On Cape Cod and New Bedford

Two pleasant days on Cape Cod, staying in a friend's lovely condo on the water.













Monday we explored Falmouth and Wood's Hole and soaked up sea air and small town quaintness.

























































































Tuesday we drove further afield on the Cape, to Sandwich, Orleans, Chatham - all charming. Sadly, we had to postpone Nantucket because so many things are already shut for winter.



Titcomb's Bookshop in Sandwich - I would love to work here! It is attached to the owner's 17the century home.












Keeper of the bookshop..





















Deserted beach in Dennis.











Wednesday, before returning to Boston to pick Gloria up from the airport, we detoured to New Bedford.





Since listening to a recorded book of Moby Dick last year we have both been eager to learn more about whaling history. So we wandered the old streets of what was once America's premier whaling town, explored the present day working waterfront (mostly scallop boats),






and marveled at The Seaman's Bethel - the very chapel Melville attended and used as a model for the famous preaching scene in his novel. We want to return and spend plenty of time in the New Bedford Whaling Museum, the biggest and best in the country. The short history of this vanished industry and way of life is piognantly fascinating, filled with both great adventure and much tragedy on the seas, until electricity eliminated the market for sperm oil.

Ship's prow pulpit of Seaman's Bethel.

We were particularly moved by commemorative cenotaphs on the chapel walls: