To avoid traffic, we decided to park about 1.5 miles from a prime viewing site. We found a parking space on the street near the Portland Public Market, a bit of a walk from the Eastern Promenade (a site overlooking Portland Harbor).
Once we finished walking up Munjoy Hill, we circled around the hill until we found a nice piece of lawn all to ourselves. The crowd seemed large, but very well behaved. We did not realize how big the crowd was until viewing a TV broadcast a few days later, and noticed the crowd seemed to continue forever!
We were only able to stay until the Libertad entered the Harbor, as we needed to return to work. But it was well worth the walk! We were able to see the first eight ships entering the harbor, and quite a sight we had.
Leading the parade was the USCG Eagle, looking very majestic indeed. Just after she rounded the USCG buoy tender, a pair of fighter jets roared about 300' above our heads. We did not hear them coming at all! The crowd appreciated that moment.
So we walked around the pier, snapping pictures as we went. Michelle had a wonderful idea to have an early dinner at a nearby restaurant; I thought to myself: "And then we could try the Eagle again!" Although we were wary of trying to have a quick bite at a restaurant close to the piers, the "Drydock" served us quickly. And sure enough, after dinner the line was much shorter.
We breezed through the line in approximately ten minutes, and were aboard, digital camera snapping away incessantly...
I do hope you folks enjoy these pictures as much as we enjoyed taking them. The Eagle is quite a ship; it was wonderful being able to take a tour of her features.
If you have friends who might like to look at these pictures, please feel free to pass the links along.
Here are pictures of the parade on Friday afternoon. And here are pictures of our tour of the USCG Eagle
Offical OpSail Maine web site.
Please come back again soon!
homepage - email: jdustin@usm.maine.edu
Last updated: 2000-08/02