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Mystic Whaler departure for NYC and Chesapeake September 9, 2005

38 Years of Cruising...
Fair Winds Speed Mystic Whaler on Fall Voyage; She’ll Be Back in November, and Boarding in Spring 

“Fair wind, and following sea...”

Good words to a mariner, and good words on the early Friday morning of September 9, as the cruise schooner Mystic Whaler cast off from her dock of 38 years and headed south, out to the Sound, down to New York and then on to Chesapeake Bay.

It was a pretty sight, and an unusual one: This was a rare occasion when the Whaler could set sail upriver, near Mystic Seaport, and then run down through the confines of Mystic bridge, sails full on a sunny northwesterly, with a cannon salute from the vesseland an answering toot from the bridge whistle. It also was the last time the Whaler was to depart their Holmes Street berth, though in spring they hope to homeport nearby.

The wind was to intensify as they entered Mystic’s outer harbor and turned easterly, riding an incoming, down-Sound tide toward the big city for its fifth annual “Big AppleCruise.”

The 110-foot Whaler had 16 passengers plus crew aboard for the three-day outing, the culmination of an “excellent” summer, said Captain John Eginton, skipper of the vessel since 1984 and her owner since 1993. In its 38 years -- not counting a five-year layup -- Eginton estimates that Mystic Whaler has carried more than 150,000 passengers on cruises out of Mystic and on to the Sound, where the wind beckons.

Capt. Eginton was accompanied aboard by Mate Karl Hahn, Deckhand Katie Grey, Cook Rudi Geissler, Cabin Steward Nancy Ryall, and Galley Steward Andrea Kirby. Holding the fort back in Mystic was Office Manager Kristy Head.

At the end of the summer season, Eginton heads for the Chesapeake until November, and part of that trip is a stopover at the 79th Street Pier to leave off the Big Apple passengers in New York. This year arrival was on Sunday, September 11. Somberly, Eginton recalls that five years ago the remains of the Twin Towers of New York were “still smoking” when the Whaler rounded the Battery at Manhattan.

On a far happier note, this year the Chesapeake cruise will homeport in Baltimore’s inner harbor and include trips to Bay towns like St. Michael’s, Chestertown, Georgetown, and Rock Haul before she returns to over winter at Mystic Downtown Marina.

Mystic Whaler will be boarding again in the spring, said Eginton, and will remain a Mystic icon for adventurous tourists...and those who want to breathe salt air, no matter from where they hail.