On Sunday, my husband and I celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary by spending an afternoon out on the water. It wasn’t a major event but it was definitely fun.
We took the Boston Lobster Tour, a 90-minute cruise around Boston Harbor that included pulling up a lobster pot and a lecture on homarus americanus, the American lobster.
It’s always fun to take a boat into the harbor and see all those familiar buildings from the water side. You also get a view of buildings you might ordinarily pass over or not know what they are. Our guide, Tony, confined his comments to lobsters and lobster pots so passengers were pretty much on their own regarding other landmarks.
As a Boston by Foot docent, I could point out the location where the molasses tank stood prior to the great flood. You hear about this 1919 disaster on the Dark Side of Boston tour. Other folks pointed out things that they knew, like the Legal Seafood test lab and headquarters. It would have been nice to have gotten more running commentary on harbor landmarks, though.
Tony did pull up a lobster pot and, in addition to a passel of crabs, we had one mini lobster. He measured it and demonstrated why she was too small to keep—although he would not have kept her anyway. Tony’s lecture was interesting but difficult to hear because he wasn’t wearing a mic and there was a high ambient noise level.
We got to know the couple next to us and had a good time talking to them. After the tour, all four of us went out to dinner at the Yankee Lobster Company and had—what else?—lobster. We also got some free music from the Bank of America Music Pavilion next door.
The Boston Lobster Tour wasn’t anywhere near as informative as Boston by Foot’s Architecture Cruise because it was focused on the lobster experience. If you really want to learn about the city of Boston from the water, this is the tour to take. But it was a beautiful day to be out on the water and we had a good time. Plus lobster.