Saturday, 5 July
“The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live in, in all New England..nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like houses, parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford…all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea.”
Herman Melville, “Moby-Dick”
More than $2MM was spent for a total re-build of the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan.
In the forty years when New Bedford flourished as “The City that Lit the world,” hundreds of square-rigged ships called it their home port. Just imagine the harbor filled with tall ships, a forest of masts rising to the sky. Only one such vessel remains and she happens to be here this wviveekend.
The Charles W. Morgan came “home” to help New Bedford celebrate Independence Day. And once “Arthur” blew through, New Bedford celebrated in a big way. Cobblestone streets and granite walls echoed with the sounds of the New Bedford Folk Festival.
Automobiles seem out of place on the narrow cobblestone streets of New Bedford.
There were whaleboat races and reenactments. And everywhere, flags and bunting billowed in the breeze.
Thousands made their way to the State Pier pay their respects. And once the sun went down, a barge loaded with what seemed to be thousands of fireworks shot them skyward over the harbor. What a show!
Scallops are the principal catch for the fleet standing-by this day in New Bedford Harbor.
Most of the more than a hundred fishing vessels that now make their home here stayed in port this weekend, their crews enjoying the holiday, too. But those boats were all but ignored, the attention instead focused on the big black-hulled girl built here 170 years ago and now the last of her kind still afloat.
Steadfast out.
At Sea with Steadfast 
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