Adventure Travel

The Pride of Baltimore II,
under full canvas 10/23/2019

Since retiring, I'm way too much of a homebody. I need to get moving. Because I don't have an automatic vacation travel companion in the form of a spouse, I am inclined to sign up for organized trips. I'm fine with just going on my own - for a couple of days. After that, my introverted self is weary of the huge effort it takes to engage alone with strangers in a strange environment. A few weeks ago I lined up a few trips, and the first one is just over and I'm nearly recovered. And it was very nearly perfect!

I have sailed on the Pride of Baltimore II before, almost exactly five years ago. I wrote about it, too, here. That trip I did with my sailing partner. This one I did alone. But it certainly helped my confidence to have experience, so some idea of what to expect on board. The Pride II is an all-wood re-creation of a privateer that was hugely successful against British shipping in the war of 1812. It is widely acknowledged as one of the prettiest sailing vessels, and fastest, and most maneuverable, ever built.

Last week was the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner race, and this saw Pride II and a couple of dozen other schooners, all different shapes and sizes and vintages, whiz down the bay from Annapolis to Norfolk. The Pride II won, of course. They had a couple of days planned layover in Norfolk, and then new crew, including me, were scheduled to board for the return trip to Baltimore Sunday night.

I took a pre-dawn Uber on Saturday to catch the train down to Norfolk, arriving mid-day in the port town. The train was fine, relatively comfortable, for what was a five hour trip. I mostly listened to a book through headphones, got up to walk the length of the quiet car once an hour, and ate the food I'd brought along. Amtrak dropped me off by the minor league ball park in Norfolk, and I hefted my backpack and duffle and trudged up to my hotel. It was a beautiful day in Norfolk, sunny and in the 70's. I dropped off my bags, and explored the small downtown. Walking around is my favorite thing, and so I followed the waterfront, scouted out where Pride II was moored, and saw what there was to see. I stopped at a small restaurant and ate a lamb kebab and salad outside, as much to rest my feet as to eat. More walking, then into the big hotel to check out the rooftop bar I had spotted earlier. Impossible to sit in the packed outside, but with the wall open to the outdoors, the bar was very pleasant. I had a beer, chatted with the bartender, and looked at the people. My phone was out for a while, but I was very conscious of not wanting to be in my own bubble, but to push myself to be out in the world.

Very tired,  I went back to the hotel, sat down for a while, planning what the next day would be like. Done with being out in the world, I ordered on-line for pickup from a nearby barbecue restaurant just after dark. Safely back in my comfy room, I ate a lovely hot sandwich and resumed watching a series on Netflix I had downloaded to the ipad the night before.

Sunday dawned with a huge rainstorm. I couldn't board the Pride II until 7 pm, so I needed to amuse myself all day. I had found on Tripadvisor the "best" place for breakfast, just a couple blocks from the hotel, and was there by 8 am (I woke with no alarm) and joined the Norfolk fire department there for what was indeed a great full breakfast. When I was done eating, it was still pouring, but it was quite warm, so I took the long way back to the hotel. The rain had been forecast, and not much was open on Sunday morning, so my game plan I made was to hang in the hotel room as late as possible - I negotiated a 2 pm checkout. That gave me a chance to take a long hot shower, dry my clothes wet from breakfast (with the hair dryer!) and read some more. Just before 2 I dropped my bags at the front desk and headed out for more Norfolk touring.

It was still raining, so I headed to the nautical museum. It was ok, not great, but it was dry and had plenty of places to sit down. By the time I left just before its closing, it had mostly stopped raining. I went back to the rooftop bar, (now all closed up from the weather) and had a beer and some fish tacos for dinner. The timing was about perfect afterwards for picking up my bags from my hotel and heading to my ship.

The dock in Norfolk

The six "guest crew", including me, all boarded about the same time. We had a basic orientation, and learned that in the morning the ship would be doing an educational sail with school kids, and we wouldn't head north until later. Timing was still up in the air due to weather considerations. After hanging out in the ship's saloon for a while, I bundled myself into my bunk and fell asleep early.

As advertised, the next morning we took on a couple dozen eighth graders and some teachers and did a little turn around the harbor. The crew had set up four different "stations" on the boat and groups of the kids moved between them. There were lessons on the importance of maritime transportation in the early development of the country, some of the dynamics of why the war of 1812 was fought, a chance to practice loading and firing the cannon, and the physics of sailing - how could we move towards the wind?  Guess which education station was the most popular? (Duh, the cannon.)

After lunch we finally had a real introduction to the crew and ship. The captain has, in his words, "been involved with this project for forty years", but the rest of the crew were in their 20s and 30s, except for the cook who was a guy about my age. There were three tall bros with beards and man-buns that I couldn't tell apart, three tattooed and pierced women, and the other guys all had shaved heads. All of the crew had been on other tall ships - the Pride II is considered something special, and has the luxury of picking who they want. Most of the guest crew were close to me in age and with some sailing experience, but my roommate was a young woman who had never been aboard any kind of a sailboat before. She had an enormous enthusiasm for naval history, and had read all of the same historical fiction books I have.

I'm pretty sure the smile never left my face.

Because of weather, we cast off from Norfolk at 3 am. It was all hands to see us off, and we started to raise the sails as soon as we could. Around 5 am some folks went below, but it was my watch until 8 am so I got to see the sun rise while at the wheel, before being dismissed below. A hearty breakfast was followed by a nap. Then all hands back on deck to raise more sails - including some that hadn't been used in a couple of years! The captain had planned things well - the Tuesday weather window he picked had us galloping up the bay at a rapid clip throughout the daylight hours. It was dry, and warm enough to peel down to just a sweatshirt layer.

Some of my work.

As guest crew, we couldn't do that much. There was a lot of pulling on lines, but we always had to have them put in our hands because we certainly couldn't figure out which one when on our own. Also a lot of coiling of lines. This is not to make things look pretty, but so they will run smoothly when needed. The sails are very heavy. There is mechanical advantage with pullies dividing the load, but no powered winches to do the actual pulling. I felt proud that I started to figure out the commands and which line did what, but I never ventured to touch anything without being told.

Moving fast!

Just before dark, we lowered sails (it took a solid two hours of hard work) and we put the ship in order to steam through the rainy and cold night. My watch was again 4 - 8, but "pm" this time, and I got thoroughly soaked but not cold as it got dark. The last hour of the watch was almost entirely standing around in the pitch-dark pouring rain with a nearly total inability to see anything at all. But I wasn't cold, so all was ok.

I was happy to change into dry clothes, eat a satisfying dinner, and retire to my bunk for another sleep before being called at 3 am for docking in Baltimore. Finally, all snug in her berth in the industrial part of the port, I took another quick snooze before breakfast. I caught a ride to the train station with one of the crew, and home via metro and bus. And another nap.

This trip was in some ways a test run for a bigger, more ambitious sailing trip I've signed up for. Next July, I'm going to spend a week on a tall ship in Iceland! I consider myself right now in fairly poor physical condition, and yet I was able to climb up and down the many ladders, twist through companionways, haul on ropes, and sleep in a hard bunk. (None of the guest crew, including me, went aloft this trip. My feet were firmly planted on the solid wood deck the whole time.) I've made notes of what pieces of my gear needs to be replaced (my waterproof jacket is not waterproof anymore, after a mere 15 years) and also what worked well, and what I didn't have that would be handy. Most of all, I want to get to be stronger and have better endurance. I really fell deeply asleep when I had the opportunity, and without that I would have been in even rougher shape. As it was, I felt pretty good, and not seasick at all. This is a great motivator for me to get out there and exercise. Stamina, strength, and flexibility take work, but they are what I need to have a really great time. This was one night in a hotel, and three on board, and I've had two 10-hour sleeps since getting home. I might have slowed way down if the cruise had gone on much longer. I think stamina can be built up, and I need to get more ambitious in working on this.