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The streets of Portsmouth will ring with the music of the sea. Singers and musicians wander the sidewalks downtown, and the sounds of sea shanties and forebitters waft through the doorways of nearly a dozen venues all within a block or two of Market Square. The Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival is an annual celebration of the city’s rich maritime heritage, which dates back to the original English settlement in 1630 and continues today in the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, across the Piscataqua River in Kittery, and with maritime businesses on both sides of the river. Sea shanties, the rhythmic work songs that helped sailors coordinate their efforts while raising or lowering sails and anchors, recall the whalers and other wooden ships that were built along the Piscataqua and sailed out of Portsmouth in the 19th century.