Tall Ships Erie

Also known as "Niagara holds a party for her tall ship friends and asks for money."

And partying we are. We had an awesome parade of sail yesterday, 67 degrees and 20 knots of wind, waves crashing over our bow; it was glorious.
We got in, secured everything and went to the crew party. It was a good meh, according to me. I'm not a big party-er, and despite spending two summers on a tall ship, I still don't think I ever will be. I did dance though. Oh, excuse me, I mean to say I moved around awkwardly while others danced around me. But it was fun. They'd all been in the marlinspike punch and free beer, so I figured the next day no one would remember how dumb I looked.

Today we woke up crazy early (well, not crazy early, just early) and helped set up "cattle chutes" (aka rope guidelines for the public) for the other ships. Minor catastrophes ensued, but nothing too serious. They got up and seem to be staying pretty well, yay!
Then tours. Tours and tours and tours and throngs of screaming schoolchildren, some of which I was sorely tempted to cudgel. (Can you tell I'm in a good mood today?)
Then lunch and my watch got stood down, whee! Stood down meaning go away and find something to do for a few hours. Okay, that's easy, SLEEP. Nope. Ran into Dan, a model shipbuilder and shipmate who sailed with us for a bit earlier this season and got to talking about the 5 foot operational model he has with him and was displaying earlier. We also got to play with the tiny model carronade that fires. I got to push the button that fires it, now that was awesome.
Then I came up and checked in to say hi to Selena, one of our ship moms and emergency cook for awhile. She didn't have any helpers as was promised, so I grated cheese, cleaned dishes and then swept and wiped up counters. Now I'm even more ready for that nap, which will happen directly after submitting this post.
So probably an hour and some of sleep, then back at it.