Boston Harbor Island Exploration

I came out to the Boston area for college and one of my first classes my first year was writing about place. During the class one of the places I was assigned to write about was George's Island, one of the Boston Harbor Islands. Since that assignment I have wanted to visit the Harbor Islands, and I'm embarrassed to say it took me about 15 years before I actually did it.

It was a hot day in the city (from the islands we could see the heat rising off the city) so taking the ferry on the water and getting out to the islands was a beautiful way to spend a hot day.

With July 4th around the corner the ferry was running on a more limited schedule and being our first adventure out to the islands we opted for a simple trip and headed out to George's Island & then over to Spectacle and back to the city.

On the ferry out to George's we got to watch some of the tall ships coming in to the Harbor for Harborfest and the 200 year anniversary of the War of 1812. Going past castle Island got to see the cannons firing to announce the arrival of the ships.

Although there were other people with us on the ferry when we got to George's Island it felt like we had the place to ourselves. We started by exploring Fort Warren...

and ended out time on George's by enjoying some shade and the view. We discovered that there were picnic tables and grills, so we started with big plans for a return trip with a picnic, food to grill, a frisbee...

Then it was off to Spectacle Island. Both of these islands had little snack shacks done by Jasper White's Summer Shack but it wasn't really anything that sounded good to us and was kind of expensive so next time we'll bring more snacks with us.

There was a swimming beach and hula hoops you could use... instead we headed up to the vista points. 

We had a nice view of the tall ships docked in the Seaport on our way back to the city. 

And caught a lovely sunset on our walk home

The Harbor Islands were a lot of fun, easy to get to, great way to escape the city and get to go on a boat, inexpensive entertainment and you feel like you're out in nature. Now that I know how fun and easy it was I'm looking forward to going back and not waiting another 15 years before I do!