The Glorious Gloria Arrives In Port!

As I said in my previous article, the City of Newport, RI is hosting the Tall Ships Festival of 2007. I was all over the place taking the pictures you saw in the other article, and while waiting for the harbor launch to get over to Fort Adams a wondrous event occurred. The Gloria from Colombia  arrived to dock at her berth at Bannister's wharf, and we had to wait until all the brouhaha was over. Believe me, the wait was worth it.

First we heard the singing of many voices. then from behind the Coddington Wharf building the Gloria appeared, the crew standing in the shrouds and singing. 

From out in the harbor the ship turned into the water beside Bannister's Wharf, the crew still singing and everybody cheering and going nuts!

And here are some close-ups of the crew in the shrouds. We were told that they were singing their National Anthem. And btw, if you look at the full size version of the shots in the slide show at the top of the page you'll see that their are some women in the crew as well.

And then there was this brave soul (or poor fool, or raving maniac, take your pick!) standing atop the foremast. There was another atop the mizzen, but I didn't see anybody atop the mainmast; either there wasn't anything to stand on, or to much equipment, or they just couldn't get anybody to stand that farr up above everything!

And when it was all over and the crew had returned to the deck, we all cheered and applauded. It really was a magnificent thing to see and hear. I wish I'd had something to record them singing, and then I wish there was a way you could post sound files here on Gather, just so I could have given you a better idea of just what this total experience was like. But here's the best I could do. I hope you've enjoyed it.