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Every Tuesday at 6:42 a.m. and 8:42 a.m., Brenda Newbern provides a rundown of some of the events happening in the Cape Girardeau Area. Brenda is the Executive Director of the Cape Girardeau Convention and Visitors Bureau.To find out about more events happening in the area, check out visitcape.com/events.Local support for this program comes from Bobby & Elizabeth Gray of Gray & Co - Concierge Real Estate Team.

Replicas of Two of Columbus' Ships to Visit Cape Girardeau

VisitCape

 

** Due to overwhelming interest in the 'Pinta' and the 'Nina,' the Captain of the ships has decided to extend their stay in Cape Girardeau. Originally scheduled to open for tours Friday, September 29 and stay until Monday, October 2, the sailing museums will now be docked at Riverfront Park in Cape Girardeau through Sunday, October 8, adding six full days of tours. Ships will be open for tours from 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. September 29 - October 8.**

On Friday, September 29, the ‘Pinta’ and the ‘Nina’, replicas of Columbus’ ships, will open for tours in downtown Cape Girardeau and will be available for tours. Plus, there are several other activities taking place that same weekend downtown.

Stacy Dohogne Lane is the host of KRCU's All About Cape and is with VisitCape. She stopped by to tell Dan Woods more about all of the upcoming activities.

 

Stacy: So, Dan, I hope you're planning on being in Cape Girardeau the last weekend in September, the first weekend in October because there's a lot going on.

 

Dan: Yeah, I understand we're going to have some visiting history, really.

 

Stacy: Yes. On Friday, September 29, the 'Pinta' and the 'Nina' -- they're Columbus replica ships -- they're going to be docked at Riverfront Park and open for tours Friday, September 29 through Monday, October 2 from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day.

 

Dan: And these are, I read in the some of the information you sent out, that historians consider these type of ships like, the space shuttle of their time. Explain that, what does that mean?

 

Stacy: So, they're called caravels and they're a Portuguese ship that was used by Christopher Columbus and many other early explorers to discover new worlds. So, these ships really harken back to those early days of exploration in the late 1400s and the 1500s. From what I understand they're very small. You don't expect them to be as small as they are and apparently they packed a ton of animals and people and supplies in these ships. So, these ships are really going to bring to life what those early days of exploration were like on the sea.

 

Dan: And the Nina was completely built by hand?

 

Stacy: No power tools and Archaeology magazine has referred to it as "the most historically correct Columbus replica ever built." I feel like I should emphasize that these are just replicas of these ships from the late 1400s.

 

Dan: They're gonna be here in Cape Girardeau and there's a chance for the public to come down and I guess they'll be special things for students to come down. This is a real learning opportunity, right?

 

Stacy: Absolutely and if teachers are interested in setting up a group tour for their class or for their students they can do that. If you go to visitcape.com/historicweekend2017, we've got all the information for how to book those group tours. And for anybody from the general public who wants to go out and see these amazing pieces of history, they're going to be open for tours from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday, September 29 through Monday, October 2. It's $8.00 for adults to tour both ships, $7.00 for seniors over 60 and $6.00 for students ages 5-16. If you've got any kiddos 4 and under, they can tour for free.

 

Dan: And this coincides with some other things happening in Cape Girardeau around this same time, right?

 

Stacy: Yes. If you're bored that weekend in Cape Girardeau, I really don't know what to tell you because we've got the Pinta and the Nina in town all weekend. If you go to Riverfront Park on Saturday, September 30, not only do you have the opportunity to tour the Pinta and the Nina but the Conservation Department is also doing their yearly "Day on the River" event. So, you can do a free boat ride on the mighty Mississippi River. They've got Asian carp tastings and they'll have all kinds of hands-on activities really highlighting what life on the Mississippi River is like from that natural perspective. So, that's all happening on Saturday. Also on Saturday, Cape Girardeau Heritage Day is taking place as well. So the Red House is going to have a bee hive oven baking demonstration, the Glenn House has a Victorian tea that you can pre-register for at visitcape.com/historicweekend2017, Crisp Museum is doing a "Float Your Own Boat" event and other historic attractions are open as well to participate in Heritage Day.

Resources:
www.visitcape.com/historicweekend2017

Dan is a 1994 graduate of Southeast Missouri State University. He majored in radio and minored in political science. He spent three of his four years at Southeast working as a student announcer at KRCU – the beginning of his radio career.