Bryan Cargill spent only three nights aboard a Tall Ship, but the 16-year-old from University Place was already talking like a seasoned sea veteran.

“They put me in charge of the portside jib sheet,” Cargill, a student at Curtis High School, said Wednesday. “We raised it, lowered it, luffed it.”

Luffing, Cargill explained, is when the crew pulls the sail and allows it to flutter in the wind.

“I hadn’t known that before this trip,” he said. “And I probably wouldn’t have known it if I hadn’t signed up.”

He thanks Youth on Board for that.

Cargill served aboard the Zodiac and was among 47 teenagers in the program, a project of Metro Parks Tacoma, Tall Ships Tacoma, Boys & Girls Club of South Puget Sound and the Sea Scouts. The participants, all 14 to 17 years old, served aboard one of three Tall Ships to learn the basics of sailing. Few had spent any considerable time aboard a ship before.

The crew left Tacoma on Sunday to meet their ships in Victoria, B.C., where a Tall Ships festival was ending. They spent three nights on board, working like a full-time crew member. For some, that meant waking in the middle of the night to perform a watch. For others, it meant learning hand signals to communicate with other ships.

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Brent Mills’ two children had one goal when as they walked into the Quartermaster Harbor marina.

“They want to see some pirate ships,” he said. “They’re really excited.”

Mills, who lives in Seattle during the week and on Vashon Island on weekends, admits he’s a bit of a “boat guy.” He and his two children, 9-year-old Jackson and 7-year-old Zoe, spent four hours paddling from their weekend home to the marina yesterday in hopes of catching a glimpse of a few of the Tall Ships.

They didn’t see any. And the three drove to Dockton Park today.

“I’m still feeling it,” he said.

Zoe cut him off.

“Dad just let us ride most of the way here yesterday,” she said.

Almost a hundred people at mid-afternoon walked across the marina to try to find the best view of the ships. Dozens of other cars circled the street looking for a parking spot, and some resorted to leaving their cars on the shoulder of the road.

The view from the elevated parking lot was just fine for John and Julie Beeler. The Des Moines couple leaned against the side of their white GMC Yukon Denali and watched the Tall Ships sail into Quartermaster Harbor. John, 66, looked through binoculars as boat carried Youth on Board participants off the Zodiac and onto Argosy Cruises’ Spirit of Seattle.

Julie, 62, seemed just as content to soak up some rays as she watched from afar.

“It’s a beautiful day to be out here,” Julie said.

If you’re watching a reenactment of a cannon battle during Tall Ships Tacoma this week, just remember one thing: Those charges could’ve made some buttery, fluffy biscuits.

Tim Jovanovich and Avio Brooklyn spent much of Wednesday sitting aboard the Bounty of Krister in Quartermaster Harbor and building cannon charges for the reenactments. They wrapped aluminum foil around a wooden cylinder to create the shape, removed the wood and filled the foil with about 30 cubic centimeters of black gunpowder.

That creates the boom. Bisquick creates the show.

“Bisquick’s a pretty good filler,” said Brooklyn, 15-year-old student at Vashon Island High School. “It makes more white smoke the charges explode.”

So where is the influx of visitors to Vashon Island coming from?

Apparently not from the South Sound. Or at least not in the totally nonscientific poll I just took.

My sample set consisted of the eight people sitting at three outdoor tables at Casa Bonita, a Mexican restaurant in Vashon.

I managed to ask where they were from while they chowed down on enchiladas and other good stuff. Three are from Bellevue, three from Seattle, one from Kirkland and one from White Center.

So, South Sounders, where are you?

(Of course, if one is taking the ferry from Point Defiance, it might not be the wisest idea to drive past Quartermaster Harbor and into town just to drive south again to see the ships.)

The four-way intersection of Vashon Highway and Bank Road is the closest thing Vashon Island has to a commercial district. Still, it’s not quite busy enough to necessitate a traffic light; stop signs will do.

But dozens of cars – most heading southbound on Vashon Highway toward Quartermaster Harbor – jammed the intersection early this afternoon. It wasn’t quite Interstate 405 during rush hour, but the island’s residents noticed the swell in cars.

“It’s almost like a traffic jam,” Vashon resident James Robertson said. “It isn’t easy to figure out why, either.”

Jenny Davis had already beaten the crowds for a prime spot. That was the easy part.

The moon’s gravitational pull flustered her a bit more.

“If I sit here, I’ll have a great spot,” she told me. “But if the tides come up, then I’ll have to move. But is this low tide? High tide? I just don’t want to screw this up.”

The 52-year-old from West Seattle was trying to determine the perfect spot near Dockton Park upon which to plant a blue canvas camping chair. She has been waiting for this day – when the participating boats in the Tall Ships Tacoma festival pull into Quartermaster Harbor – for more than three years. She had planned to be on Vashon Island during the 2004 festival but caught a stomach bug and missed the entire event.

“I was so disappointed,” she said, clutching my right arm for emphasis. “So, so disappointed.”

That led to her early arrival this year. She was one of only a handful of people at the park which sits on the northwestern coast of Maury Island. The low tide had sucked away much of the water, leaving an expanse of gushy mud underfoot. The legs of Davis’ camping chair sunk in the muck, and her shoes were caked with the stuff.

She didn’t mind all that. She just didn’t want the water to rise again and rob her of what she believes will be the prime ship-viewing spot.

“I don’t live on the water,” she said, “so I’m not sure how to figure this out. But I’m going to make it happen.”

After hearing from other readers about the Ahoy graffiti, I was inspired to dig up this gem of marketing:

Few can deliver like Bruce Campbell can.

Let's call it a second try.

I'll be on Vashon Island this afternoon to talk to the Youth on Board kids. Maybe some other fun Tall Ships stuff too.