MARINETTE - You know the old rhyme - "in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue."

Thursday, two full scale models of Columbus' ships, the Nina and the Pinta, sailed up the Menominee River into Marinette.

"We travel anywhere between the Panama Canal and Canada," Nina Captain Kyle Friauf said. "We travel all the major river systems, all five Great Lakes, the East Coast and the West Coast, and all along the Gulf Coast as well."

It's nearly impossible to find working Columbus-era ships this side of Spain.

"My experience was with a 16 foot fishing boat with a five horsepower motor to go fishing, mainly," volunteer sailor Dave Balog said.

Then, while one of the boats as a visitor, Balog's wife spotted a sign looking for volunteer sailors.

"She saw it, she read it, she tapped her finger on it, and she said, 'this is you, Dave, I know you want to go,;" Balog said.

"Our crew is mostly volunteers," Friauf said. "We pick them up from every port. They come from all over the country. I've got them from California, Texas, New Mexico, Wisconsin."

Thankfully, the conditions aren't quite as crude as they were in Columbus' day.

"The cargo is what paid the way," Friauf said. "It was more important than the sailors on the ship. Very little consideration was given to sailors comfort. They lived, ate, and slept right on the main deck."

So, if you've got a few spare weeks…

"Anybody who's interested in joining the crew, being a sailor - come on down," Friauf said.

"You can just, as they say, 'learn the ropes,'" Balog said.

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Story By: Ben Meyer