(no subject)
I'm having a great time with the sailing. I drove to Erie with Dad and we got there by 2, but the ship had just left! They were actually supposed to already be back, but there had been a fog delay and no one called me. Dad was a little worried about leaving me, but I just read the sailing books and things until the ship got in at 5, which was the first sail of the season, so everyone was a little excited. It was still really foggy and everyone was in rain gear, but it has definitely warmed up since! I got a progressive sunburn- first my face, then the next day my neck, and now I'm getting some on my arms and knees. I keep putting on sunscreen, but I feel it burning about an hour afterwards anyhow. Also splinters in my palm from the ropes, and pretty good callouses.
I sleep in a hammock on the berth deck with the rest of the crew, and my stuff is partially in a locker in the showers and partially in a big sideways dufflebag on a hook in the berth deck. It's huge, so I could easily fit everything, but it's hard to get at stuff three feet down in it late at night.
Stowing sail is really cool, because it's all this complex folding that ends up in this "tapered canvas sausage" as the senior captain calls it, which everyone repeats in his odd little voice when they're up on the yard directing the furling. You really use your back when you have to heave the sausage up on the yard, and everyone shouts together to heave it up.
I've been going up to the fighting top through the lubber hole, because my arms really aren't strong enough, but today I came DOWN on the futtock-shrouds. (Anyone who's read Master and Commander will know how cool this is.)
Saturday we divided up into divisions for maintenance and then in the afternoon went out in the cutters (messing about in boats) to try a sailing rig for the one without a motor. (I'm in fourth division so I report to the fourth mate, who is Mr. Blood on deck and Rob when we get back in port. Also we don't really "beat to quarters," but there is an order of General Quarters for when we're going out of port or after a drill or something. It's sad how much fun that is after reading so much OBrien.)
We've been doing a lot of drills and things when we went sailing Sunday, Monday, and today, because today was the Coast Guard inspection for this sailing season, so everyone was a little nervous. We have three drills- Fire, Man Overboard, and Abandon Ship. Man overboard is cool because we have to either tack or wear ship to come about and get the dummy in the water (literal or metaphorical) and I love watching the yards brace up. I'm lookout for all three, plus for General Quarters- the mates assign lookout and helm from their division when they take the bridge in rotation, but I relieve the current lookout whenever anything happens like a drill or GQ. It's pretty unexciting, because you just stand in the bow and squint, and all the action of sail setting and cutter lowering is happening behind you, and you never get to furl sails when you're coming into port, but I think it'll work itself out now that we aren't doing any more drills.
After today, though, it's just day sails and training. Tomorrow the pro crew port watch (1st and 4th divisions) get the day off, and port watch trainees are "encouraged" to hang around for classes in furling etc. (which I am excited about since I'm always either lookout or up on the yard when sails are being furled, so I really have no idea how it happens) then Thursday everyone is off and the museum gets the ship to themselves, then Friday starboard watch pro crew etc, and Saturday we all go sailing again! I'm really having a lot of fun. There's a pretty heavy contingent of sci-fi or music or history geeks in the crew, and lots of all around 'peg'-ishness, which was surprising but kind of understandable considering the requirements of the life (you have to be pretty weird to sail tall ships professionally) so I'm enjoying getting to know all these interesting people with their random knowledge of physics and sea chanteys. And they call each other shipmate if they really like the person. The hammocks were hard to sleep in on the first night, because I was really cold and I kept waking up and creaking around trying to get settled, but I've started putting on my wool sweater and jeans every night whether I'm cold to start with or not, and the pleasant muscle fatigue has taken care of the rest. We're supposed to have official wake-up calls, but I haven't woken up after 7 any day yet, mostly because the sound of more than one person getting out of their hammock usually wakes you up.
it's really funny when we're coming into the slip past all the little boats and docks and restaurants on the harbor edge and everyone is watching us and pointing and taking pictures with their little camera phones. The motorboats follow us around in the lake sometimes, which is annoying for the lookout when it's an empty sea and then all of a sudden there are twenty boats to report in the water following curiously around and almost swerving into the ship. The other day when we came into the harbor there were a bunch of happy people in this bar on the shore and they all cheered and waved as we came past... obviously motoring in, of course, with all our sails furled and stowed, and all the crew sunburnt and tired and what are we supposed to do, do the victory dance for not sinking the ship? Whatever. they were clearly rejoicing in the amazing event of us managing to motor a boat into the harbor.
I love climbing the shrouds. You wear a harness, which you might think makes it all safe and boring, but you don't actually clip in anywhere until you're on the yard or whatever to start work, so it's a lot more real excitement than I figured.
The food is ok. It's all homemade and there were some good whole-wheat biscuits for lunch today, but nothing very exciting- rice pudding, potato stew, grilled cheese and tomato soup, that kind of thing. The best part of it is that we get four meals a day- breakfast at 7:30 is usually pretty skimpy, but we get "coffee" at 10 which is actually more food per person than breakfast (apple crisp or ham biscuits or something) and then lunch later in the afternoon, and then dinner when we get back.
For this first "week" of sailing, we had five visitors from the Mystic Seaport museum in Massachusetts, which has the last sail whaling vessel surviving, but they can't sail it so they came to see the real thing. Two of them are really accomplished chantey singers and they have been giving us hauling chants while they've been here, which I guess the rest of the crew hasn't been doing. I don't know how much better it is for hauling than the standard "hup", but a song is definitely more fun. On Sunday night after we went sailing, we all went to this dingy old pub in Erie and basically took it over. The Chief Mate brought his mandola and the third mate played the drum and both the captains (senior and regular) came and the Mystic Seaport crew brought an accordion and two guitars and a set of bones and we had this whole sea-music night. It was amazing. There were about ten different kinds of music, some without singing and some acapella and some that people just sang alone and some that lots of people knew (they sang "a'rovin' been my ruin," which was about the only one that I knew beforehand) and there were a lot with a chorus that you could pick up really quickly. We stayed up really late (well, 11:45, which is really really late when you still have to walk back and get ready for bed and set up your hammock) but it was definitely worth it. I'm just sorry we aren't going to have any more hauling chanteys.
Like I said, we're not going sailing tomorrow and we have the day after tomorrow off. But the library here is really nice, I have tons of lines and maneuvers to learn, and there are lots of Red's episodes of Battlestar Galactica to watch, so I'll be plenty occupied. I'm having a great time. The floor has already started swaying onshore and I'm always really hungry, and I know all the sails and I know where the braces and gear are for the square sails (of course, there are about a million more lines to learn, but those get hauled on a lot so I've got them down) and I've started saying Aye and repeating orders and I know how to ballantine and splice and make whippings and tie a bowline and a clove hitch (slippery and non) and a rolling hitch and a midshipman's hitch and a sheet bend and a turk's head and a square knot and locking hitch to make a line fast (just giving you the full list). Right now we're just going to be taking people out on daysails four days a week, but the voyage to Chicago starts July 3rd, and I really want to be in on that as soon as I can be. It would definitely be free for me to sail then if I could pass Apprentice Deckhand rating before I leave, so that's my goal.
Anyway, I'm in the library and I've got to leave the computer now. I don't really miss school but I love you all.
I sleep in a hammock on the berth deck with the rest of the crew, and my stuff is partially in a locker in the showers and partially in a big sideways dufflebag on a hook in the berth deck. It's huge, so I could easily fit everything, but it's hard to get at stuff three feet down in it late at night.
Stowing sail is really cool, because it's all this complex folding that ends up in this "tapered canvas sausage" as the senior captain calls it, which everyone repeats in his odd little voice when they're up on the yard directing the furling. You really use your back when you have to heave the sausage up on the yard, and everyone shouts together to heave it up.
I've been going up to the fighting top through the lubber hole, because my arms really aren't strong enough, but today I came DOWN on the futtock-shrouds. (Anyone who's read Master and Commander will know how cool this is.)
Saturday we divided up into divisions for maintenance and then in the afternoon went out in the cutters (messing about in boats) to try a sailing rig for the one without a motor. (I'm in fourth division so I report to the fourth mate, who is Mr. Blood on deck and Rob when we get back in port. Also we don't really "beat to quarters," but there is an order of General Quarters for when we're going out of port or after a drill or something. It's sad how much fun that is after reading so much OBrien.)
We've been doing a lot of drills and things when we went sailing Sunday, Monday, and today, because today was the Coast Guard inspection for this sailing season, so everyone was a little nervous. We have three drills- Fire, Man Overboard, and Abandon Ship. Man overboard is cool because we have to either tack or wear ship to come about and get the dummy in the water (literal or metaphorical) and I love watching the yards brace up. I'm lookout for all three, plus for General Quarters- the mates assign lookout and helm from their division when they take the bridge in rotation, but I relieve the current lookout whenever anything happens like a drill or GQ. It's pretty unexciting, because you just stand in the bow and squint, and all the action of sail setting and cutter lowering is happening behind you, and you never get to furl sails when you're coming into port, but I think it'll work itself out now that we aren't doing any more drills.
After today, though, it's just day sails and training. Tomorrow the pro crew port watch (1st and 4th divisions) get the day off, and port watch trainees are "encouraged" to hang around for classes in furling etc. (which I am excited about since I'm always either lookout or up on the yard when sails are being furled, so I really have no idea how it happens) then Thursday everyone is off and the museum gets the ship to themselves, then Friday starboard watch pro crew etc, and Saturday we all go sailing again! I'm really having a lot of fun. There's a pretty heavy contingent of sci-fi or music or history geeks in the crew, and lots of all around 'peg'-ishness, which was surprising but kind of understandable considering the requirements of the life (you have to be pretty weird to sail tall ships professionally) so I'm enjoying getting to know all these interesting people with their random knowledge of physics and sea chanteys. And they call each other shipmate if they really like the person. The hammocks were hard to sleep in on the first night, because I was really cold and I kept waking up and creaking around trying to get settled, but I've started putting on my wool sweater and jeans every night whether I'm cold to start with or not, and the pleasant muscle fatigue has taken care of the rest. We're supposed to have official wake-up calls, but I haven't woken up after 7 any day yet, mostly because the sound of more than one person getting out of their hammock usually wakes you up.
it's really funny when we're coming into the slip past all the little boats and docks and restaurants on the harbor edge and everyone is watching us and pointing and taking pictures with their little camera phones. The motorboats follow us around in the lake sometimes, which is annoying for the lookout when it's an empty sea and then all of a sudden there are twenty boats to report in the water following curiously around and almost swerving into the ship. The other day when we came into the harbor there were a bunch of happy people in this bar on the shore and they all cheered and waved as we came past... obviously motoring in, of course, with all our sails furled and stowed, and all the crew sunburnt and tired and what are we supposed to do, do the victory dance for not sinking the ship? Whatever. they were clearly rejoicing in the amazing event of us managing to motor a boat into the harbor.
I love climbing the shrouds. You wear a harness, which you might think makes it all safe and boring, but you don't actually clip in anywhere until you're on the yard or whatever to start work, so it's a lot more real excitement than I figured.
The food is ok. It's all homemade and there were some good whole-wheat biscuits for lunch today, but nothing very exciting- rice pudding, potato stew, grilled cheese and tomato soup, that kind of thing. The best part of it is that we get four meals a day- breakfast at 7:30 is usually pretty skimpy, but we get "coffee" at 10 which is actually more food per person than breakfast (apple crisp or ham biscuits or something) and then lunch later in the afternoon, and then dinner when we get back.
For this first "week" of sailing, we had five visitors from the Mystic Seaport museum in Massachusetts, which has the last sail whaling vessel surviving, but they can't sail it so they came to see the real thing. Two of them are really accomplished chantey singers and they have been giving us hauling chants while they've been here, which I guess the rest of the crew hasn't been doing. I don't know how much better it is for hauling than the standard "hup", but a song is definitely more fun. On Sunday night after we went sailing, we all went to this dingy old pub in Erie and basically took it over. The Chief Mate brought his mandola and the third mate played the drum and both the captains (senior and regular) came and the Mystic Seaport crew brought an accordion and two guitars and a set of bones and we had this whole sea-music night. It was amazing. There were about ten different kinds of music, some without singing and some acapella and some that people just sang alone and some that lots of people knew (they sang "a'rovin' been my ruin," which was about the only one that I knew beforehand) and there were a lot with a chorus that you could pick up really quickly. We stayed up really late (well, 11:45, which is really really late when you still have to walk back and get ready for bed and set up your hammock) but it was definitely worth it. I'm just sorry we aren't going to have any more hauling chanteys.
Like I said, we're not going sailing tomorrow and we have the day after tomorrow off. But the library here is really nice, I have tons of lines and maneuvers to learn, and there are lots of Red's episodes of Battlestar Galactica to watch, so I'll be plenty occupied. I'm having a great time. The floor has already started swaying onshore and I'm always really hungry, and I know all the sails and I know where the braces and gear are for the square sails (of course, there are about a million more lines to learn, but those get hauled on a lot so I've got them down) and I've started saying Aye and repeating orders and I know how to ballantine and splice and make whippings and tie a bowline and a clove hitch (slippery and non) and a rolling hitch and a midshipman's hitch and a sheet bend and a turk's head and a square knot and locking hitch to make a line fast (just giving you the full list). Right now we're just going to be taking people out on daysails four days a week, but the voyage to Chicago starts July 3rd, and I really want to be in on that as soon as I can be. It would definitely be free for me to sail then if I could pass Apprentice Deckhand rating before I leave, so that's my goal.
Anyway, I'm in the library and I've got to leave the computer now. I don't really miss school but I love you all.