Old Whaling Ship

Old Stonington Lighthouse

Left this morning at about 10:00 for Old Mystic Seaport, stopping at “Somewhere in Time”—a local diner—for breakfast. Great food. Mystic Seaport was much more involved than we thought. They have an extensive ship-building facility. Right now they’re restoring the Roann—a fishing schooner. And it’s all done using traditional tools and techniques. And they built from scratch a replica of the square-rigged “Amistad” a former slaving ship. They have an extensive collection of old wooden whaling boats and fishing boats. The whaling boats would go out for 3-5 years at a time so the captains would sometimes take their wives and children along. We left Mystic and headed back to Stonington to tour the old lighthouse there. Both Mystic and Stonington were settled in about the 1640s. Then we stopped at the Captain Nathan Palmer home and toured it. He was a very successful ship captain who accidentally discovered Antartica while on a seal hunting trip. Had dinner at a neat seafood restaurant on the dock in Stonington. Good food. Very pricy. Another cool, windy, cloudy day. We leave tomorrow for Plymouth, MA.