Pallada

The Russian University ship, Pallada was in port the other week, and we got go aboard for a tour of this amazing ship. I realize from this 1st picture you are probably thinking OK, they must really be board up there to be so amazed and excited to walk around a boat but this was no ordinary boat. It was a SHIP, as in Pirates of the Caribbean, and it was amazing. However there was one slight problem, the people giving the tours only spoke Russian!!

Did I mention this was a really cool ship? and this isn't even a good shot of it!

Using the sails it could travel at 19 knots, Any guesses on how many sails there are??

So I find out the day before they were leaving that it was open to the public to walk on and look around. Of course however, Scott was on a flight to Barrow so I sucked it up and took all three girls by myself because I really wanted to check this thing out. Well I think this one guy must have really felt bad watching me waddle up the gang plank trying not to loose anyone in the water so after helping us on board he offered to show us around. He also taught me 2 Russian words, his name and Hi, I could barely pronounce them and definitely could not spell them, sorry. So this is "Jack", yes I know I had way too much fun with the whole Pirates of the Caribbean thing. (side note sorry * another funny story, there was a really nice expensive boat in town the same week as this one that was RUMORED to have Johnny Depp staying on it. lol sorry back to the Pallada)

So the 1st thing "Jack" showed me was this cool contraption that I don't know the name of. I guess it would be the maritime version of binoculars, as it made that island behind us look like we were standing on it. There was also a "museum" room that housed Russian artifacts and history on the ship, all in Russian of course. Jack's job was on the top crow's nest of the main sail, he kept watch out and helped pull in the sail and let it out.

This poor kid was 24 and had 4 brothers and sisters and barely spoke English! The girls fell in love with their new friend and he was picked on by every other sailor that walked by for having an American girl and 2kids that no one knew of!

Anyways back to the ship. Every year it enters contests and then posts the events it has been in and/or won around the world. It was built in the early 1980's ('83 I believe) and has sailed around the world twice.

When the girls weren't fascinated with the water or trying to talk the workers into taking them for a ride and leave the dock they worked on their climbing skills. Over all it was an amazing day and a blast checking out the ship. Oh yeah and in case you were wondering there were 26 sails!