Today is the first day of the Sail Fest and we were excited. We will be sailing on a ship as part of the Sail In. The sail festival has about 800+ tall ships registered for the fest and there are usually around 10,000 other ships that just show up.
We were picked up at 7:00 for the hour drive to the Sail
Village. The drive took us through
Amsterdam so we took a few photos along the way.
We checked in at the Sail Village...
Video of sail village
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and then had about an hour and 15 minutes to wait before we boarded the Minerva, our boat for the day.
There a number of masted sailing vessels jockeying for
position along the long dock. It looked
like many of the groups were corporate groups.
It appeared that the companies had booked the entire ship for their
staff and many of the groups had matching sail festival gear.
The Minerva.
Once aboard the staff passed out donuts, savories and mini-chocolate muffins. Breakfast.
Eventually we headed out, accompanied by many smaller leisure boats and a few of the masted ships.
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Video 1 of sailing to the gathering place
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Video 2 of sailing to the gathering place
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The farther we sailed the more small boats
joined us. Eventually we reached the
meeting point with massive numbers of masted sailing ships and an uncountable
number of smaller ones.
There was a tremendous number of boats and ships of all sizes at the assembly point.
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Video 1 of ships at mtg point
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Video 2 of ships at mtg point
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About the time we arrived at the gathering place, the large, masted ships, some in full sail, started heading up the way we came.
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Video 1 of sail in
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Video 2 of sail in
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Our guess was that the registered ships had each been given a time slot in which they would start sailing up the North Sea Canal to Amsterdam. And the small ships just headed out whenever they decided to go. It seemed quite orderly and not nearly the mass confusion one would expect with so many boats. And we saw no collisions. Although our ship did blow it’s horn as it tried to start heading out. It was being held up by a small boat that was too close. We saw a large military ship join the procession.
Everywhere we looked there were spectators along the shore
and watching from rooftops and terraces.
There were even campers lined up along the shore with people sitting and
enjoying the spectacle.
We saw swans…
The ship eventually turned back to our dock, and we were
able to arrange a taxi to pick us up to take us to the hotel. There was a bit of a hassle actually getting
to the hotel. The one bridge to the island
had been closed because of the fest. Our
driver was able to talk his way in but it was a close call.
Our hotel gave us great views of the masses of boats that
were accumulating for the festival. We are just in front of the turnaround point for all the ships.
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Video 1 of ships from our room
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Video 2 of ships from our room
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Near our hotel a number of large, tall-masted ships were docked.
There was also a concert venue for the festival and there were small food stalls set up.
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