Mystic Seaport, Connecticut. I hadn’t been there in 50 years and it was a great place to spend a Sunday. The museum is a private and public partnership of some sort, with the mission of restoring and preserving old wooden boats and keeping the craft of wooden boat-building alive.

The jewel of the museum’s crown is a wooden whaling vessel, the Charles W. Morgan. It’s currently up on land in the midst of an extensive refit, but one can go aboard to tour. It’s impossible to imagine that the ship & crew sailed for years at a time, chasing whales all over the oceans, before returning home.

The wooden boat group was at the Seaport, showing off their wonderful old cruisers and runabouts. It’s always a joy to look at the beauty of teak & varnish, and think about bygone days.

They had a nice display of the history of the art of tattooing, and the sailors over the years who have sported tattoos from every port of call.

I got to drive a radio-controlled tug & tow; probably the only tug I’ll ever drive, more’s the pity.