Portsmouth, New Hampshire

Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Tue 26 Jun 2012 21:20
Having left steamy Boston, we headed further north towards Maine, and stopped off at Portsmouth.  This is another of America's old cities, it dates all the way back to the 1600s!!  Just like at home, Portsmouth is a big ship building town with a naval dockyard.  
Previously, in and around the 1600s and 1800s, Portsmouth was a major trading port and many English adventurers settled here.  They exported vast amounts of lumber from here, to the UK and Europe.  When the ship building and marine trade died off, the town also suffered.  There had been a large area known as Strawberry Bank, on the waters edge, but when the sea trade died off, people moved into the town itself and started to rely more on shore based activities for work.   
Fortunately for Portsmouth, they managed to save the old houses from Strawberry Bank and preserve them as a living museum.  Following WW2, and in the 1960's and 1970's, when urban re-generation was quite the in thing, many of America's historic houses were demolished to make way for newer, more modern homes, but a couple of sisters from the town, armed with a large trust fund and lots of local support managed to save Strawberry Bank, restore the old buildings and subsequently open the museum. All the houses except one are in their original place, the other was cut into 3 pieces and moved - not quite such an enormous feat when you think that all the houses are wood framed, timber built properties.   This makes for a nice place to wander round, unusually for a museum site, some of the houses are only partly open to the public as people have apartments there - which would be a very strange way to live, no least as you would have tourists like us tramping through half the time!
Our time here has been somewhat affected by the weather.  When we arrived the sun was shining as we headed up the river to our berth.  Mooring the boat was the first challenge.  Fortunately, we had arrived at the right state of tide,  the guy in charge of the marina had advised us to go up past the marina dock, turn and berth down river to allow for the current as he advised us we  would find it  hard to stop and he was dead right!  The currents flowing through this river are unbelievable - they literally rage through. As advised we tied up the boat in a completely different way to normal to accommodate the tide, allowing the front to 'range' from side to side and bringing the back in tight.  This works well here and at least she is not 'snatching' at her lines.  The currents here are fierce, when we arrived there was an eddy (circular), current right where we were mooring, which meant that even the bow-thruster struggled to get the bow in towards the dock.  
Yesterday, we we went out for our first run in months, (nearly a year actually), and planned to shower and head to town afterwards.  That plan was soon changed.  The rain started while we were out and got heavier and heavier.  By the time we got back the thunder and lightening had started and it was very close indeed, you could even hear the lightening bolts snap and crackle the electric charge was so high.  It was quite frightening and I was very glad we were safely tied up.  This went on for a good long time and at times the big lifting road bridge, which is about 400 yards away was completely invisible.  Today again, our activities have been cut short due to another slightly less violent, (at the moment) storm, and I am writing this while listening to the fog horns,  waiting for it to clear.
Portsmouth is actually a very nice town which we will probably visit again.  One reason for another visit is that we had planned to try out a lobster shack for dinner tonight, but as the smaller road bridge has been demolished, we would have to go by dinghy, and getting the dinghy down and back up again would be too risky with the strength of the current.  We would have to do both at slack water, which doesn't fit in with leaving very early tomorrow and we would be soaked to the skin by the time we got there, which is never fun.  Hey-ho, we can't really whinge too much about the weather, we have been very lucky so far!  Next stop Portland, Maine, so as it is about 60miles away again, we will be leaving about 6am - I love early starts!!  There are few photos from here due to bad weather, but here are a couple, it is the best I can do. You would think being English we would be used to getting wet and going out anyway, but there is a limit!

 This is a photo of the bridge (about 400 yards away), it took about 5 minutes for the visibility to decrease so that this was all you could see of it. It later disappeared entirely! Also during the storm, one particularly violent lightening strike hit the bridge and damaged some of the concrete supports.  It still appears to be operation though.  When the lightening strike hit, it was so close you could almost feel the charge, it made the hairs on your arms stand up!  The lack of visibility is purely caused by the rain, no fog or mist, which gives you an idea of just how hard it was raining.

   A couple of photos of the preserved village of Strawberry Bank, just before the rain started.