New Bedford Harbor - Inside the Hurricane Barrier

Inbound, after you pass through the hurricane barrier, you are presented with a large, active harbor.  New Bedford is still on your left and Fairhaven is still on your right.  There are facilities and sites on both sides for visiting sailors.  The harbor is also the mouth of the Acushnet River.  The Fairhaven side is where Slocum put the Spray in to begin his journeys.  A leading Fairhaven family involved profitably in the China trade were the Delanos.  This is where the "D" in FDR comes from.  FDR's mom was raised in Fairhaven and he spent a lot of holidays there growing up.  The Delano home is now a bed and breakfast.  In the good old days, there was a Delano wharf off of Fairhaven.  Over by Moby Dick Marina, well up into the harbor is a large cemetery named Riverside, that was apparently funded at its inception by the Delano family.  If you are into grave hunting, drive in to the back and you will find a large crypt with many of the Delanos that you would read about if delving into FDR's ancestors.

 

On the New Bedford side, you will see a commercial waterfront, with a large part of the harbor's fishing fleet tied up in various locations.  Fish intake and processing facilities, ice houses, and a ferry dock among other things.  You will see all manner of boats/ships in the harbor.  Small cruise ships, mega yachts.  Whale boats being rowed by crews for fun and exercise.  Rowing sculls from a local rowing program.  Tug boats, barges, rowboats.  You can usually see the Hannah Boden around.  This being the boat Linda Greenlaw captained in the Perfect Storm saga.  I believe she also used it for one of those dangerous catch type shows on TV.  I thought the boat was moving up to Maine, but I still see it in the harbor quite a bit.  In downtown New Bedford, there is a very nice historical area that contains the Whaling Museum, the Seaman's Bethel, restaurants, National Park visitor center and little shops.  If you like Moby Dick, you'll like the fact that you can visit the area and many of the buildings and sites that he speaks of.  There is a public dinghy dock that you can use to access this part of town which I'll describe in a later post.

 

When you first enter the harbor, you will see a picture perfect little lighthouse off of Palmer Island on your left.  If you are going to get hung up in the harbor, the water around the north of Palmer Island might be the place where it will happen.  They've put moorings into the pocket area southeast of the island and there is a large mooring field on the west side of the island (Gifford Street mooring field); but watch your chart in this area and make sure you are in the channel or east of it, when you enter the harbor from the barrier.

 

I am bouncing you back and forth, but as you enter the harbor from the barrier, on the right you will see the beginning of the Fairhaven Shipyard complex.  This facility has gotten larger and larger, gobbling up some other properties over the years.  It is divided into the North and South yards.  Gas and diesel is available at the South yard as you enter the harbor.  This complex has got it all from soup to nuts.  It has got a marina and works on anything from small boats to ferries to fishing boats.  It really dominates the waterfront on the Fairhaven side.  It has a great reputation, but I don't have a lot of personal experience with it other than buying fuel.