It seemd to take forever but the Gloria eventually came into view on the receeding tide this afternoon and a fine sight she was too. If only she had been under sail! We had quite a crowd by the time she appeared.
Some facts: The Gloria is the official flagship and sail-training ship of the Colombian Navy, and her home port is Cartagena. Purpose-built in 1968 as a sail-training ship in the Celeya shipyard in Spain, the Gloria is over 56 meters (257ft) long - one of the biggest tall ships still afloat. She is steel-hulled, but there is plenty of polished wood and brass and her four masts and 23 sails give her an appearance of being even older than she is (every step on the ship has the name Gloria embedded in the solid brass escutcheon scuff-plates). Her figurehead, coated in glittering gold-leaf, is called Maria Salud, reputedly after the sculptor's daughter.
So there you have it! Admittedly we did think that she would be a little bigger but size isn't everything!
Also on the incoming tide earlier on were these three fine vessels... the Silver Cloud
the Vistamar
and the sinister looking Aviva
All footage by Brian Churches