New Bedford

Made a quick trip yesterday to New Bedford, Massachusetts, about 40 miles from Newport. New Bedford is still a working fishing town, and we poked around the port looking at all the fishing boats. Definitely not built for comfort. Can't imagine being out one one of those suckers. There were a lot in port, partly because of the approach of Tropical Storm Danny, which is soaking us all today.

The main reason was to visit the New Bedford Whaling Museum. It was pretty cool. Some fun facts... New Bedford was the center of American 19th century whaling, and the main reason for the whaling was whale oil to burn in lamps and candles. This is before we discovered oil in Pennsylvania and figured out how to refine and use it, of course. At one point, there were around 750 whaling vessels world-wide, and 400 of them were based out of New Bedford. Pretty impressive.

Downtown New Bedford is nice. Still some cobbled streets, especially near the port. Still a lot of maritime businesses so the port is definitely not a museum piece. Up from the waterfront are a lot of art galleries and artist studios for rent - helped by the fact that UMass and Bristol County College both have set up art schools in downtown NB.