"Get Busy Living..."
Hello everyone!
I'm coming to you live from the Blasco public library in Erie, Pennsylvania. I've been here for about a week, as Niagara has settled back into her home port routine. We're done with our big voyages, and now the work consists mostly of maintenance and daysails. Erie is a kinda crap town, don't ever go here if you don't have to. Most of our off days are spent either shopping, drinking, lazing about and watching movies or drinking (it's hell on my wallet).
This experience has been, if anything, quixotic; I get the feeling that I won't realize how much it meant or how awesome it was until I'm well away from it. The ship is beautiful, and the work is gratifying, but the crew... I don't think I've ever met a more frustratingly insular and inconstant group of people in my life. Maybe that's the nature of a ship, but I've had a hard time breaking through it. We have our fun, but I feel like I'll never really know if I've made any friends here. Maybe this is just what growing up means. I guess we're really just "shipmates"- colleagues and coworkers.
As a crewman, I'm doing better, and it feels good to be knowledgable and actually useful. Everything just hums. I'm on the gun crew for our 32-lb. carronade, I'm the bow bunny on our ship's cutter, and I'm always one of the first ones picked to go aloft. I've made a lot of progress, and they even took me down to the chart table to give me navigation lessons. It's a great feeling, being underway; there's a camraderie that isn't there on shore.
I've also learned some hard lessons about myself and the bad social habits I've picked up over the years, such as interrupting people, finishing their sentences, making excuses for myself, wanting to be the funnyman, saying "sorry" too much, and being a social chameleon. I've learned that these habits, useful among some groups of people, aren't universally good for me. I get the feeling that if I take these lessons to heart and shake these habits, I'll be able to get back to discovering who I really am under all my learned behaviors...and I have a feeling that he's a pretty decent man.
Most of all, however, I've learned that there is no excuse for hesitation. If something should be done, then I should do it; no whingeing or quibbling or beating about the bush. Apathy, laziness or fear of a less-than-optimal outcome aren't worthwhile excuses. Really, if something is worth doing and needs to be done, just fucking do it. The only person I'm shorting when I delay and don't act is myself.
Anyways... downrigging begins in about a week. I'm an apprentice now, instead of a trainee, and I don't pay for my room and board anymore. I've decided to stay on through the downrigging process, until the ship goes to Cleveland for shipyard time on Sept 22nd. Then, I'm going to take advantage of my proximity to New England and the graduation money I recieved and head up to Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont for a week or two!
I am quite pleasantly amped, because being back up north - feeling that same fall climate again, seeing plants and birds that I recognize - has made me ache, just ache for home again. I miss that place and the people in it so much. I want to go hiking. I want to go for a drive up the seacoast. I want to eat Sal's North End Pizza. I want to freeze my ass off because I've lost my cold weather resistance. But most of all, I want to see my old friends, give them great bittersweet bear hugs, and ask how they've fared. (If you NH/VT people need more details, give me a call on my phone at 770.262.8341. I want to see as many of you guys as possible!).
After that, I'll be headed back down to Georgia (on or around the 5th of October), with Athens and Tallahassee trips to follow. I'll be working at whatever job I can get in Roswell until the spring, when I'll be looking for a tall ship job or something else to keep me moving along and paid for. I have no idea what I'll end up doing or where I'll be after that. Eventually, I'd like to move back to New England, but only after I've seen a little more of the world, gotten my pilot's license, and written a book. I've got Big Plans, man.
But yes. That's where I'm at. I'll do a real update on my tall-ship summer when I get the photos that go along with it online, but for now, I'm signing off.
Your friend, deeply and respectfully,
-JP
I'm coming to you live from the Blasco public library in Erie, Pennsylvania. I've been here for about a week, as Niagara has settled back into her home port routine. We're done with our big voyages, and now the work consists mostly of maintenance and daysails. Erie is a kinda crap town, don't ever go here if you don't have to. Most of our off days are spent either shopping, drinking, lazing about and watching movies or drinking (it's hell on my wallet).
This experience has been, if anything, quixotic; I get the feeling that I won't realize how much it meant or how awesome it was until I'm well away from it. The ship is beautiful, and the work is gratifying, but the crew... I don't think I've ever met a more frustratingly insular and inconstant group of people in my life. Maybe that's the nature of a ship, but I've had a hard time breaking through it. We have our fun, but I feel like I'll never really know if I've made any friends here. Maybe this is just what growing up means. I guess we're really just "shipmates"- colleagues and coworkers.
As a crewman, I'm doing better, and it feels good to be knowledgable and actually useful. Everything just hums. I'm on the gun crew for our 32-lb. carronade, I'm the bow bunny on our ship's cutter, and I'm always one of the first ones picked to go aloft. I've made a lot of progress, and they even took me down to the chart table to give me navigation lessons. It's a great feeling, being underway; there's a camraderie that isn't there on shore.
I've also learned some hard lessons about myself and the bad social habits I've picked up over the years, such as interrupting people, finishing their sentences, making excuses for myself, wanting to be the funnyman, saying "sorry" too much, and being a social chameleon. I've learned that these habits, useful among some groups of people, aren't universally good for me. I get the feeling that if I take these lessons to heart and shake these habits, I'll be able to get back to discovering who I really am under all my learned behaviors...and I have a feeling that he's a pretty decent man.
Most of all, however, I've learned that there is no excuse for hesitation. If something should be done, then I should do it; no whingeing or quibbling or beating about the bush. Apathy, laziness or fear of a less-than-optimal outcome aren't worthwhile excuses. Really, if something is worth doing and needs to be done, just fucking do it. The only person I'm shorting when I delay and don't act is myself.
Anyways... downrigging begins in about a week. I'm an apprentice now, instead of a trainee, and I don't pay for my room and board anymore. I've decided to stay on through the downrigging process, until the ship goes to Cleveland for shipyard time on Sept 22nd. Then, I'm going to take advantage of my proximity to New England and the graduation money I recieved and head up to Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont for a week or two!
I am quite pleasantly amped, because being back up north - feeling that same fall climate again, seeing plants and birds that I recognize - has made me ache, just ache for home again. I miss that place and the people in it so much. I want to go hiking. I want to go for a drive up the seacoast. I want to eat Sal's North End Pizza. I want to freeze my ass off because I've lost my cold weather resistance. But most of all, I want to see my old friends, give them great bittersweet bear hugs, and ask how they've fared. (If you NH/VT people need more details, give me a call on my phone at 770.262.8341. I want to see as many of you guys as possible!).
After that, I'll be headed back down to Georgia (on or around the 5th of October), with Athens and Tallahassee trips to follow. I'll be working at whatever job I can get in Roswell until the spring, when I'll be looking for a tall ship job or something else to keep me moving along and paid for. I have no idea what I'll end up doing or where I'll be after that. Eventually, I'd like to move back to New England, but only after I've seen a little more of the world, gotten my pilot's license, and written a book. I've got Big Plans, man.
But yes. That's where I'm at. I'll do a real update on my tall-ship summer when I get the photos that go along with it online, but for now, I'm signing off.
Your friend, deeply and respectfully,
-JP