This weekend has been the Tall Ships festival here at Dana. tall ships refers to the big multiple mast big ships. These are restorations of old ships or new replicas of famous old ships. 7 of them have sailed into our harbor for this festival celebrating the big old ships.

The local Ocean institute here at Dana is the permanent home of 2 of them, the Spirit Of Dana, and Pilgrim, which is a replica of the ship that Richard Dana sailed on from Boston to So Cal back in 1833. His story is so very well told in a book “Two years before the Mast” . Please read it, everyone will love it. He was a Harvard graduate who wanted to see what it was like working on a sailing ship so he signed on as a deck hand, and saw (and wrote) first hand exactly what it was like. It sounds like a very hard life. (He later became a lawyer and spent his career working for better conditions for the sailors on these kinds of ships.)

Some of these other ships came from all over for this festival.. They came into our harbor the other night in a big parade, and tied up to the wharf and we all could come on and see them up close. It is amazing to me how complicated they are. They have 100s of lines, all looking the same, and tied up all in a row along both side rails, and each has a very specific purpose for rigging the sails. It was also amazing to see the crew climbed aloft to rig the sails. Looks hard enough in a calm bay, impossible in a storm, but they did. Many times a day. Up and down, every time the captain or first mate gave an order for adjusting the trim of the sails.

All along the shre has been an arts fair sort of places with booths for selling everything from art and jewelry and fake pirate tattoos to hot dogs and of course kettle corn. What did we ever do before the kettle corn booth?

One of the music performers was a folk singer doing old songs from that period, 1700-1800s old stuff. One thing he had that was very cool was a funny little wooden puppet man with jointed arms and legs tied on with string and controlled by a stick. The puppet’s feet were just above a thin piece of wood that the guy would thump and make the puppet dance and it looked all the world like Irish tap at Kenzie does. It was so neat. I filmed some of it and will try to post it on you tube, . I recall that my uncle Jack made something like this once , I guess he was up at some high camp and there was a big storm that kept them in the hut all week so he carved this funny little guy that danced.

People can volunteer to be on the crew of the Pilgrim and spend every Saturday cleaning and painting and repairing and then get a chance once a year to go on a 2 week cruise on this boat. I am going to do it. Sounds like a grand adventure!