Tall Ships Ahoy!

Aside from the well covered happenings this past weekend, here in Tacoma we also hosted the "Tall Ships Festival" which for five days took over the downtown waterway and had people walking, talking and dressing like pirates - it even featured a Captain Jack Sparrow lookalike, who from all reports was unsettlingly accurate!

But what elevates this from a hometown pride thing, to a postworthy thing is that my office sits on the mouth of the downtown waterway, so last Thursday when the Parade of Ships ushered in the start of the festival, it ushered them right past our conference room window!

The picture above is of the Lady Washington, which was featured in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie with a different paint job. It was just one of many impressive ships to sail past our window, making for a very entertaining workday.

The parade wound down with a truly giant ship, from the U.S. Coast Guard. By then, all the spectator boats were starting to move in, and it made for a really great shot!



We took pictures of many of the boats as they paraded through the inlet, and they're collected in the slideshow below. Some of them were firing canons as they passed, which shook every window in the office!



This is the second time Tacoma has presented the Tall Ships Festival, and I really hope they'll do it again - maybe next time I'll make it down to the actual festival rather than just watching from above...