Pride

Get out there and do stuff!

Me at the helm

This is what it's all about.  I'm just home from a peak lifetime experience, and I'm very happy, and very very tired, but not hurt or exhausted or sick. I want to do more, be more, keep moving on and on!

What did you want to be when you were growing up? I'm just a little bit too old for Cowboy, or Fireman, or even Doctor, to have been in the scheme of things I could choose, just like I couldn't choose to be an elf or a fairy. But pretty early on, I fixed on Sailor.  The Swallows and Amazons books by Arthur Ransome told me a girl could be master of her own ship, the equal of any boy. Those books literally changed my life, as I tried my best to be Nancy Blackett, terror of the seas (who couldn't use her given name Ruth as pirates must be ruthless).  I had a boat in high school, and spent as much time as possible on board, learning courage and capabilities along the way. I took a hiatus from sailing in college, but have a boat now and continue to find it restoring and good for my self confidence and self image. This is even when I have to deal with a crisis such as it appearing to sink, as in the past couple of weeks. (A week ago Sunday night I packed a sleeping bag and chocolate and was prepared to spend the night pumping to keep her afloat - turned out not to be necessary, which in some tiny way disappointed me, though not really.) "Figure it out, and deal with it" is the story aboard.

The Pride of Baltimore II is quite possibly the prettiest ship ever built. A historic replica, it is the goodwill ambassador for the City of Baltimore and the State of Maryland. The original Pride was built in the early 1980's, and it was the symbol of the restoration of the Baltimore waterfront, and it led the way to Baltimore's resurrection as a wonderful city. After the original sank, money was raised for an even better new Pride. Built on the lines of Baltimore privateers that were crucial to American victory in the war of 1812, she is just plain gorgeous. Imagine my delight to discover one could pay to be a guest crew aboard!  Like a dude ranch, or fantasy sports camp, this was fulfillment of life long fantasies.

You'll never see anything more beautiful!

There is a friggin' lot of work to be done to sail such a boat.  The crew is a collection of a dozen 20-somethings, with motley backgrounds and uncertain futures. But they sail this boat with grit, determination, skill, and confidence. And they are young women, as well as young men, right there in the thick of it, with their seaman's papers and the resume of a variety of tall ships behind them.

My regular sailing partner and I met the boat in Philadelphia, where there were several other tall ships gathered. We cast off around 8:30 pm, and motored through the chill and windy October night down the Delaware River, through international shipping and ship yards, under bridges. We were stationed on the bow as lookouts, and it was a real job. We were looking for less visible objects, because she is so big there is not always a clear view forward.  At midnight we passed under the Delaware Memorial Bridge (the one that gets you to the New Jersey turnpike) and we were off watch and went below.  We were both exhausted and were cold during the night.

Can you spot the hazard?

When we woke at first light, it was drizzling and we were back in the Chesapeake Bay. In fact, when I popped up on deck to look around, I recognized where we were at once- passing Poole's Island, north of Baltimore. As soon as the crew was fed, up went the sails. This was a big, huge, confusing job, involving many many lines and confusing sets of protocols and orders. We were given guidance, and were encouraged to put our backs into pulling whatever could be pulled on, and coiling and stowing things over and over again.  I was astonished at how very much backbreaking labor went into the job. There is art, too, in how to pull so it's useful, and it took a bit to get the finesse on it.

Food was hot and hearty and plentiful.  Not much time was spent sitting around - mostly it was standing around, when there weren't things to pull on or lines to be coiled. We were on deck through the whole rainy day. We went into the Pride's home port of Baltimore, and picked up several college students with their history professors. They were reportedly studying nineteenth century maritime law, and this was a field trip for them  The whole crew was tired, and invited the college students to pitch in and give it a whirl. Enthusiasm on the first pull quickly turned into astonishment at how hard it really was, and most of them opted out from there on out.  I felt pretty good about not only how hard I had been working, but also was so pleased that finally I was repeating some complex activity and could actually track what was going on and what would happen next. By then, we were identifying ourselves as "crew" not "passengers", and were proud of our ship.

We spent the night on the docked ship in Baltimore, and headed home this morning.  I'm tired, but I'm happy. I really worked hard, and those trips to the gym made a difference for me. I was pulling, and bending, and stooping, and twisting, and here I am, happy and not even reaching for the ibuprophen (yet). I'm pretty sure, though, that I had more coffee during these two days than in the previous two weeks put together.

As we were leaving, I took my tightly packed small but heavy duffel and slung it over my shoulder. One of the crew offered to help with it, but I went up the companionway ladder, and down the gangplank, with a bit of swagger in my walk. Home from sea (all two days of it) and ready for some liberty ashore before the next adventure.