Floating History

I spent a pleasant hour today visiting the Nina and the Pinta, reproductions of two of the ships that Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain to the Americas. The ships are in Lewes for the weekend and the volunteer crews are offering tours.

I love boats of all kinds and am a voracious reader of maritime stories, so I was in heaven. I took about a hundred pictures, some of which I liked well enough to post on-line.

While I was aboard, a small group of volunteers from the Kalmar Nyckel were wandering around and playing compare and contrast. The Kalmar Nyckel is a reproduction of the ship that brought the first permanent European settlers to Delaware, in 1638. There are almost 150 years between the two voyages; it was fun to listen to them compare notes with the Nina and Pinta crews. The Kalmar Nyckel was a much more technologically advanced ship, yet all three are but small cockle shells in which to cross a stormy sea.

One of the perks of living in Lewes is the town's close connection to the sea. We were historically a port, and a fishing town. Now we haul in tourists and retirees, but the water still plays a key role.