Portsmouth, NH, a lovely quintessential New England harbor town, is well worth visiting. We have had some yummy food, beautiful views, and serendipitous sights.
After a rushed breakfast, we headed down to Tugboat Alley to get the 10:00 Harbor tour which we conveniently booked on line last night. We checked in with the nice lady who swears she actually has been asked if the islands in the harbor are connected to the bottom. She said the correct answer is NO, they are dragged out there every morning by the tugboats! Hey if you are silly enough to ask it is the perfect answer.
As we got underway our Captain informed us the Piscataqua River which we would normally be taking as our route out of the harbor was closing and we'd be taking an alternate route around the aforementioned islands, essentially taking the tour in reverse. Really, you can close a river??!! It seemed that we had coincidentally timed our trip just in time to watch the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard launch a Virginia Class nuclear submarine, the USS California, which had been in for service, during this mornings slack tide.
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| http://4.bp.blogspot.com/ Logo for the USS California |
So in addition to light houses
we were treated to the unusual sight of watching a submarine, being helped by a tug, set out to sea.
The sub had an armed escort to threaten the small craft crazy enough to get to close. Thankfully our Captain had a healthy respect for the machine gun mounted escorts!
All this excitement left us a bit hungry so we took a page from the Copes Afloat and got some ice cream.
The afternoon was spent at Strawbery Banks, (not a typo - it is spelled with one R) a most unique historical museum of Portsmouth. Unlike for example Williamsburg, VA which portrays a single period of US History, Strawbery Banks portrays the changing face of history. So we explored several hundred years of Portsmouth history -- pre-Revolutionary to the early 1950s. It was quite interesting to see how the houses were modified over the years and chat with a pre-Revolutionary wife of a ship captain next door to an author's from the early 1800s to a Jewish immigrant from the early 1900s.
We finished off the afternoon in the air conditioned comfort of of our hotel watching the end of the US v Belgium World Cup. A most exciting, yet ultimately disappointing, end to a very interesting day!
A&L
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