NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — September 30, 2012 — A cool and clammy day did not prevent a large turnout at New Bedford's 9th annual Working Waterfront Festival as visitors put on another layer and strolled the city piers, talking to fishermen, browsing craft booths, climbing aboard fishing vessels, listening to poets and musicians and of course enjoying some fresh local seafood, cooked to perfection.
"It's going great," said festival Co-director Kirsten Bendiksen. "The rain held off and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves so far."
Every year the festival provides visitors with the opportunity to learn about commercial fishing and to see how fishermen live and work with films, talks, demonstrations and by opening up boats for tours.
This year, the dragger Apollo, which features in a reality show called Nor'eastermen showing on the History Channel next Thursday, proved a major attraction. "We didn't know what we were letting ourselves in for," said skipper Sean Machie as a steady stream of visitors filed through his wheelhouse, under the watchful eye of the ship's dog Brewski, a puggle who goes out on every trip. "But it's great because most of the people we've seen have never been on a fishing boat before," he said.
Heidi O'Donnell Eastman, a history teacher at the Global Learning Charter School in New Bedford brought her whole class to the festival.
"They all showed up and that's pretty unusual for high schoolers on a weekend," she said. The class is studying ports around the world. "This is good because it connects world history to local history," she said.
Read the full story at the New Bedford Standard Times