Op Sail

This past Friday night to Sunday morning my time was spent aboard a sailboat.  The weather was almost perfect except a slight drizzle at one point.  While sailing, we watched the Op Sail parade, in which numerous tall sail boats and some military boats paraded from Niantic Bay to New London.  Before the parade we checked out the boats when they were still anchored in Niantic Bay and then followed them to the Thames River which led them to New London.  It was pretty neat and I took a lot of pictures.  Here's some of them.

First, here are some of the pictures taken while the ships were still in Niantic Bay.

The first boat pictured is a sail boat from Brazil.  It was probably the nicest one there. 

 The Coast Guard sailboat was also very impressive.  Even more impressive was the man who climbed all the way up to the top of the middle mast to place a flag up there.  You can just barely see him in this picture.  He is the little ant-like figure up at the top of the middle mast.

 The crew of the boat had to climb the masts (vertical posts) to reach the sails and let them down.  Here you can view the guys at work.  They are standing on a rope that is running horizontal just below the bar where the sails are attached.

 Here the sails are just beginning to drop (notice the flag at the top of the middle mast):

Two of the smaller ships sailing around waiting for the parade to start.

When the parade started, the Coast Guard ship led the way:

One of the military ships:

 

One of the ships was a rather large navy ship.  Notice the crew members lined up in their spiffy white uniforms:

A couple of the smaller boats sailing in the parade:

Eric snapping photos:

 Luke and Andy checking out the parade:

The big sailboat from Brazil was one of the last boats in the parade:

Overall, it was really neat seeing all these ships up close.  There were a ton of boats out watching which can be seen throughout my photos so that was kind of neat, being in the middle of so many boats.  Now, after Cape Cod and sailing, it is back to work.  We have been very busy in necropsy, yesterday we had four chickens, a cat, two dogs and two horses. Today was also busy and tomorrow is shaping up to be busy as well.