Sea fever returns!

…and all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by.

When you witness twenty of the worlds largest and most elaborate tall ships enter your port, you could be forgiven for any brief moments lost in imaginative daydream. When your home port happens to be the home of Titanic, you can perhaps fantasize a mite longer!

With the modern glass skyscraper, the twelve storey cruise ship and the ultra-modern Titanic building dominating the Belfast harbour skyline, the contrasting image conjured up by the tall ships was a sight to behold.

A reflection of the past.

Increasingly common in the busy port into the 17th and 18th Century, the sight of the tall ships is now a rarity. It must have been a fantastic sight for those lucky tourists on the cruise ship on this day, as they entered the harbour in gloriously warm sunshine, only to see these magnificent sea horses docked all around them.

We joined almost one million people over the past week, enjoying the festival of world food, drink, music and of course…those tall ships. The organisers can take a well deserved bow for succeeding in bringing all manner of folk together over the piece.

Walking around you could have been forgiven for mistaking the place for a major European holiday port, such was the variety of people.

Yes the vagrant gypsy life may well have gone. But the seagulls still cry and the white clouds will always fly bye.

I think a few more photos would be appropriate to mark the occasion…if there is any interest out there???

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(Sea Fever is a poem by John Masefield).