Ships ahoy!

What do you do when you've promised your children a trip see pirates and ships and a chance to dig for treasure, and then you find out that traffic is so bad it'll take two hours to drive into Duluth (a trip that normally takes less than 25 minutes)?

Well, when the friends you were planning to meet at the Tall Ships Festival happen to have a boat and a charter fishing license, the solution ends up to be far better than the original plan.

We turned the journey into part of the adventure, traveling by boat down the St. Louis River into the harbor.

Traveling by boat gave us an awesome view of the Tall Ships, including the star of the show: the Bounty. This was the same ship used in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

The ships were impressive in detail and size. What struck me the most was the thought that so many early explorers and settlers, ranging from Columbus to the Pilgrims, once crossed the ocean in vessels smaller than these.

Looking at the ships lined up behind the DECC, I also couldn't help but think of Pearl Harbor and the mighty ships that turned out to be sitting ducks on what became known as Battleship Row.

But enough about my weird thought patterns. Who has time to think when full concentration is needed to keep up with four busy kids, three of whom were wanting to be pirates? Any ship would do for these young mates. (That's AJ, Ethan and Carver hanging on one of the anchor lines for the permanently docked William Irvin, a retired ore carrier we had to walk by to get to the tall ships.)

As it turned out, our view from the water was much better than the view from land, and it didn't require waiting in any lines. The kids barely glanced at the ships as we walked. They were too busy looking for pirates and begging for cotton candy.

Besides the ships, there was plenty of other pirate-themed fun. Someone needs to explain to AJ that the point of walking the plank is to try to NOT fall in the water. AJ was at least two-thirds of the way across this balance beam, and doing just fine, when he purposely jumped into the pool. In his shoes. Such a brilliant child.

There was also free, live music, which, if you're Sydney, translates into a free opportunity to dance.

We attempted to also take in a performance of Pirates of Penzance, however the kids' attention spans just couldn't last. We walked over instead to Treasure Adventure, which I will write about tomorrow.

The return up the river was just as fun as the trip down. As I watched the sun setting over the hill, I was reminded of something a friend told me the year I moved to Duluth. If you can survive the winters, the summers make it all worthwhile. This was an amazing day to be in Duluth.