Cruising Ahead

This is a very busy time of year in Salem, of course, but yesterday morning when I looked outside my bedroom window I saw four buses lined up on Chestnut Street. Then I remembered: the cruise ship is in town, one of the first signs of the port’s transformation from power plant facility to destination dock. There has been talk of cruise ships for a year or more, ever since it was announced that the old Salem Harbor oil- and coal-powered plant would be closing, but I didn’t expect them to arrive so soon or be so BIG. Obviously I hadn’t listened closely, as my expectation was that ships with a capacity of 150 or so people would be stopping in Salem, but this ship looked like it belonged in the Caribbean! I approached carefully on my bike, and it got bigger and bigger…..

And then there it was, blocking out everything else in sight! The Seabourn Quest, en route from Canada to Florida, via Salem. I’m so glad its name isn’t the Sea Witch!

Quite a site really, especially when you compare this ship with the other ships in the harbor, like the replica Fame, a War of 1812 privateer (that tiny little ship in full sail on the right below), and the Friendship, a 1797 East Indiaman. Salem’s past, present and future?

Exciting Appendix! My former student Erin, who now works in the Salem State University Archives and Special Collections and has her own facebook page entitled “Archival Encounters” which should be a blog found this GREAT (but undated and unattributed) postcard in said Archives.

P.S. Just got the attribution:  Invitation to the 1996 Annual Meeting of the Salem Partnership.