I had been monitoring the progress of these big sailboats as they were making their way through the area, on their way across Lake Superior and the tall ships meetup there. There should be more coming through, in the days to come, because their convention isn’t until next weekend. I’ll keep a lookout for them too. This morning, I announced that the pictured three ships were in the process of locking through. All three boats fit neatly into one lock and there was even enough room left over to accommodate a Soo Locks tour boat. This announcement precipitated a cavalcade to the water. Dan and Brit were the first ones offshore in their sailboat. I tried launching in a kayak and promptly rolled, losing my new eyeglasses and a ballcap. Anne came to my rescue and recovered both items, but I had had enough of that. Instead, I got Mr. Bill to launch his motorboat. Anne decided to kayak anyway, even though the wind was up. So, our little flotilla headed downstream to meet the upcoming sailing ships fleet. With Bill at the helm, he and I managed to get much closer to the tall ships than I would have otherwise. Dan and Britt got pretty close too. Anne even made it out into the main channel. The first one to arrive was the Niagara, which is also considerably larger than the other two boats. Its mostly woman crew were out on the main yard, with one hand for the boat and one hand for themselves. They were getting ready to unfurl the mainsail. After the Niagara had passed us, the other two boats arrived in tandem. Bill told me that he had sailed on the Inland Sea as part of his daughter Liz’s junior high field trip. These two boats soon also got away. The wind had freshened some by then, so we turned for home. Dan and Britt were having no problems, but I was worried about Anne, being only in a kayak. We circled around back to check on her a couple of times though and she said that she was fine. As soon as we had docked the motorboat, I ran up to the cabin, to get a pair of binoculars and then started walking down the beach. She soon rounded the last point and was visible again, but once having done so, she had to face the full force of the wind. I walked down the beach and then waded out to the last sandbar. Signaling her, I got her to turn away from the wind some. She soon made it to where I was standing in the water and I offered her some valet parking. We all had a great time and got some good photos too.