Sailabration

A couple weekends ago, there was a huge maritime celebration at Fort McHenry to celebrate 200 years since a great battle transpired between the Americans and the British, who were trying to take control of Baltimore during the War of 1812. Matt works very close to Fort McHenry, so we went down to check it all out.

They had an air show featuring the Blue Angels and that was our main interest. Matt saw them fly over his work several times during their practice a few days before. Let me just say, I could not capture the images I wanted to show you because my shutter speed and coordination were too slow to react to those jets.

Here was our set up at Matt's plant (a private viewing of the show):

On about 5 or so occasions, we had a jet fly right over our heads where we were looking at the belly of the plane right in our faces as it passed over. Once we even saw 2 jets buzz by close enough that Matt exclaimed, "I can see right into the cockpit!!" I wonder what they thought of us. :) After a while, Matt started saying, "Bank. Bank. Aw, YES! They are coming right at us!" And sure enough, 4 were flying low in formation and buzzed right over our heads. It was amazing!

Here are a few lackluster photos that were captured at a distance, although they were much closer than they appear (Wish I had ones of them buzzing overhead):

 This bomber was the show opener...

Then the single jet began dashing about...

 Finally, multiple jets came out in formation...

 Performing all sorts of stunts...

They finished with all six jets in formation.

After the air show was over, there was a massive movement of boats in the bay as they headed home. Here are some of the boats that were on the move (these too were much closer than they appear):

This one is called a Tall Ship.

Before we left, we took a tour of one of many boats docked at various locations around the bay. We had a good time checking out this ship:

As we looked around the cockpit of the ship, I saw Matt hop into the captain's chair. One of the Japanese crew handed him the captain's binoculars for the total experience. It was hilarious.

We also checked out a room on the lower deck that looked like a gathering room for meals and other purposes. It had a funky smell. Matt's comment: "Smells like a locker room." Ew.

It was fun, nonetheless. :)