Life Aboard

Sunset, with me at the wheel

In my first post about the voyage, I gave a once-over lightly of life aboard. There may be overlap with this post, but I'm going into more detail. I did keep a few notes in a paper journal while underway, and I've got that as a reference.

The first day, after we raised the sails, had the most amount of sail handling of any day. We needed to head down the Chesapeake to the mouth, and the wind was blowing directly up the Bay. So, that meant we tacked at an angle across the Bay, and then tacked again to the other shore just before running aground. And again. About a dozen times in all.

Me and my fellow guest crew were novices, and needed a lot of help and instruction on what to do.There were eight sails up, and they needed tending to enable the tack. Not all of them were handled at once, but there was a specific sequence to be followed. There were two basic stations - one to handle the three headsails (jib, staysail, jibtop called the "JT"), and one at the mainmast to handle the remaining sails - two square sails on the foremast (foretop and fore t'gallant*), foresail, main, and maintop. I was stationed at the mainmast, and finally got into it enough to understand the sequence, where to stand to be useful, and how to move to be useful in the next move coming up. After each tack, I learned how each line needed to be coiled - there were four different methods of coiling and storing the lines, each with its own rationale. It is really important to place the lines in the right place with the right coil so that when it needed to run out, it could do so smoothly without jamming. Often, coiling involved kneeling or sitting on the deck, laying out the line in a pattern. 

Time for Nan to get to work!

It required essentially all of the crew to tack the ship, so it was only after sails were doused for the night and we started motoring directly towards the ocean that we split into our watches for the first time.

There was a cook on board, with no other normal duties. There was always coffee and hot water available. We got our three square meals a day, breakfast and dinner hot, lunch not always hot. There were also snacks - leftovers, chips, peanut butter cups, gummi bears. (The snacks didn't inspire me, but I was consuming at least a dozen ginger candies every day.) I was on duty from 4-8 am, and 4-8 pm. The way meals worked, most people ate at 7:30 (both am and pm) and then our watch ate at 8, after being dismissed. Our watch and the one going on duty at noon ate lunch at 11:30, and the ones coming off duty ate at noon. The food was set out on a buffet (with high sides to keep things from sliding off). Generally, meals lasted fifteen minutes, as folks were either getting ready to go on duty or else had just come off four hours on deck and had other needs. Breakfasts were pancakes and sausage, scrambled eggs and bacon, bagels and fried eggs, oatmeal with a side of fried eggs, things like that. There was usually fruit, and cold cereal was set out once, but there were also eggs. I dislike a breakfast that is primarily carbs, and this worked well for me. Lunches are less memorable, sandwiches, soups, mac and cheese, usually with salad veggies out and often incorporating leftovers. Dinners were terrific, meat, starch and green veggie. Pork chops, salmon, tuna, chicken, beef stew, even steaks one night (while quarantined at the dock in Bermuda). Dishwashing was self-serve. They had three sinks, each with a plastic tub: first with dish soap in water, second just fresh water, the third a very dilute bleach solution. Just scrub, dip in the second and third tubs, put in the rack. One of the professional crew was assigned each day "boat duty" that involved cleaning all the public areas and heads. Copper and bronze needed to be polished. Ships have a tradition of a high degree of tidiness and cleanliness, probably impacted by the same imperative that leads to meticulous coiling of lines.

Sail handling - I'm in the white cap

There is just one accessible deck below the open-air deck. It is divided into four compartments. From the front: the foc'sl, where seven of the crew lived and shared a head, the main salon, with the galley, the dining table, and four two-bunk cabins (the cook and engineer shared one, the six guest crew in the others) with a head, then the engine room, and finally the aft cabin where the Captain, the first and second mate live in single-bunk-cabin splendor, along with all the electronics for navigating and communicating. There were water-tight doors separating the four compartments (big metal things with big round handles like in the movies) and each compartment had its own access to the deck. When the engine was off, the doors were open and you could pass from foc'sl to nav station without going on deck. Below the deck were hatches leading to the bilges, which were also isolated from each other by watertight bulkheads. These bilges needed to be checked constantly while we were moving. The Pride is a wooden boat, and it leaks constantly. We were constantly pumping out the compartments. With the working of the ship, it might start leaking a lot more without any sign on deck. (In fact, at the dock in Bermuda the crew tracked down where a seam had split under water near the bow and were able to patch it enough to slow the leak way down.)

During the four-hour watch, I was generally at the helm for either one or two hours, coiled some lines if we had done any sail handling, and swabbed and wiped the dew off the extensive wooden brightwork varnished areas after the sun rose.

Typical sunrise

The early watch was especially magical. I laid out my clothes in advance, with a fleece for warmth. It would be pitch dark as we made our way cautiously over the bouncing deck filled with lines and blocks and other tripping hazards. The stars were magnificent - the first morning, the big dipper lay directly behind us, the first thing I noticed when I emerged and headed aft to towards the wheel. The Milky Way was bright and obvious arching across the ship from horizon to horizon. Out in the ocean, we saw bioluminescent plankton, circles and lines, dashing from the wave cut by our bow. Steering without a horizon reference meant steering by stars through the rigging (with frequent glances at the compass to make sure still on course). But very soon after we emerged the stars would fade, the north-eastern horizon would lighten, and dawn would come. It would be full light and quite a lot warmer before our watch was done. The Captain would emerge with the light, and often there was a bit of sail trimming needed during our morning watch.

I didn't go aloft, but I did go out on the bowsprit over the water

The afternoon watch was often social, with the off duty crew hanging about before dinner. We were headed east, and sunset came earlier each day, and it would be dark as we headed below for our turn at dinner. Often there would be sail handling towards the end of the watch, getting things in order for the night. 

Off duty, I tried to stay awake during the day, thinking my six hours uninterrupted at night would be enough. But I slept restlessly, and during the day fatigue would come on suddenly, and I would retreat to my bunk and fall instantly, but briefly, deeply asleep. 

As I mentioned, there wasn't a lot of physical comfort to be found for lounging. There were sights and sounds on deck: I saw flying fish, singly and in groups (is a bunch of flying fish a school or a flock?) and we marvelled at how far they could go. There were birds, and we saw the "longtailed tropic bird" - native to Bermuda - while two days out from the island. We saw the sails of the Portuguese man-o'wars, looking like bubbles on the surface, disguising the 100 feet-plus of the body and tentacles of these deadly cousins to our familiar jellyfish. I had books on the kindle and the phone (to listen to), and managed to knock off a whole science fiction trilogy I had been saving. There was a decent amount of alone time for me, on deck and in my bunk. I was as social as I wanted to be, and might give a rundown on my fellow crew in another post.

So I'll leave you with yet another sunset.