first sunny day in 5 days. So far this place has been as bad as Seattle for having Cloudy weather!  We are loving the cool, crisp weather however and we have not had any rain, only clouds. The locals have told us they have had a lousy spring so far.  Sound familiar?

Our stop today is another of those lovely seaports of Maine-Camden. The population is also around 5,000 and the town is famous for ship building in past centuries. The harbor is larger and more protected than Bar Harbor and the sloping landscape was more conducive to building schooners on shore, then simply sliding them into the water. There are several three masted schooners still in service (for tourist sailings) here in the harbor and they provided a beautiful background as we were motored into the dock area with our ship’s tender once again. The Constellation is too big for the docks here.

We along with 27 other passengers went on a morning walking tour of the town with a local resident, Sam Ladley. Again it was 1.5 marvelously spent hours hearing stories about the shipbuilding industry of the 1800s that thrived here, the stories of sea captains who lived here and sailed from this port, the houses they built here, and the architecture of those houses. Sea captains were some of the first millionaires in the USA as a result of the seafaring career and the houses they built reflected that. One intriguing story told was that when the captain left for his 2-5 year voyage he would leave a silver dollar on the fireplace mantle. Each sailing ship flew on its top mast a pennant identifying who the captain was. Children playing in the yard kept an eye on the open sea and when they saw a ship returning and identified who it was would run to the captains’ home to alert the wife that her husband was returning. In return he/she would be given the silver dollar. Sometimes, however, the captain dies at sea and his pennant was flown on the lower masthead to indicate he was no longer alive (that is where the term “half mast”came from). The child would still run to the house but only say the ship was returning to prepare the wife for the bad news it brought. The child still was given the dollar.

We saw and learned about the park built by Olmsted (designer of Central Park) on the harbor’s shoreline and the new modern library built under the park rather than to add a new modern building.

Sam pointed out a local unpainted shingled home and explained that many people from Scotland settled in the Camden area. Being frugal they felt that using shingles allowed them to avoid having to paint the home, simply allowing Mother Nature to weather the shingles over time. Also they painted the doors and trim the same color as that of their boat. Why buy two different cans of paint?

We also learned that what people call a “widows walk” (that balcony around a chimney on the roof of a home) is not what it was for. It was really a platform for a person (usually the woman as the men were at sea) who often had to douse a chimney fire with a bucket of sand. Climbing a ladder with a bucket of sand and standing on a pitched roof in winter was treacherous so a stable platform made a lot of sense.

The dominant home style of the area was federalist-simple fronts, long homes, often with three sides with nice siding and a hidden side using cheaper materials to save money.

Sam told us about the boat building in the area, which was one of the dominant industries of the 19th century. This area built most of the sailing cargo (2-4 masted schooners) ships of the era. It was amazing to see pictures of the massive ships and how they were built.

After lunch we took the lobster boat tour which included a ride on a real lobster boat. A young couple run this small business and they taught us about lobsters, how they are caught and the rules associated with lobstering in this area. The husband captained the boat and his wife showed us how to tell male from female lobsters, and how to measure if they were of legal style. She answered questions about how many traps you can use, how many you can keep per day, etc. Recreational lobster fisherman can have up to 6 traps per person and there is no limit to how many lobster  you can keep. Surprisingly, the  lobster population is  growing as the cod population (which tended to eat the lobster eggs) is way down.

In the 1900s only poor people ate lobster. They even fed them to prisoners in jail. Farmers loaded them in wagons and used them as fertilizer in their farm fields. Hard to believe, isn’t it!

We pulled up two different lobster traps. There was a small female in one, which they threw back. The second trap had a keepable male. They also had a live tank on board  which held a large clam, a mollusk two different types of local crabs and a really weird tiny spider crab that looked like a tarantula. She passed them all around for us to view.

We made it back to the ship to go to Afternoon tea for the first time. We were curious what snack they might be serving with the tea.

Then it was the usual routine we have become accustomed to: cocktails, dinner and some entertainment. The ship uses local entertainment and tonight we had a singer/guitarist who sounded a lot like James Taylor. By 9:30 the ship’s lounges clear out and the ship becomes quiet- – except for me who sits alone in the lounge (where the wireless signal works) finishing this blog entry. Good night!

We sailed the entire night and arrived at 7AM at our first port of call, Bar Harbor. Despite the storm and fog last night we slept peacefully through the night, suffering no ill effects from the weather. I was surprised how many people reported they had problems last night with handling the rough weather. I have to assume all our travels on the sea has conditioned our bodies to handle rough seas.

It was pretty foggy when we arrived but there were signs that it would lift sometime during the morning. As a result we decided to not cancel our 9AM trip to Acadia National Park which occupies most of the the island (called Mount Desert Island-pronounced correctly as either desert or dessert) where Bar Harbor resides. The population of Bar Harbor is about 5,000; the population of the entire island (connected to the mainland by bridge) is 10,000.

 

 

 

We had to anchor off shore as even our small ship is too big for this port. The ship carries its own 40ft. skiff, that can hold 35 people, is used to shuttle people to/from the ports where dockage is not available. The transfer went smoothly as only 27 people signed up for the morning tour of the park. By the time we reached shore the sun was shining brightly even though the bay was still partially shrouded in fog. In fact it was difficult to see our ship even though it was quite close to shore.

Once on land we met up with a local guide who drove us to three different popular locations in the park, describing the park and what we were seeing as he drove. The first stop was Cadillac Mountain, the highest point in the park with an altitude of 1,530 feet. Those of us from the West said it should be named Cadillac Hill, not Cadillac Mountain. The park was created in 1916 as the Sieur de Monts National Monument. In 1919 it was expanded and renamed Acadia National Park. This all came about because of efforts of the Rockefellers and other wealthy people who had maintained summer property on the island and wanted it preserved for future generations

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The views of the sea from the top of Cadillac Mountian were hindered by the fog blanketing the water, but we were able to see the surrounding countryside. It is heavily wooded and would certainly look magnificent in the autumn when the leaves turned.There are considerable rock formations throughout the park, mostly pink granite.

Our next stop was at the local botanical gardens maintained in the park by local volunteers. It was originally started on the estate of Dr. Abbe, one of the early settlers here. It is just starting to bloom but we got to see yellow ladyslippers, which I have never seen, and many different species of ferns. There are hundreds, if not thousands of flowers, shrubs and trees in the garden.

The last stop was at Thunder Hole, a rock formation at the shoreline which can emit a thunderous noise when wave conditions beat up against a wave created cave on the shoreline. Today our guide said the hole was whispering, not thundering! It still was pretty loud.

We returned to the ship in time for lunch. Stan, Cindy and I returned to the town after lunch to shop and walk around the cute downtown area. I wanted to go mainly to find a reliable WiFi source so I could finish my blog entry from yesterday and get it posted. Yvonne decided to remain on the ship and read her book in the cozy lounge while we were gone. I managed to find a bar where I sat with a local Bar Harbor ale and completed that blog entry.

As I completed my walk around the town to take some pictures I witnessed the fog advancing and retreating on the bay and I was reminded of the famous Carl Sandburg poem called “Fog”:

“The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on”.

By the time I returned to the ship the fog had finally burned off the bay and the whole surrounding area was in bright sunlight for us to enjoy the many offshore islands near the town. The town is indeed one of those iconic New England towns with lobster boats bobbing in the bay and brightly colored homes and businesses on the shore.

The ship cocktail hour starts promptly at 5:30 and when I saw the staff member carrying in a platter of deviled eggs I commented to her how we liked them. She proceeded to tell me that on this ship they are “angel eggs”, not deviled eggs and we all got a good laugh.

Tonight’s after dinner entertainment was a local lady singer/pianist who took us on a musical history tour, playing songs from the early 1900s to the present. She focused on those written by famous composers who wrote songs we all remember. It was truly a walk down memory lane.

By the way, today is Stan and Cindy’s 54th wedding anniversary and we all wished them many more years of wedded bliss!

By the way logged 10,457 steps today. I earned that ice cream sundae I had during the piano recital!