Sat, 27 May 2017

El Galeón

This is at least the second year that El Galeón has visited Alexandria.

We tried to go last time but the lines were too long. Today, with the treat of a thunderstorm, we almost walked right on.

It was pretty cool. Very impressive to think about blue water sailing in such a ship. More so to think about that without the modern advances which they have stashed out of view of the visitors.

A crew of 40 seems pretty large for what is not too big a ship. But one of the notes pointed out that it takes 18 to raise the 2,000 pound mainsail.

Perhaps most intriguing: that misbehaving cabin boys were forced into the crows nests during storms as punishment.

Also the causal note that nowadays they have safety lines when folks are working the rigging; originally, there was a rope towed behind the ship. If you fell off, you needed to get to the rope to be saved.

The rain held off (is still holding off). So we could take our time exploring. And even managed to pick up a couple items from the Farmers Market (note the leeks peeking out of Sarah’s bag).

(No one made any jokes about leaks while we were on board.)

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