Miranda Writes

This time I’m not responsible for the pun.

Sailabration was a week long festival this past week in the Inner Harbor and general Baltimore-ish area, in commemoration of the War of 1812 bicentenniel. The War of 1812 is a big historical event; Fort McHenry was one of the major locations, Francis Scott Key and what would become the National Anthem, etc. The Sailabration was Baltimore’s way of commemorating this event while also providing a huge event for the city.

War of 1812 illustrated through sand

I had initially heard about the Sailabration a few weeks ago, but hadn’t thought about it until I went down to the Inner Harbor area last Wednesday to meet a friend for dinner. We had dinner in Canton, and decided to walk back along the edge of the Harbor. Along the way, we started seeing more and more of the ships. This was the first day of Sailabration, so they weren’t as crowded as on the weekend (when the lines to go on the ships were longer than the ships), so we had a chance to go on the Indonesian, Ecuadorian, and Mexican boats.

The Mexican ship (this picture was taken on Sunday, which is why there are so many people in it!)

All of the ships that we went on are used as teaching/goodwill mission ships. They all had maps showing where they had been in recent years (all over the world). I went back on Sunday to see more ships, and at this point, there were more smaller ships, as well as several research and battle ships from the US.

US ships at the end of the Pier 6 Pavillion

The weekends also had more than just entertainment on land. The Blue Angels, the display team for the US Navy were also doing demonstrations over the southern Baltimore area. The planes were being displayed at Martin State Airport, a small local airport serving private and corporate traffic, and on Saturday and Sunday afternoon were doing in-air displays, along with a variety of other helicopters and planes.

One of the early flyovers on Sunday

High-speed airplanes performing stunts are one of the harder things to photograph (especially with a point and shoot!), but here’s proof I saw them!

proof, albeit blurry

I was talking to someone this week about Baltimore in the summer, and we agreed that there’s at least one festival or major event going on every weekend, in addition to other weekly events or smaller events during the week. I’m definitely taking advantage of my last guaranteed summer in the mid-Atlantic by taking advantage of all of this (as well as the easy travel opportunities) so check back for more updates on Baltimore summer fun!