I heard today on Twitter that the tall ships were starting to arrive for the Dublin Tall Ships Festival this weekend. So, could I resist taking a walk up there this afternoon? I could not.

We did see a couple of the tall ships. The Guayas from Ecuador is docked such that we can literally almost see it from our house. Here it is from the North side of the river.

And we watched the Kapitan Borchardt coming up river, turning, and docking beside the Samuel Beckett Bridge.

But the highlight of the afternoon was the opportunity to tour the L. É. Niamh. The youngest ship in the Irish Navy is under the command of Captain Charlie, with First Mate Megan at the wheel.

The only disappointment of the afternoon was that we didn’t even see the East-Link open, much less the Samuel Beckett Bridge. (The East-Link is a lifting bridge that opens fairly regularly. Becky saw it open on Sunday, but the kids and I haven’t seen it yet. The Samuel Beckett Bridge can also be opened, by means of rotating the bridge 90 degrees, but it is not opened regularly. I have surmised that they will open it this week, as some of the tall ships are planned to be upstream of it. I would love to see it. But I don’t think my odds are very good.)