The Tall Ships Are Coming! The Tall Ships Are Coming!

Or at least that was what I was saying last year in July.  While I have no idea if the ships are coming back this summer, if they are I will definitely be there (and would recommend you check it out too).  For those of you unfamiliar with tall ships things pirates - no not the Samoli pirates (those are too recent), think of Jack Sparrow and Blue Beard and their ships and you have a tall ship.
 

As I mentioned in my last post, I didn't grow up around the water, so when the change to see some cool ships came up I was there (it might have nothing to do with ocean deprivation as a child, but that is my excuse - you may have another).  For five days, ships from all over the world docked in Boston's harbor - most by the Sea Port and others by the USS Constitution (which as it turns out is also a tall ship).  While in Boston some of the captains even open their ships up to visitors.

Because of the crowds me and a friend only made it on to one of the ships.  Several of the other ships were also open to the public, but had long lines so if you want to get onto several boats in one day get their early.  The ship we got on was from Russia and through a random set of events we participated in a private ship tour being given by one of the sailors.  We got to learn about the ship - and hear about how one of the ship's three masts broke during the last leg of the race.

Yes, I said race.  All of the ships were racing from Spain, across the Atlantic and then to Ireland, stopping in designated ports along the way.  If you want to know what countries participated in last year's race visit Sail Boston 2009, and in case you are wondering - because I was - some of the vessels were privately owned and others were connected with the nation's military.