Another fine day out practicing in the life boats. 🙂

After we got in to the dock, I spent the afternoon wandering around Aberdeen again.

First thing I did was stop in at C-Mar. I had worked for C-Mar (US) off and on since 2007 when Oceaneering brought my boat back to the Gulf of Mexico and the culture shock was just too much.

I had asked C-Mar too many times to count to find me some work outside the Gulf of Mexico but for some strange reason, they never could come up with anything. 🙁

While wandering around Aberdeen the past couple of days, I had walked right by C-Mars local office. I figured the least I could do was stop by and introduce myself, and so I did. 😉

Everyone was very nice to me and offered me tea and coffee, but I could see they were all pretty busy and working hard. I didn’t stay long. They weren’t in the market for any DPOs or deck officers (if I had been a subsea engineer, they would have jumped).

After a quick cup of tea with the subsea dept head, I found my way to the Tolbooth Museum, another one of Aberdeens FREE museums. It’s right on the main (Union) street downtown.

It was in a very old building (built between 1616- 1629) and had a lot of history. It’s also supposed to be one of the most haunted places in town (I didn’t see any ghosts). It used to be the old jail for Aberdeen. It was a little hairy climbing up the worn old, dark, narrow, spiral stairs to the exhibits in the former cells on the upper levels.

They had some models of Aberdeen, past and present. They had some items from the city archives (a very good collection). They had some old manacles, locks and chains they used to use on the prisoners. There were some interesting stories posted up about former prisoners and the way they lived back in the old days.

I thought the museum was interesting, but not really somewhere I wanted to spend a lot of time. Not because it was haunted or creepy feeling, but because I don’t really want to spend any more time in a jail than I have to. 😉

I found the bus stop and made my way up to Old Aberdeen. I was talking to a lady who sat next to me and she told me where to get off, but I could see the buildings of Kings College (Aberdeen University) as we drove along the street. The bus dropped me off practically right across the street from the main chapel.

It was another gorgeous day and as I was trying to line up my camera to try to take in the whole scene, I started talking to a guy I saw pulling weeds in the yard of a house across the way.

We actually talked for quite a while. He even let me into his garden to take some good shots of the Kings College buildings in his reflecting pool. 🙂

Here’s how it looked from the street.

After I spent some time looking around the college (and peeking in the open rooms- too bad the chapel was closed, the stained glass looked very nice), I walked up the street to the Cruickshank Botanic Gardens.

The gardens and zoological building were only a few blocks from where I got off the bus and were part of the university. The gardens were really nice and part of it near the entrance was full of a large group of people having a reception of some sort.

I walked through all the beautiful, differently landscaped gardens and found the Zoological Building. It has a small museum but I got there just a few minutes too late. They were already closed.

I kept walking. I was trying to make my way to Seaton Park and the River Don. I found another interesting looking churchyard. This one was St Machars. It was already closed for the day. I checked this one out online later and was sorry I missed seeing the interior.

I enjoyed wandering around the churchyard and looking at some of the gravestones (am I weird for finding this stuff interesting?) and the views out over the nearby Seaton Park.

I saw some of the formal gardens of the park from the churchyard, so it was easy for me to find my way down there. I walked around the park enjoying the well tended fields, forests and flowers for a while.Then I found the River Don and decided to follow it down to the sea (Aberdeen Bay).

It was a nice walk along the river and through the woods. I passed people walking their dogs and jogging. I followed the path til it came out over one of the oldest bridges in Scotland (Brig ‘o Balgownie) and into a cute neighborhood of traditional cottages covered with beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers. Roses, honeysuckle and other colorful blooms lined the roadway all the way out to the main road back into downtown.

I stopped into a local pub for change and a drink, then caught the bus back into downtown. I had seen a place advertising traditional Irish music (which I LOVE) and I wanted to try to get there in time for a good seat.

I did get there a little late and the place was pretty crowded. It didn’t really matter tho, since the band wasn’t going to be there anyway. I was rather disappointed. 🙁

I only had a couple of beers before I managed to find my way back to my hotel for the night. More lifeboat ‘training’ in the morning.