Scores of families on their Sunday outing and several coach loads of tourists flocked to the Vittoriosa waterfront yesterday for a Heritage Malta event that offered glimpses of "life at sea" 200 years ago.
This was the first themed event organised by the national heritage agency in a series of ongoing activities which it has called Sundays with Heritage Malta.
Another six are lined up for the coming 12 months, with the next one scheduled to take place at the Domus Romana in Rabat, while previous events have been held at Fort St Angelo and Haġar Qim, Birzebbuġia and Marsaxlokk.
This time however, Heritage Malta (HM) wanted to go a step further and involved specialised period re-enactors from the Historical Re-Enactment Group Malta who, together with HM staff, ensured that visitors were kept occupied, entertained and well taken care of.
Based on the period between 1795 and 1805 - the last years under the Knights, the two years of the French occupation and the first five years of English presence in Malta - visitors were given a taste of life at sea as experienced by sailors and passengers.
All the activities took place inside and around the Maritime Museum, which looked more like a mini film-set than a cultural venue, thanks to the camera crews and amateur photographers scattered all over the place.
The event highlight was probably the firing of canon which took place just outside the museum. For a few precious minutes the museum was practically empty and everyone stood outside in the blustering wind, keen to experience the procedure first-hand.
Back inside however, visitors seemed enthralled by one of the museum's annexes transformed into a makeshift canteen: no. 26 Eastney Canteen Young Glory, possessing all the genuine features of its time. The few seats inside were all occupied by visitors watching the screening of a documentary, The James Craig Sails Again.
Other popular attractions were the food and beverages stall, which had a never-ending queue of people in need of a warm drink and a pre-lunch snack, as well as the guided tours in English and Maltese, held around the clock, and packed with pairs of eager eyes and ears.
A second documentary, featuring the Temptation, a boat which originally formed part of the Royal Navy, was being screened elsewhere. The boat, which was recently entrusted to HM, was used for air/sea rescue operations but was supposedly sold to an actor in the 1930s and found its way to Malta in the late 1970s where it was used by fishermen in Marsaxlokk. Today, the Temptation is a floating exhibit berthed near the Excelsior Hotel.
The Life at Sea event was supported by the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts.