Sailing

In the Bay of Islands, I went sailing on the R. Tucker Thompson. It is a two-masted tall ship.

Here it is arriving to pick up the passengers:

The crew up in the rigging, getting some sails ready:

My turn to climb the rigging:

And yes, I did actually climb up to that point in the rigging to take the photo! It wasn’t too difficult, but it was a little scary. Some daring is required.

Passengers are allowed to climb the front mast, until they are standing on the white platform you can see above the lowest crossbeam. It is easy to get your head up to the height of the crossbeam, but then it is very tricky to climb above that.

Of the 25-or-so passengers, only two of us climbed all the way up.

Looking down to the bowsprit:

In true tall ship style, it even has a cannon! We fired it off as we approached the wharf at the end of the trip. It is a tiny cannon, but it makes a big noise!

You can see the tiny little cannon sitting on the deck:

I signed up for this trip when I learned that passengers could climb the rigging. There are many other sailing trips in the area, many of which have passenger participation, but none let you climb.

This is another adventure that I can highly recommend!