Rich Beaubien takes in the view from the East Boston waterfront.

This Saturday afternoon, the Massachusetts Oyster Cracker Project will be placing oysters in Boston Harbor, at the mouth of the Charles River.

The goal isn't to give the Union Oyster House a new supply of slurpable food, but to create a natural filtration system for the harbor:

Charles river flow is 300 million gallons per day. Ten small beds of oysters 225 feet square (less than a football field) could cleanse this volume on a daily basis.

Would this happen instantaneously? No. Would every gallon of flow be filtered? No. But can these Oysters improve the situation? Absolutely.

Via the Charlestown Connection.

Speeded up for your convenience:

Chris Devers spends some time at the Black Falcon Terminal at dusk.

Jelpics took some photos as the Queen Elizabeth 2 rounded Castle Island today for its last visit to Boston. Joshua Thayer took some photos at the Black Falcon dock. Rikkma photographed the QE2 setting sail.

As a complete landlubber, the thing that amazes me about outer Boston Harbor on a nice warm day is how crowded it seems. There are tugs and dredges and freighters and ferries and sometimes even a giant cruise ship, all somehow making their way around without crushing any of the sailboats and other small pleasure craft bobbing and tacking and just sitting there.

Oh, and whales! RDA was out on the Harbor this weekend, too, only got to see a whale, in addition to the Boston skyline and boats and docks.

Looking toward the Great Blue Hill (I think; somebody please correct me if I'm wrong) through a tunnel out of Fort Warren on Georges Island.

The fort is great for such framed views, given that it has zillions of slits and holes for cannons, guns and binoculars:

Maria Varmazis glides past a Boston Harbor buoy.

Massmoga photographs the little used bridge to Long Island in Boston Harbor.

No word if it's named Layla, though.