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.