Captain Watson

Pier 4, Charlestown Navy Yard

Good Evening,

Well here we are in Boston. I can see the new Boston Gardens from on deck as well as the Constitution. Most of the class A ships, the big square rigged ships, are over a mile away but their dress lights are easily visible towering over the Boston waterfront. That is one of the things that makes Halifax such a great tall ships port you can easily walk the mile it takes to see the ships. Here it is almost three miles!

Last night was a long one with rain squalls, threats of thunder and a fair bit of local traffic both fishing and commercial I didn't get a whole lot of sleep. We arrived on station at broad sound at 0630 and had to wait for an hour for line handlers to get ready so we steamed around looking at the ships waiting to go in. Due to politics surrounding the event here there is no parade of sail. MY understanding is that the city didn't want any public gatherings that would cost them extra security money. I find this extremely funny, to have the city move to limit public gatherings, in Boston of all places. In any case there had to be two hours and two miles between the class A ships and two miles and 1 hour between the rest of us.

In any case we arrived at our berth at 0900 as scheduled and then steamed around the harbour for an hour while we waited for the Bounty to load some passengers and move off our berth AHHHH finally we slipped past the Irish warship L.E. EITHNE and into our berth. Shortly afterward 8 US coasties showed up to inspect our vessel. They were of great humour and the inspection went well. They went as far as coming back to the ship to let us know where the nearest laundromat was! They certainly set the bar high for Transport Canada!

That is it for tonight.

Best regards,

Phil Watson
BN II