A Brief Jaunt into All Things Maritime: September 2010

Before I hit the ground running, quick note. I have a tendency to talk in sailing gibberish. I guarantee you this will be even more of a problem now that I've just spent ten days speaking nothing but sailing gibberish. If I spin off into sailing gibberish that doesn't make sense to you, let me know and I'm more than happy to explain it :)

And thus begins the saga of my ten days at sea (and yes, it will be a saga. are you ready?). We didn't quite stick to the cruise track that was originally planned due to Hurricane Earl chasing us up the coast, but it was still awesome nonetheless (If anyone's interested, I can post charts with our cruise track pointed out on it).

Bright and early on the morning of August 31, we lugged our giant, filled to the zipper duffels down the stairs and through the parking lot to the bus.

We then spent the next two or so hours on the bus headed to Woods Hole, MA. Once we pulled into the wharves in Woods Hole, we saw the Cramer from a distance. Boy is she a beauty. Gorgeous two masted brigantine.

   Once we lugged all our stuff over to the ship and stowed it down below in our respective bunks, we reconvened on deck to be split into watches and then cast off from the dock. Each watch had about 7 people in it and I ended up on A watch. Our watch officer was the 1st mate, Heather Stone, and our scientist was the 3rd scientist, Annie Scofield. Once we were split into watches, we went to general quarters to cast off from the dock. A watch was on the foredeck, so we got to help with casting off bow lines, etc. While we were motoring to our anchorage for the evening (somewhere in the Vineyard Sound), we got a chance to know our watch officer and scientist as well as the other students on our watch. Once the "get to know you" portion of the afternoon was out of the way, we began our many orientations to various parts of the ship.
   We commenced our orientations in watches. A watch started in the galley where we met Maggie, the steward, and learned all about the different parts of the galley, including Roxie, the oven/stove. We then headed on to learn about the boat check. Boat checks happen once every hour while you're on watch and consist of making sure the whole boat isn't sinking, on fire, etc. They include checking the on deck aspect of things as well as below decks. A big portion of the below decks aspect is the engine room and recording a bunch of numbers in there, including batteries, fuel level in the day tank, fun things like that. Our third section of orientation was the hydrowinch. As one of the signs that is put up while the hydrowinch is in use says: the hydrowinch can steal your face. It is a big mechanized winch that lowers our science equipment into the water so we have data to collect. It's really cool. That completed the first half of our orientations for the afternoon. Fortunately, they fed us dinner before the next set of orientations. It didn't take long for us to realize that we would probably eat better on the Cramer than we will for the rest of the semester. Once dinner was out of the way, we continued with orientations to lab safety, the engine room, and the doghouse. Quite a lot of information for one day.

   The morning of September 1 started at 0550 with a wake up from Captain Seán himself for our 0600 swim. We were swimming as the sun rose. It was absolutely gorgeous. We also got a chance to jump off the bowsprit into the water. It was like a high dive, but way cooler. Even though we had been split into watches the previous day, we didn't start our watch rotation until B watch started on morning watch at 0700. A watch would have ordinarily had dawn watch (0300-0700) starting September 1, but instead they let us sleep one last full night. However, because we were supposed to have been on dawn watch, we still had dawn clean up to do. Dawn clean up happens daily and is completed following breakfast by whichever watch had dawn watch. Basically, it's a daily tidying of the below decks areas of the boat, including heads (toilets), soles (floors), companionways (stairs to down below), etc. Even though we're at sea and not in a place where dirt can accumulate obviously, it's amazing the amount of dirt that does build up over 24 hours. Once that project was complete, all hands assembled on the quarterdeck (the deck at the back of the boat where the wheel is) to go over safety drills. We practiced a man overboard drill, a fire/emergency drill, and an abandon ship drill. For abandon ship, we have these ridiculous exposure suits that make everyone look like red/orange abominable snowmen.

yes, that is me.

You get the idea. They even have a pillow that you can inflate to rest your head on. Pretty crazy. Once all of the safety drills were out of the way, we raised the mainsail, the mainstays'l and the forestays'l and began motor-sailing past Martha's Vineyard.

SSV Corwith Cramer under full sail

Apparently the Cramer doesn't sail close to the wind very well, so the captain decided to keep us motor-sailing so we could sail closer to the wind. For A watch, September 1 was really low key because we didn't stand watch until evening watch.

[Quick side note:
The watches broke down as follows:
   Morning Watch 0700-1300 (7am-1pm)
   Afternoon Watch 1300-1900 (1pm-7pm)
   Evening Watch 1900-2300 (7pm-11pm)
   Mid Watch 2300-0300 (11pm-3am)
   Dawn Watch 0300-0700 (3am-7am)
If you were on for morning watch, you'd be off for the following two watches and then be on again for midwatch. Then have the next two off, then be on for afternoon watch. This way, each watch rotated through all of the watch times.]

   Throughout the course of the day, we raised the JT and turned the engine off. It was surprisingly quiet with the engine off, although our science equipment that measured bathymetry was constantly chirping, but we eventually got used to that. We had our first class on board while under sail. Rich (the lit professor here) talked about some of the big literary dudes, as he put it, that were writing about and sailing on the area that we were in at the time. He talked about Melville and Thoreau and Joshua Slocum. It was really interesting, especially when Rich was able to point out landmarks that these big names talked about in their literature. The second half of class was more hands on. We set the topsail and practiced gybing. We were supposed to practice tacking as well, but there wasn't quite enough wind to be able to do so.
   Due to Hurricane Earl chasing us up the coast, the plan was to stick fairly close to land for the first few days, head towards Buzzard's Bay and the Cape Cod Canal. Anyway, when A watch finally took the deck at 1900, I was on galley duty. So I spent the better part of watch cleaning the dishes from dinner as well as the galley itself. It was quite the job, but actually a lot of fun. Just as we got off watch at 2300, we were passing through the Cape Cod Canal. It looked like our masts weren't going to fit under the bridges, but they did indeed and we headed on through.

   September 2 started with morning watch and a big science day for A watch. We were the first watch to conduct a super station (three super stations were conducted during the trip). A super station basically means that we did a bunch of sampling of the ocean. We started with a shipek grab to sample the bottom, in which we found a bunch of sand dollars and a worm or two. The next test that was conducted was a phytoplankton net tow. This net is towed for half an hour and collects a sample of the small stuff in the water. We deployed our hydrocast carousel which takes samples of the water columns at different depths. It's programmed by the computer to sense pressure as far as when to fire off each of the 12 columns on the carousel. It's a pretty awesome bit of machinery. We also did a Secchi disk test to see what the light penetration was like. The last thing we did was a neuston tow, which is a net that gets towed at the surface, half in the water, half out, to collect a sample of what's hanging out on the surface. We got to do a little bit of analysis, but the actual collecting of data took about 2 hours. Once all the science was finished for the morning, we practiced a few tacks and gybes to get the hang of it (we had enough wind this time).
   By lunchtime, we had reached Stellwagen Bank in Massachusetts Bay. There were whales! We had a bunch of whale sightings, the most spectacular of which were the humpback whale that breached 11 times in a row and the humpback whale that breached about 30 feet from our starboard bow. There were a few finback whales that were waving pectoral fins at us. It's amazing that something so large can be so graceful. The description they use on the boat, "charismatic megafauna", is quite apt indeed. During class, we discovered that Earl was headed right for us, so we began our trek towards Boston in the event that he does decide to join us. Because Stellwagen Bank is labeled a national marine sanctuary as well as a northern right whale critical habitat on the chart, we talked a little bit about what that means and the development of national marine sanctuaries. We also talked about the different ships we might encounter, such as container ships, Ro-Ros (Roll On, Roll Off), oil tankers, and bulk carriers, and what each of their uses were. This discussion led us into a discussion on ballast water and invasive species. It was an interesting and lively discussion. Once class was over, we spent a fair amount of time whale watching. Eventually I had to tear myself away and head below decks for a nap as A watch was on midwatch that night.
   Once B watch turned over to us and we had the deck at 2300, we had some things to accomplish. We needed to set the sails to tack and gybe so we could get going to proper speed for the neuston tow (about 2 knots, or as Skye, the chief scientist put it, a bagel walk). We backed the stays'ls and the jib to slow us down. Neuston tows happened twice a day, once at noon and once at midnight. While neusty was in the water, I had a chance to plot our position on the chart. We were in the Massachusetts Bay heading towards Boston because the latest reports told us that Earl was to pass right over Nantucket. I also got a chance to steer on this watch. It took me a little bit to get used to because I'm not used to steering with a wheel nor am I used to steering a boat that big and heavy (Cramer is 134 feet long and is made out of steel, so pretty heavy). Over our four hour watch, the clouds started to roll in and we saw a pretty steady drop in barometric pressure. Here comes Earl!

   The morning of September 3 saw us motoring into Boston Harbor, which was pretty hazy thanks to all the cloud cover.

We stopped briefly by the container shipping yard so Rich could point out more specifically what he had been talking about in class the day before and then headed on to the dock where we were going to tie up. All hands were called to general quarters to help tie up to the courthouse dock (yes, the one in front of the federal courthouse). Quite a small dock for such a large boat. Once we were firmly attached to the dock, everyone began readying the ship to weather the hurricane. We tied down everything that might blow away and stowed a lot of what couldn't be attached below decks. I got to go aloft and help tie down the topsail which was really cool! Once the ship was made fast, they fed us and let us nap before class at 1500, which was so very lovely. We'd worked hard getting the ship ready.

During class, we had part of Boston come to us! Ann Grimes Rand, the President of the USS Constitution Museum, took the ferry over from Charlestown to talk to us about her background (she's a Williams-Mystic alum) and how she ended up as the president of the museum, the history of Boston Harbor and what it looked like while the Constitution was sailing, and then the history of the Constitution itself.

It was really fascinating. It turns out that Boston is mostly fill. It used to be mudflats, marsh, estuary, etc. That's what made it such a protected port. It was really tricky to get into and it was protected from weather (hence, our jaunt into Boston to avoid Earl). The Constitution was one of 6 frigates built for the War of 1812 and is the only one still in existence today. Now, some of you native Marylanders might be asking yourself, what about the Constellation? The Constellation is actually a sloop of war that was built from parts of the dismantled frigate of the same name. After Ann was finished, we split into four groups and rotated through different stations: knot tying, lab to learn about plankton, charts, and free time to learn the lines on the ship. Skye, the chief scientist, loves plankton. She loves science in general and her enthusiasm for it is so contagious. She talked about phytoplankton and zooplankton and some of the common plankton we'll see in our samples. She also explained that zooplankton are split into meroplankton and holoplankton. The latter stay as plankton for their entire lives whereas meroplankton are temporary plankton. Charts with Cap was awesome!! We got to play with Bowditch's American Practical Navigator! It was fantastic. Cap and I had a short discussion about Carry On, Mr. Bowditch. It's one of his favorite books, too!
After dinner, we had another class about lobster, specifically the American lobster. Rich really knows his lobster. Apparently he's writing a book about lobster and lobstering. It was really interesting. He talked to us about the different stages and how they molt 13 or 14 times in a few months to reach the post-larval stage. However, once they reach the post-larval stage, their rate of molting slows way down, which is why we don't really have any way to tell the age of lobster. In lobstering, a crash has been predicted since the 1910s, but the industry keeps growing. There have been some regulations on lobstering put in place, but the industry continues to thrive.

September 4 began bright and early with dawn watch. Because we were at the dock, they split watch into two halves. Half the watch was on from 0300-0500 and the other half was on from 0500-0700. Apparently, after about 2300, Earl took a turn and headed out to the Atlantic. We didn't get much of anything other than a little bit of rain and a ton of fog.

So it was a pretty low key watch, which was nice. Because we were on dawn watch, we had dawn cleanup again. Also, because we were on dawn watch and dawn cleanup, it meant that it was shower day!! That was glorious. We also put a reef in the mainsail to prepare for the amount of wind outside the harbor. We had class at 1015 (during which we switched Williams-Mystic faculty). We talked about Melville's first voyage and the similarities and differences from our own. We also talked about why we use maritime language, which was really interesting. We talked about how it was used for safety reasons as well as the means to a culture. Once class was over, we prepared for leaving the dock. We'd put our anchor out the day before to help hold our bow off the dock in the event of high winds and wave action, so Heather let me drive the engine to raise the anchor. Once we were safely off the dock, we motored in the direction of Charlestown to check out the Constitution before heading back out to sea. We headed out through the narrows into the Massachusetts Bay towards the Gulf of Maine! We had some crazy wind and wave action during evening watch. We deployed our meter net, which is a 330 micron net that gets towed just along the bottom to sample the creatures hanging out there. We didn't get a whole lot, mostly red and pink algae. It was a pretty interesting process though.

   During morning watch September 5, I had a chance to take the helm again. It was a lot harder to steer due to the 8-9 foot swells. Thanks Earl. We hove to for class, which was quite unpleasant because of all the bouncing of the waves. I'm still not really sure what Glenn (this history professor) talked about. I was more focused on the horizon and not being ill. I think he talked about historic vessels and their uses, but I didn't really retain much of it. I would love to pick his brain about it again, when I can actually focus on it. Shortly after class was over, the wind seemed to die down a bit and life calmed down somewhat. After class, we had a bit of free time, during which I played with Bowditch. During midwatch, we got to do a starboard side neuston tow, which was cool because we normally do deployments on the port side. There were more lines to avoid on the starboard side that made deploying it a little bit more tricky than it would be on the port side. Lots of seaweed in that tow as well as a few baby lobsters. All in all, a pretty solid night, science-wise

   September 6 brought A watch the sleep of kings. Sleep of kings happens after midwatch because you don't have to be anywhere until watch meeting at 1130. It was glorious. During afternoon watch, Cap called a man overboard (as a drill, although we didn't know that at the time). We did a pretty good job, but had a little trouble getting the small boat started. Once we recovered the small boat, we had class. Glenn talked to us about fisheries and how technology has changed the fishing industry. I also learned how to use a sextant and got to go aloft to fix the topsail. It's a lot of fun climbing up the rigging while under sail!

   Dawn watch again on September 7. Boy was that rough. I was in the lab entering data into the computer. Not really helping with the seasickness factor. Staring at a computer while the boat is bouncing around. Yikes. The sunrise was absolutely gorgeous, so that was a nice reward for all the data entering we did.

Dawn clean up again. Much more difficult this time than the last two due to the fact that we were actually sailing this time instead of at a dock or at anchor. During class, Glenn did a living history presentation as Josiah Gardner. It was so cool. Josiah told us all about his experiences sailing and working on the water. It was fascinating. After Josiah was done, Skye talked to us about plastics which was really cool because she'd taken the last 30 years of data that SEA had collected on plastics and analyzed it. Some of the things she was talking about overlapped a little bit with what I learned last semester in my environmental science class, so that was really cool. Once class was over, we had time to work on our final science presentations. We anchored in Pleasant Point Gut in Muscongus Bay, Maine so everyone would have a chance to work on their presentations more easily. Each watch had a general topic and three subtopics. We each signed up for a topic that split us into either pairs or trios. I looked at the relationships between chlorophyll-a, fluorescence, and phosphate at the surface.

   September 8 brought us our science presentations. We stayed at anchor to give our presentations, which was nice. Everyone did a really awesome job and explained the results they'd found very clearly. It was really nice to get a chance to hear about all the data we'd been collecting over the last week. I also got a chance to play in the engine room today with Sarah Lake (the chief engineer). She let me help fix the main generator, so that was wicked cool. She's a ton of fun and has a great sense of humor, as evidenced by her engineering lecture during class. That may have been the funniest lecture we had all trip. Once she finished her talk, we learned how to eyesplice, which is exceedingly useful. Heather also taught me how to tie a monkey's fist. Then, a bunch of us asked to climb aloft on the foremast, which was granted. I climbed all the way to the top of the foremast, 110 feet in the air. I did have a harness on, however, it is fairly impossible to clip in whilst climbing, so once you're stationary, you clip in, but until then it's a free climb. It's wicked awesome! The view from up there is the most gorgeous thing in the world. It's also the only place on the boat you can be totally alone and have a chance to think. It's wonderful.

   September 9 was our last full day on board the Cramer as well as Maine Appreciation Day on board. It's amazing how quickly the trip went by. I spent some quality time with Ashley's Book of Knots in the morning. He is amazingly witty and were he alive, we would be the best of friends. The biggest project on the agenda was field day. Field day is spent cleaning the entire ship top to bottom. Everyone pitched in and it was a lot of fun. We put on music and just had a grand old time. Each watch had a certain section of the ship, but before we split into our various sections, we completed bunk love. Each person was in charge of cleaning out his or her own bunk with bleach, and mold killer, etc. So clean. Once bunk love was completed, we separated to our various areas. A watch was on galley duty. The first thing that happened was everything in the galley came out of the galley and made its way up on deck. Then the cleaning began. Some of the watch were on deck cleaning the items from the galley and the rest of us were in the galley cleaning the galley itself. What a project but what fun it was. Once the cleaning was done, we were rewarded by a swim. In the Gulf of Maine/Penobscot Bay. In September. It was so much fun!! Once you were in and numb, it was glorious! It was a great way to finish out field day and wash off all the grime and dirt from the day. We also had the Victory Chimes anchored near us wondering who the crazy people swimming were.
   Apparently, if you appreciate Maine, Maine appreciates you back. During field day, a lobster boat came alongside to inquire about the Cramer and bestowed upon us a bucket of twenty lobsters. We gave them Maggie's freshly baked bread in return (which is totally an even trade if you've ever had Maggie's bread). So we had the addition of lobster to our post-field-day barbecue. I have discovered a new way of cooking lobster. Put a few inches of sea water in the bottom of the pot and then steam the lobsters. It's the most delicious thing ever.
   Once dinner was over, we started preparing for the swizzle. A swizzle is the fun talent show at the end of field day. Everyone chipped in their talents and we had a really solid talent show. It was hysterical. We had everything from sea chanteys to knot tying with toes to the egg dance. We have quite a talented bunch! Once the talent portion was complete, the students thanked all the crew and then we drank swizzle! Swizzle is basically fruit punch mix with water and seltzer. It's delicious.

   September 10 brings this novel to the last day of the trip. And what an amazing trip it was. I spent the morning of the 10th aloft with Jay and Dan working on the topsail, getting it ready to come down. The Cramer has a month long period in the yard for repairs, so the topsail needed to come down. In order to have that happen, all the lines attaches to the sail needed to come off. So I was hanging onto the ladder on the side of the foremast with my legs through the rungs so I could use both my hands to untie the knots. It was quite the ride. Shortly after we came down from aloft, we headed into the dock at Rockland Marina in Maine. Once we docked, we fire lined all of our stuff off the ship and got ready to say our goodbyes. It was like saying goodbye to family. I would love to go back and work with all of them again. It was an amazing experience that I would love to repeat.

SSV Corwith Cramer
Captain: Seán Bercaw
1st Mate: Heather Stone
2nd Mate: Jay Amster
3rd Mate: Dan Stone
Chief Scientist: Skye Morét
1st Scientist: Maia Theophanis
2nd Scientist: Erin Roach
3rd Scientist: Annie Scofield
Chief Engineer: Sarah Lake
The Galley: Maggie
   Sayzie Koldys

A Brief Jaunt into All Things Maritime

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