Sharp's Travels

Our tour actually began yesterday of the Mystic Seaport, an old Whaling Village.
When we arrived, they were having an activity at the town chapel on Songs of the Whale men. We made our way there and listened to a gentleman explain and sing a number of songs that were sung on board ship by the crew. He played a few different kinds of flutes and also played a tune using rib bones held between his fingers. It was very different.
We stopped at the Nautical Instrument Shop and they told about and demonstrated using early navigation instruments.
We watched the process of making rope and listened to the Whaleboat demonstration. We were shown how they spear and kill the whale and how long a process it is.
We checked out the cooper shop. They showed us how the barrels were broken down and stored aboard ship until they were needed.
We went aboard the L. A. Dunton, a classic late century fishing schooner. Gay was on the crew that helped raise the sail. That was a hard job!
The Joseph Conrad, an 1882 vessel, was also moored there. We were able to go onboard and check it out.
We checked out a few homes in the settlement, the salmon shack, boathouse, the rope walk, ship smith shop, print shop, drug store, bank, tavern, the galleries and the figureheads shop.
We got a call from friends we were meeting for dinner that evening so we headed back to the campground.
Today we extended our stay here through Sunday and found we had to move to a different site. With that done and a bite to eat we headed back to Mystic Seaport.
We finished out our tour at the Shipyard Exhibits. They are in the process of restoring the 1841 wooden whale ship Charles W. Morgan. We were able to go aboard and look around as long as we wanted.
We watched the men at work in the shipyard cutting and lumber to be used in the restoration.
With our tour completed there, we then visited the oldest Steam Powered Cider Mill in the United States located close to our campground back in Old Mystic. It was established in 1881. We checked out how the apples get pressed to obtain the juice and then I purchased some Honey Crisp apples and Gay bought some kettle corn.
We settled back in at the 5th wheel by 3:30pm.
Gay has uploaded pictures from the last two days. See album: Mystic Seaport