The Charles W. Morgan (America's last surviving whaleship) returned to New Bedford (the city of its "birth" in 1841) for a short visit June 28 through July 6. Collin, Reagan, Kate and I met Papa and Grandma there this morning to go on board and check it out.
One interesting fact I read about the Morgan is that it took nine months and $52,000 for the ship to be built in 1841, but more than five years and $7.5 million dollars to restore the ship!
You can't help but notice the cramped quarters on this boat. I felt claustrophobic on the tour; I cannot imagine living on such a boat with a crew and all that went along with whaling.
One of the volunteers on the Morgan asked if anyone knew why the table had those pieces of wood on top. Sure enough, Collin had the answer; they keep the dishes from sliding around too much.
After touring the ship, we entered a tent full of activities for the children. All three of them enjoyed this! The tent was not crowded, so we were really able to enjoy everything offered.
The coolest craft was the "scrimshaw". They were given skewers and small bars of soap, and they scratched designs onto the soap with the skewers. Then, black shoe polish was rubbed over the designs to create the appearance of scrimshaw!
Kate's scrimshaw is on the upper left, and the other three are labeled. Very cool!
Reagan made every craft possible. Kate and Collin made a few.
One of the volunteers told the kids she would give them bracelets if they could throw the "harpoon" into one of the circles. Collin and Reagan both did this standing behind the line, but Kate just walked right up to the game board and pushed the harpoon through the circle. Everyone thought this was funny, and she earned a bracelet.
2 comments:
What a fun tour!! Oh man those cramped quarters would totally have gotten to me!
That looks awesome! WE could probably spend a month with you guys and never see all the cool exhibits!..and then we would need time for all your experiments!?
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