A Four-Hour Tour

Just sit right back, and you'll hear a tale

A tale of a fateful trip

That started from this historic port

Aboard this (not so) tiny ship

The mate was a mighty sailing man,

The skipper brave and sure

Four passengers set sail that day

For a four-hour tour, a four-hour tour...

The parody falls apart after this since the weather was only overcast and no one got shipwrecked, but we did spend a little more than four hours out in Boston Harbor Islands NRA today. Haha!

We were back at Long Wharf at 8:30AM this morning to get our tickets for the ferry over to the islands. When I looked online at the schedule, I thought that we could take a connector route from Georges to Spectacle Island and return to Boston from there. But unfortunately, the connector wasn't running today, so we settled on only visiting Georges Island.

On the half hour trip over to Georges, we had nice views (but not so great pics) of Boston and the other Harbor Islands...

Long Wharf and the Inner Harbor

Castle Island

Nix's Mate

Georges Island and Fort Warren

Once the boat docked, we went straight to the visitor center so that the boys could work on the island activity pages in their Jr. Ranger books. Ordinarily, they would have had to visit two islands to earn a badge, but since the connector wasn't running, the guys got special dispensation from the ranger.

At 10:30, we went on the ranger-led tour of Fort Warren. The fort was completed just after the beginning of the Civil War, but was never fired upon. It did house Confederate prisoners of war, as well as the Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens.

The entrance to the fort

Not surprisingly, the boys really liked exploring the fort.  So did we!

Loopholes in the demilune

Long Island (left) and Gallops Island (right)

Inside Fort Warren looking west towards Boston

We should have booked a return time later than 11:30. Fortunately, because there were not a lot of visitors today, the rangers said that it wouldn't be a problem to take the 12:30 ferry instead. So we poked around the fort a little longer after the tour was over. Too bad the batteries in the flashlight we brought with us were dead!

After lunch from the snack shack on the island, we hopped back onto the ferry. It made a stop at Spectacle Island to let some passengers off. J had really looked forward to swimming at the beach on the island, so we asked if we could pay the difference and get off here, too. No dice. Sorry, son! 

Spectacle Island

Coming back into the harbor, we saw other cruises on their way out...

Liberty Clipper

The pirate ship Formidable

Here's what the boys got for their efforts this morning. Pretty cool looking badges! These are the first ones they've ever gotten with a color emblem.

More on the rest of our day in the next post...