[Marblehead Harbor; 7pm, 8/25/09; click for larger]
On Saturday afternoon, we took a short drive up to Salem to go to the Peabody Essex Museum. It's one of my favorite local museums, both for its beautiful building and its excellent exhibits which often reflect its historical roots as a repository of maritime art and treasures that sea captains brought back from travels to Asia, Africa and India. The latest large exhibit is The Golden Age of Dutch Seascapes, which ends in early September. The exhibit features more than 70 paintings from Dutch painters during the 1600s. Lots and lots of ships in sea battles, roiling waters and gusty glowering skies. There were also some calmer paintings of harbors, which is what I thought of when I looked at the harbor scene above, taken in Marblehead later that evening. We also enjoyed the current photo exhibit, Surfland, featuring modern tintype portraits of surfers.
After the PEM closed, we walked around Salem a bit down, past all the tacky witch-themed shops to the waterfront, where one tall ship, The Peacemaker, was docked and open for touring. We didn't feel like boarding, but watched a couple of small motor boats navigate the choppy water in some serious headwinds from Hurricane Bill out in the Atlantic. The rough seas explain why the harbor was full of moored sailboats; beaches along the New England coast were all closed to swimming, too.
[The Peacemaker, on Derby Wharf]

[Yellow Salem water taxi coming in on choppy water]
Although there are a number of restaurants on Pickering Wharf in Salem, it was early yet so we decided to drive down to Marblehead, a rocky peninsula just south of Salem. There, after some inadvertent scenic side trips, we found a local hangout appropriately called The Barnacle, attached to a rock on the side of the harbor. We were ushered past the noisy bar and restaurant out onto the narrow porch out back for a nice dinner overlooking the water.