Sea of Legend

And again. We set out to sea and the rituals and routines of land life fade away. All that matters is the ship, the watch, the sea. Time gains an entirely different meaning; how long until you are on watch, how long until you're off again. Needs become simple: hunger, relief, sleep. The importance of taking care of others increases, and taking care of yourself becomes a responsibility to the ship. Sleep so you can be awake for watch. Eat so you will have energy for watch. Everything leads up to and surrounds the times you are responsible for the safety and direction of the ship. Your world shrinks to its length and breadth, while simultaneously expanding to the horizons. Anything for the ship, and she will take you anywhere you care to imagine, and show you things you never expected to see.

And so, with a rumble of the engine as we pull away from the dock, the rocking of the ship as we rise and fall in the swell, the flap of canvas and the splash of waves against the hull, we return again to the sea. To Corsica! To Sardinia! To Italy! To Greece! We now traverse the waters of Homer's Odyssey, the waters of ancient legend and the birthplace of sailing itself.

Blink and you're in a different world. One moment, a busy subway, the next, an ethereal forest of granite pillars, raising to the heavens as rainbows shimmer through the stained glass windows of Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece. You round a corner and suddenly a medieval town towers above you, standing high and proud on limestone cliffs, beset by siege, wind, waves, and time. Scamper along its battlements and you can still almost hear the twang of arrows loosed, the cries of the Aragonians below as hot oil rains down from the ramparts.

Predawn departure, running from winds named by ancient Greeks, whipping the seas into a fury. Footsteps pound on the deck at midnight, hands scramble over unfamiliar lines, learning by doing, shouted orders over howling winds.

We duck into safe harbors of crystal blue waters where windblown rocks with wild features stand sentinel, or Circe's grotto awaits our arrival. We sail past the islands of the Sirens, quietly straining to hear a whisper of song, joking, but also, somehow, completely serious. For this is the land where Rome held sway, where Pompeii met its brutal end, where Bronze Age ruins sink below the sea and then rise again.

So now I sail on this sea of legends, with a crew of teenagers in tow, my ears full of high school gossip and drama. One minute, we gape at Byzantine castles, the next minute, students debate the merits of a perfect Instagram profile. We sail on.

#tinyboatlife

Hey guys! Long time no see. I'm not going to apologize for not blogging, because it gets old and frankly, I'm not sorry. Things to do, places to go, people to see.

Guess what? I bought a boat! Because that's what homeless, underpaid, landlocked(ish) sailors do.

Here's how that decision went:

Return to Santa Cruz to play with kiddies in the woods. Decide not to take hoboshack because dammit, I'm an adult, and I can get a freaking apartment like a big girl.

Attempt to get an apartment, get bored after a few attempts, realize nobody wants a roommate who will move out in four months.

Aimlessly browse Craigslist, wander onto boats for sale, come up with brilliant plan to buy a boat and occasionally live onboard.

Follow through with plan. Look at a boat, pause to go watch father break his knee skiing in Utah, decide to buy boat, pause to get up to mischief in Belize, buy boat. Live on boat!

This is my boat:

Her name is Dulcinea. I call her Dulcie or Dulce. Apparently she's named after the lady in Don Quixote, but I like to think of her simply as little sweet one. She is sweet. And little. Very, very little. As in- when I stand in the cabin, my head and shoulders protrude from the hatch opening. Finding places to sit upright isn't terribly easy. I mean, she's only twenty-one feet long.

Apparently, I'm not legally allowed to live on her since she's too small for human habitation. Also, she lacks any amenities. Fortunately, I don't actually live on her, since work takes me all over the place, I'm really only on her for a couple of weekends a month. Also fortunately, the harbor provides a bathroom with shower facilities. As long as I don't stay onboard for more than nine days a month, I'm not breaking any laws.

So if the harbormaster is reading this, let it be known that I'm not staying onboard more than nine nights a month. Look at me being an angelic little law-abider.

In the meantime, I've set up a hilarious little galley. It consists of a seven dollar George Foreman grill I found at Goodwill, and a twelve dollar water boiler from Target. Nineteen dollar kitchen! Try to beat that!

And I took her out sailing with Dad. If you've been paying attention (or you are a member of my family), you'll know that his knee is broken, so that was hilarious. Maiden voyage took four hours. Two of those were at the dock, trying to figure out how to put down the motor, sea stowing all the glassware that makes up the predominant portion of my dishes (a former mate of mine said glass had no place on a boat. I should pay attention to wisdom.), and attempting to use a marlinspike and a needle nose pliers to remove a rusty nut (need a toolkit, stat).

Then we got underway. Since Dad couldn't move, he got to be the skipper while I ran around in a bit of a frantic frenzy, attempting to fend off boats when the motor cut out and we drifted into my neighbors, tabernacling the mast to get under the bridge, raising sail, quickly dropping sail while we slid backwards, docking and undocking three times, lowering the keel (aha, should have done that sooner, hey?) and finally, somehow, getting out to sea.

Then we sailed around for a comparatively calm thirty minutes before the crazy return, which was most of that in reverse order, though much faster and only with a bit of panic at the end when the motor cut out and nearly landed us on the rocks and the boats next to my slip.

I think Dad had fun, which is good, since I lost a year or two off my life every time he put any weight on his injured leg. Next time, I'm bringing more able crew, and fewer gimps. (Love you Dad! ;P )

Motion of the Ocean

So, I've sailed some cool places. I've sailed some awesome boats. But now, I'm doing both at the same time. This summer's hard work paid off and now I'm an Ordinary Seaman on board a 210 foot full-rigged vessel on a two month voyage from Europe to Africa to the Caribbean. It's so bleeping rad.

The Great Lakes coddled me though. I'd forgotten what the ocean was like. It's big. It's blue. And it moves all the freaking time. The ten foot swells meet us on our quarter (back corner of the ship), rolling the whole ship twenty degrees to port as we climb to the peak, and then we tip over twenty degrees to starboard as we plunge down into the trough. This happens every thirty seconds or so. For days. Welcome to a world of constant motion where gravity can shift up to sixty degrees in less time than it takes to walk through a doorway. Unsurprisingly, this makes life... interesting.

Take my cabin for example. All of my stuff lives on shelves with doors that open to port. This is terrifying in this kind of seaway. I have to time it just right- find the right door, wait till the ship rolls to starboard, open cupboard, locate item. I've learned the hard way not to be hasty. If I grab the item at this point, too many things can go wrong and then it's too late and all of my stuff is pouring out on my head. Instead, I shut the door and hold it tight as the boat rolls to port, making sure to brace myself as well. Things slam against the door, but worry not! they've been doing that all day, survived thus far and my interference will only lead to chaos and ruin.

The ship rolls away again- now is the time for action. I swing open the cabinet door, carefully and quickly snatch the necessary item, toss it somewhere it won't roll and then slam shut the door because, oh god, now the boat is rolling back towards me and gravity is a cruel mistress when I find myself suddenly beneath a bunch of my unsecured items. Woe and suffering await if something gets caught between the shelves and the door- with only two arms, I can't cover three shelves and attempting to close the door partially will result in a narrow torrent of stuff that I then have the added challenge of replacing.

Needless to day, I spend more time than I care to calculate lunging about a rocking boat collecting my escaping possessions.

But wait- I can't just spend all my day trying to get things out of my shelves. There's tasks to be done. Like painting shelves! The Bosun handed me my tools and left me to the mercy of an open bucket of paint, a wet brush and roller, a paint covered board and a stir stick. The Bosun is a cruel, cruel man. Imagine juggling, balancing, and painting at the same time. Yup. It was kind of like that.

All this is worth it, of course. Since I'm insane, I think it's fun, and soon we'll be in Morocco. 

Instagram for funzies and pictures!

Yo yo! Wassup? I'm posting again! Huzzah! Three in one day? It's a miracle.

No story on this one though, just a link to get you guys to see my pics. I have discovered Instagram. It's way fun. To see my stuff go to instagram.com/funkysplash
Sometimes it doesn't work right away, so just refresh/reload the page once or twice and it should figure it out.

Cheers!

Open Ship is code for "Ask me Stupid Questions"

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was an age of sail. It was grand. Sailors were dirty, poor, smelled bad, and were known for their indiscretions and general loutishness. Meanwhile, sailing was a profitable business venture, a means of trade and transport. All of this was quite splendid until some clever folks figured out some crazy stuff during the industrial revolution and from then on, sailing faded in the oddest of ways from being a poor man's job to a rich man's sport.

Fast forward to the present. Many times, when people ask what I do for a living and I say that I'm a sailor, they actually can't figure out what I mean. It's just not done anymore. There are professional sailors? What the bloody hell do they do?

Well, my friends, that's honestly a rather reasonable question. And my answer to you is this: we keep the dream alive. There is an art and a beauty to sailing, a sense of euphoria when the sails are set and the lines are humming and the wind whips your hair back from your face and throws spray sparkling around you. There is hard work to be done, and the sense of camaraderie and teamwork that goes into keeping the boat going. There is great value still in simply sailing, even if economically, it's entirely illogical.

And so, to keep the dream alive, to keep the money, if not flowing, at least somewhat stemming the wound, the sailing world has by and large turned to cruising and sail training. Some boats do booze cruises, island hopping, in a word, tourism. Others of us have latched onto the grand idea of putting kiddies on boats to teach them good skills, like respect, teamwork and leadership, as well as using the boat as a classroom for sciences, navigational mathematics, geography and anthropology (depending, of course, on where the boat goes). And all of this is great, but in order to keep interest and awareness up, there comes a time in every tall ship's life that it must advertise. The best way to do this is in Tall Ship festivals and thus, we come to my summer.

Festivals consist of a bunch of boats going on a road trip together; somewhat like a band going on tour. We head to a port, open our boats for thousands of people to tromp about on all weekend, then we have a parade, and trundle off, sometimes racing for funzies.

Now, I love answering questions about sailing. In fact, it's pretty much my main job on this ship. So I hear that thousands will be coming to see our ship and ask questions and I'm pretty onboard with the idea. Except- people are stupid. There is absolutely such thing as a stupid question, and sometimes people do the strangest things.

Some stupid questions and events during open ship in Toronto.

“Do you actually sail this boat?” (No, it's definitely all a ruse. We teleported here.)

“How are you going to leave?” (More teleportation, of course. The boat is superfluous. I did actually answer that question with a huge grin and the honest answer, “Well, sir, we're going to leave by boat.”)

“Do you really use the wheel?” (No, I steer with my mind. This is just a prop we put up to make you think this is real.)

“Why is the wheel backwards?” (Yeah, about that. Guess the boat builders just messed up when they put it in and we never fixed it. Never mind the box full of steering gear right behind it that attaches it to the rudder.)

“Do you guys really leave all this stuff outside?” (Of course not! We pry up everything that is bolted down and bring it inside. Or we build structures around them every time we suspect rain. Wouldn't want to ruin all that pretty varnish.)

“Why is this big metal thing here? It's in the way.” (Oh, of course ma'am. I'll get that bollard removed straight away so you can walk around better. I'm not sure where we're going to attach our dock lines anymore, but all of these parts are just for show anyway.)

“Why isn't the anchor down?” (Eh gads! The anchor isn't down? We're going to drift away! Oh no! It's too bad these lines attaching us to land won't help.)

“You should make these gangways less steep.” (I'll get right on that. What do you think would be better; raising the land, or cutting a hole in the side of the ship?)

It's truly amazing how many people think all of this is for show, or that we don't actually do anything onboard these vessels. Astonished faces greet me when I affirm that yes, we do climb the rigging, often multiple times a day and yes, I have been to the top. Probably three times the prior day. It's also amazing how surprised people are when you tell them that you live on the ship. I don't really know where else they think we'd be living, especially since we're in a different port every weekend. Also, my favorite action of all time was when one of our volunteers caught a family of four attempting to climb into one of our small boats that hang off the side. He overheard them saying “This is the perfect place for a picnic!” and turned around to see them standing on the railing, attempting to climb into the boat.

Ah, the humanity.  

So... What is it you do again?

Sometimes, life does really weird things to you. Sometimes you find yourself going from no job prospects to three job offers in a week, and then you suddenly can't decide whether to be the third mate on a schooner, a deckhand on a brig, or an... um... arbitrary random person on a full rigger. And when life gives you that decision, I hope you choose well.

I chose arbitrary random person.

Now, in order to explain this choice, I suppose I should explain the difference between these boats. One was a pretty ordinary schooner, not much different than the one I worked on last year. The second was bigger and better (okay, that's totally arbitrary, but everyone can definitely agree it's bigger and has more sails and is more complicated), but the third, well. A full rigged vessel, over two hundred feet long, with fifteen square sails and a mess of triangles. Over 220 lines, around 30 sails, accommodations for up to seventy trainees and fifteen professional crew. It made my boat-loving/semi-piratical heart go pitter-pat. I mean- how could I resist this?

I threw all other considerations to the wind. And thus I found myself finishing my last day of work at my outdoor science school on a Friday, throwing a farewell party on Saturday, driving to Los Angeles on Sunday and then leaving for Nova Scotia on Monday. My long-suffering parents accepted this abuse with relatively minimal complaint; I think I've numbed them by now. Yet it was a little too ambitious, even for crazy adventure-hungry me, since that really only left me with 26 hours to vacate the hoboshack, triage my possessions, wash everything, re-pack, and hit up a couple important chores (like doctor appointments before I become too old to get health care). My quick turnaround and then fourteen hour red-eye flight left me bleary and exhausted, stumbling around Halifax airport, laden with a backpack, a duffel bag and a ukulele, wondering what I would do if no one came to pick me up.

Fortunately, after about 45 minutes of sitting dazedly outside of customs, I was collected by a slightly kooky Kiwi. He loaded me and two others into a van and away we went.

It was on this car ride that I began objectively considering my somewhat rash choice. These two others in the van with me were past students, volunteers, and seemed to know way more about everything than I did. When I revealed that I was, as far as I knew, a member of the crew, they were taken aback.

“Really? What position are you?”

To which I had no better response than to shake my weary head and shrug. “Not a clue.”

My only comfort was that the boat had paid for me to fly from Los Angeles to Nova Scotia, so they must have wanted me for something. Hopefully not cannibalism. I'd signed a contract that said I could get ten hours off a day, and at least six in a row, so that seemed promising. (Some might think crazy is a better word, but that's objective, you know?)

When I arrived onboard, my new friends were shuffled off to volunteer land and I was taken aft to meet the crew. Upon my introduction, everyone's response was the same. “Oh, you're Halley.” Was I infamous already??? I hadn't done anything more than maybe pack a few too many things!

It turns out I was something of an enigma. I was a day later than the rest of the crew and no one knew what to expect of me. My supervisor had images of me as an intense sailor chick with tattoos, bulging muscles and the tendency to tie people to the masts with my awesome knot skills when they pestered me (two of those things are sort of true, but I comforted her a great deal by being my rather silly self).

What was even more of an enigma was my job onboard the ship. I was arbitrarily labeled Program- Deck... what that meant, no one really knew. I was to teach people about Seamanship and well, um, do other stuff.

And so that's what I've been doing. I teach people knots, line handling, climbing, sail theory, navigation, really whatever I feel like teaching whenever I want. When I'm not doing that, you can find me doing everything from scrubbing floors and doing laundry to working gangway or anchor watch to working on maintenance projects. When we're setting sail, you'll always find me on deck, unless of course we're aloft, and then you'll find me in the air. I'm the boat's official odd jobs girl, and since no one is really in charge of me, I make it up as I go along. I look for places I'm needed and do whatever I can find that's necessary. My goal is to have done everything on this boat by the end of August. It's going to be an interesting summer.

Nature Tastes Like...

I was on the phone with my brother this morning, relaying to him tales of my most recent group of children and realized that this group needed to be immortalized in blogdom.

Why this group? I have had many a memorable group of children, from my all girl group who made up their own theme song after I pointed out a particular mushroom to them (Scarlet Waxy Cap! Nanananana!- over and over), to my third graders who were endlessly fascinated with the movement of a gopher and watched said mammal for a solid fifteen minutes, to a child who felt his sole purpose in life was to cover my entire face with rock paint so it would dry into a very itchy and solid mud mask. I will certainly never forget my first group of children who followed me on the trail with excited shouts of "Adventure!", pumping their fists in the air and declaring themselves members of my pirate crew. Nor will I fail to recall my mischievous student who, upon being told that "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" and "What Do You Do with a Drunken Sailor?" were inappropriate songs for camp, didn't miss a beat in changing the songs to "99 Bottles of Milk on the Wall" and "What Do You Do with a Gummy Bear?"

Well, the answer to the question of why this group is a solid, "Who knows?" I guess I was just in the bloggin' mood. Maybe it was because this group, upon being told that you could learn a great deal from scat (poop), instantly found it imperative to pick apart every animal dropping we found on the trail, and declared their group name to be the "Scatengers". Or perhaps it was the fact that these guys managed, in the course of three days, to catch ten crawdads, a blue-bellied lizard and a turtle. But I think, most of all, it was their obsession with eating nature. Maybe it was my fault. You see...

It all started out on my first day with them. I've gotten into the habit of doing a silent sit on the first day to allow (force) the kids to start to pay attention to nature. Usually I tell them to engage all their senses. This is something I picked up from my days on the boat when we'd do a silent sail for five minutes in the middle of our three hours of crazy. However, I always am frustrated by how senses like touch, taste and smell get ignored. So, in a stroke of brilliance (or madness) I decided to do a five-senses hike. Good idea? That remained to be seen.

I announced my plan holding a plant I'd just plucked in my hand.
"Bum bada bum bum..." I began.
And like good little Pavlovian creatures they replied "bum bum." (This still remains the best way to quiet people down. The only other way that is remotely as effective is clapping a pattern. People are oddly trained to mimic your clap. It's weird. You should try it some time in a crowded train station or coffee shop. See what happens, eh?)

Now holding their attention I began. "Alright Scatengers. We're going to do a five senses hike. And we're going to start with..."

They start shouting out options. The obvious ones are first and the children begin to look perplexed as I rule out sight, smell and touch. A few uncertain cries of sound are denied until all they are left with is taste. They stare at me with some astonishment when I tell them all to find a plant that matches the one I am holding and to eat it.

But, children, bless their souls, will eventually do just about anything. (I try not to abuse this, but sometimes the impulse to get them to do the ridiculous is overwhelming. There may have been times I've used my unreasonable amount of power simply to amuse myself and the chaperones.) And so, within minutes, my entire group is chowing down on miner's lettuce. And loving it. One child, self-dubbed Sargent Squirrel, was pulling up whole clumps of plants, eating a veritable salad of the defenseless edible and daring me with a glare to stop him. Far be it from me to stop a child eating their greens, especially foraged from nature. I smiled beatifically.

Primed to the idea that nature is tasty, my children immediately began questioning the edibility of every plant we passed. And, since I'm a born forager, I roll with it.

"No, don't eat it like that, but you can brew it into tea."
"Well yes, you can eat bark, but it doesn't taste very good and you should only do it if you're starving in the woods."
"Yes, you can eat those berries, but, wait! No! Not yet, they won't be ripe for another month."

The following day, we're waiting for the group to be ready and I share a new fun fact with my students after they begin complaining about the carpenter ants wandering about.

Fun fact: Carpenter ants are edible

Even more fun fact: They kind of taste like slightly tart blueberries with legs

Most fun fact of all: Twenty sixth-graders squashing ants and eating them is absolutely excellent entertainment and a great way to keep them occupied while waiting for the last few students to trail out of the bathroom and fill their water bottles

I essentially have to drag the bloodthirsty children away from the ants and onto the trail. Little buggers are apparently ravenous. A few students come up to me on the hike and promise to bring ziploc bags of carpenter ants home for their parents to try. I try not to laugh as I imagine the faces of said parents.

At the river, I am impressed by their ability to find crawdads, but find myself regularly repeating myself, making my students promise not to eat the crawdads raw, but to release them. The students are miffed; they've apparently decided they will gain all their nutrition from nature and are ready to kick ass on Survivor or Man vs. Wild.

Then on the way back from the river, we encounter a banana slug. Now, don't get me wrong, I like banana slugs as much as the next person (probably more, since I sing about them on a weekly basis, and occasionally dress up as one), but I do not understand the obsession with kissing and/or licking banana slugs. I mean, wtf? Why would you want to put your mouth near a slug? When I see something leaving a slime trail, my first thought isn't "Mmm, creature covered with goo leaving a line of snot. I wanna git me some o' that." Yet, again and again, I encounter children asking me if they can kiss or lick the first banana slug we find. Usually my response that the slugs eat scat and wander through poison oak is enough to deter this impulse.

I wasn't fast enough with the Scatengers though. They come running up to me, brown banana slug laid out on a twig and I cheerfully begin to point out the different parts.

"This here is the slime plug. These are the optical tentacles. These are the-"

Midsentence I cut off, rendered completely speechless as a student dubbed Coconut leans down and licks the banana slug I'm currently holding, full length, front to back.

I blink. Before I can even begin to formulate a response, Coconut's best friend follows suit.

Words come to me in a rush. "What are you guys doing?? No! No! You cannot lick the banana slug! Leave him alone." (Him is a misnomer, given that banana slugs are hermaphroditic). I explain that banana slugs eat scat, don't appreciate being molested (can you even imagine a tongue the size of half your body descending from the sky to lick the entire length of you?) and should be left alone if you want to see them move around.

The timing is poor though, for I am in the process of setting up the students for a solo hike. This means that I will head up the trail and have the chaperones send them up one at a time shortly thereafter. I am leaving them alone. I tell them that they are welcome to photograph and watch the banana slug while waiting to head out, but to otherwise leave it alone.

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised when each student proudly admitted to licking the banana slug as soon as they reached me at the top of the trail. But really. One would think that two adults would be able to keep twenty children from ingesting the slime of one poor abused mollusk. Sargent Squirrel mentions that his throat feels "sticky". And, wonder of wonders, when the chaperones reach me, they cheerfully display images on their phones of each student licking or kissing the banana slugs.

MY PARENT CHAPERONES

TOOK PICTURES

OF STUDENTS

LICKING BANANA SLUGS

I am only left with the desire to pray that I won't be fired for this.

To top it all off, during my night hike on the last night, I have an activity that I do where I tell the students they will be eating lightening limestone, a chalk-like shale with crystals that hit against each other to create blue sparks. Those of my readers who went to outdoor science school may recognize this sham. However, I introduce this idea to my students and upon pulling a jar of "limestone" from my bag and telling them that I will be passing it out for them to eat, I am swept up in a spontaneous group hug.

I have never been hugged by twenty students after telling them I am handing out rocks for them to eat.

Summary: I love my job. And I hope none of them have any lasting negative effects from the banana slug slime.