How LOW (-cost) Can You Go?

What if your budget is tiny?

One of my boat-friends recently posted the costs of their second year cruising in their blog, and came up with the startling-at-first-glance figure of over $60,000.

"Really?" I thought. Wow.  We cruise on half that, about $30,000 per year, $2,500 per month, as I detailed in a 2012 post in this blog titled "Cost of Living ... Afloat." (In the three years since I wrote that, our cruising costs continued to average that same $2,500 per month distributed about the same way, except that our insurance increased by about $100 per month.)  Their bigger expenses must be the result, I thought, of having a bigger boat -- theirs is over 40 feet to our 33 feet.  Bigger boat = more cost at marinas that charge by the foot, more fuel, bigger engine, bigger sails, bigger heavier everything, as well as more bells and whistles and creature comforts. They've got a generator. And a watermaker. And more closet space than we own clothing to fill.

On closer examination, though, nearly $30,000 of our friends' $60,000 was boat maintenance and upgrades. (Compare to our average $6,000 per year over the 15 years we've owned this boat.) Maybe those numbers will level out for them in future years. When you subtract that out, their cost of living isn't so dramatically different than ours.  A little more, but not a lot more.  I can always find people like them, who live more expensively than we do, and I can also look around and find people like these  who live aboard cheaper than we do.

My friends' blog refers to the common but elusive goal of living aboard and cruising for $1,500 per month as unrealistic, in a tone that unintentionally comes off as privileged. Well, you can do it on $1,500, but ... maybe you won't have air conditioning, or be able to afford shoreside entertainment. Or marinas.  Or even hot water or refrigeration. Sure, you can do it ... but it won't be comfortable, and it won't feel like home. Okay for a season maybe, but it's not sustainable.

But if $1,500 is all you've got, and you want to cruising, then that's what you do.  You choose to give up a little -- or a lot -- of comfort and convenience for the sake of having adventures. Little money for maintenance? Small simple boat, simple systems. No refrigerator? Choose to live on canned and dried food, or an ice box.  People did that for many centuries, after all. Then when you go ashore for ice cream or cold beer, it's a big treat, instead of something you take for granted every day. No hot water? Heat some water on the stove for your shower, or use a sun shower bag.  Or better yet, go to the tropics where hot water for showers isn't as important as it is in the land of winter! You choose what you can do without, then adjust your level of expectation to your budget.

I'd even argue that cruising on a tight budget sometimes leads to more interesting adventures. My sailing acquaintance Joe told of the quirky and generous people he met bartering some carpentry for dockage on a rickety dock and fresh-caught fish because he lacked either the money or the inclination to pay for a marina slip. And we have met far more colorful characters, like the guy with the sea bag and parrot on his shoulder, on inexpensive public transportation in the islands than we ever could in the pricey isolation of a rental car.

While I personally am a member of the "creature comforts" camp, my friend has a valid point. I think there is a real lower limit for cruising budgets. I don't believe that limit is about amenities, though. I think everyone's entitled to decide for themselves how many, or few, hardships and discomforts they are willing to endure in service of a goal. Where I draw the line is where your choices don't just affect you, but impact the people around you. Cruising on a tight budget and choosing to anchor instead of taking a marina slip? Your call.  Cruising on such a tight budget that you've skimped on an undersized anchor and insufficient rode and therefore drag into other anchored boats? Nope, not okay. Cruising with worn old sails that sag and don't give good performance because you can't afford to replace them this year? Your call. Going with sails so old that they blow out during the first moderate wind, and your engine doesn't work because you haven't been affording the maintenance on it either, so someone else has to put themselves at risk to go rescue you? Unh-uh. No insurance, because your boat's not worth much anyway? Yeah, you can choose that. But, no insurance, so you just walk away if the boat runs into trouble because you can't afford to dispose of it, possibly damaging the environment, but certainly leaving an ugly derelict that others must deal with, and damage the image and reception of all cruisers? Do I have to say it? no, no, NO!

Best and Worst Visitors

Dan and I would "debrief" at the end of every day working with visitors. We'd rehash funny stories, pass on tidbits of information we'd discovered during our conversations of the day, and vent about visitors who annoyed us, generally by being either arrogant or entitled. Here are some of the highlights of the entire trip.

Some visitors are more fun to chat with than others! (Image from here.)

Best visitor conversation, by far, was an 8-year-old boy who visited us in New London, CT. I had explained to him that we don't have a house, we just live on the Galeon, eat meals here and sleep here, and travel around. "Then what?" he asked.  I said that when the tour is done, we'll go to our own boat. In the past, we've rented a furnished apartment on a tropical island for the winter. Maybe some day we'll live in an RV and explore the Rockies and do a US/Canada road trip. His eyes just kept getting bigger and bigger as we had our conversation. "You mean, you don't have to have a house even if you're a grownup?" he finally concluded in wonder. I could just see him evaluating the possibilities. Methinks I've created a wanderlust monster ... or maybe a future astronaut or explorer.

The runner-up, second-best conversation, was also a child and also in New London. A little girl, maybe 3 or 4 years old, was crying and explained to her mom that she wanted to view the gun deck but was afraid of the steep dark stairs. I told her that sometimes you have to go through the scary stuff to get to the good stuff. (Free life lessons along with your tour of El Galeon, no extra charge.)

Conversations like those give me hope. The one that caused me the most despair was an Asian-American woman, late teens maybe, who wondered why Spain had sent a fleet of ships to found a colony in St Augustine, Florida in 1565. "Didn't they know Florida was part of the United States?" she asked. Um. Uhh... Do they teach history in your school? Do you know what happened in Philadelphia in 1776? Her English was unaccented, so if she wasn't born here she at least spent many years of her young life here.  Despair? I truly believe democracy can survive only with an educated voting population.

We had so many visitors that it would be hard to pick a "best." We deeply appreciated the personal friends who made the effort to visit the ship when it was in a nearby city, and we ended up with "special guests" in almost every port, Karen and Howard in Philadelphia; Beth and Lenn and their son Paul in New York; Margo and Victoria and Dorrie in Portland; and my pirate pal "Newport Jack" who came to see us in all three of our New England towns. There were visitors who brought their own priorities and interests, from a professor doing research on the spice trade to a circumnavigator. And there were random meetings or visitors that became friends: a girl named Katie who met several of the crew by chance in a bar in Portland, then struck up a close friendship with one of the crew and traveled to meet the ship on several other weekends and just "hang out;" and a Jamie, a writer from Wilmington who was so intrigued that she came back twice more while the ship was in town, then joined us on the sail to Charleston. The one who stands out most in my mind was a totally chance meeting that became a valued crew member.  I was working on the gun deck when I overheard a conversation between two women.  One was explaining to the other about how the galleons occasionally crossed from Europe to the new world lightly loaded, and filled the rest of the cargo hold with rocks for stability. On arrival, she continued, they would use the ballast stones to pave their cobblestone streets. This practice caused later generations of archaeologists like herself endless confusion because the geology made no sense. The cities' streets were paved with stones that were so different than any materials nearby, and seemed of mysterious origin; until they figured out the puzzle. The streets of Old San Juan in Puerto Rico,for example, are paved with unique blue stones that are like nothing found elsewhere in the Caribbean ... because they weren't found in the Caribbean, they were imported from Europe as ballast.

"Hey, you're pretty knowledgeable," I joked with her.  "Want a job?" Well, actually, she did ... and next thing I knew, Skia the archaeolgist and Navy brat became our newest crew member, as well as a fun friend.

The worst visitor was easier to pick than the best, perhaps because he was so egregious. A father and young (6 years old, maybe?) daughter came aboard on our last weekend in Wilmington and it was crowded. So crowded that we the crew were acting more as traffic controllers than tourguides.  We'd have one crew member at the top of the ramp, and another at the bottom, letting 20 people aboard at at time, 20 coming up, one-way traffic, then stopping the incoming visitors to allow 20 to depart, again, one-way traffic, and about 5 minutes between direction switches. I was working at the top of the ramp and asked them to wait just a minute -- "enjoy the ship just a few moments longer" so the incoming people could get out of the way and then they could go down. But that wasn't enough for the dad, his daughter needed the bathroom and he wanted her to be able to leave right now! "If you don't let her go she's going to have an accident right here on the deck!" he told me angrily, as I thought to myself, "I'm happy to offer you a mop, I swab these decks regularly, you can too. I bet you're the kind of guy who argues with the umpire at the Little League games when the calls don't go your kid's way, too, aren't you?" Then he stunned me by loudly telling the child to leave right now, while the ramp was full of people coming up, and just push anyone who was in her way!!! Really? REALLY? This is not advocating for your kid, this is something that has no (printable) name.  What are you teaching her? That it's better to risk injury (to herself or someone else) than embarrassment? That when other human beings are inconvenient she should push them out of the way? All to save about 2 minutes? The kid looked back, confused.  A crew member had given her one instruction, her father was telling her to ignore it. I let her go. Girl is going to have enough problems in her life, growing up with that bizarrely warped a role model.

 .

El Galeon Andalucia Virtual Tour Part 4: Gun Deck

One of my favorite visitors to the Galeon was a middle-aged black gentleman who came aboard in New York City. He commented on my nametag, one of the very few who got it right,and told me somewhat admiringly that "Janye" is a black name. (Um, yeah, and I think it's so cool.) We had a nice conversation about the ship, and about our jobs.  He was a tourguide on a bus tour of Manhattan. He commented that the ship was beautiful, and I gave my stock reply, "I had nothing to do with the construction, but thank you anyway," and he burst out laughing.  Huh? I thought to myself, that phrase is not that funny; I don't get it.  "Now I KNOW you're a real tourguide," he told me. "I heard you use that same line, with the same inflection, a few minutes ago!" And then it was my turn to laugh, because he was right, in a takes-one-to-know-one kinda way. I was busted! After you've been giving tours for a while, you learn what works best for the visitors and you say the same thing the same way.  Completely memorize your lines, spacing, tone, and inflection. He gave me his card and offered me a complementary tour on his bus, which I never got to take, but I was inspired to write out, word for memorized word, my tour. So if you never got to visit the ship while I was aboard, here, in the fourth of four blog posts, is what I would have said when you visited. And note, this is MY tour. I do my very best to get facts accurate; but any mistakes here are my own.

A line of cannons

Welcome to the gun deck. In contrast to the elegant spaces in the Noble Area, 70 to 100 people might be crowded together to sleep here.  They’d put their hammocks wherever they could – above the cannons, in a corner, wherever they could carve out a little bit of space for themselves. The food was bad – remember they hadn’t yet invented refrigeration or canning, so everything was dried or pickled or salted. Dried rice, dried beans, salt pork, a kind of hard biscuit, whatever fish they could catch, maybe some nuts. There was just enough water to drink, assuming it didn’t go foul after the first few weeks, nothing left for bathing, not that they bathe every day the way we do. And you’re sharing that space with the livestock!    There is no privacy at all. You are elbow-to-elbow with 100 of your closest (illiterate, unwashed) friends, for two to three months. And that’s just the inconvenient part of the voyage. You’ve also got real dangers.  There are storms that you can’t predict and can’t outrun. There could be pirates. The navigation of the day was quite sketchy – they could determine their latitude but not their longitude.  They knew they’d get to their destination, but they couldn’t tell exactly when. They might be ahead of where they thought they were, closer to shore, and run aground in the middle of the night; or they might be behind schedule – should they start rationing food? One of the few who was literate wrote in a journal or a letter home, “We are in constant fear for our lives. Only about three inches separates us from death.” Because that was the thickness of a hull plank; that was all that kept out the Atlantic that would drown them. Think about what that voyage must have been like.  Now, think about what conditions must have been like in Europe, if people thought that making that trip was their best option.

Now we use it as a museum display about galleons in history and the settlement of St Augustine, the first Spanish city in Florida, in 1565. But in the old days, can you imagine 100 people sleeping together in this space?

Scant light and ventilation below. The grille of the cargo hatch, looking up from the gun deck

Let’s talk about the cannons themselves. These are approximately 10-pounders. On land, say if it was mounted in a fort (like the Castillo), a cannon this size could fire accurately about a mile and a half. But of course the ship is rocking and rolling with every wave, so we would have to wait until an attacking ship was right next to us before firing. In this leather bucket is a cannonball. (Let kids feel the weight)  And this is two cannonballs held together, called chain shot. This is what our enemies would use against us. They don’t want to sink our ship, because they can’t steal our cargo if it’s at the bottom of the ocean. So they use the chain shot. When it’s shot the two cannon balls tumble and spin and can knock down the mast or rip up the sail.  Then we can’t get away and they can raid us at their leisure. And this other is grape shot – this is what they would use against people. These smaller balls would scatter coming out of the cannon, and the aim doesn’t have to be quite so good. The bucket itself – before firing they would wet down the decks with sea water so a stray spark doesn’t set the ship on fire.

Something interesting, count the cannons on this deck, and when you exit the ship count the number of cannon ports. 8 ports on each side, but only 5 cannons. This actually wasn’t all that uncommon.  Cannons are expensive, and we can make it look like the ship is more formidable than it really is (or that we can afford!)

Measuring boat speed by literal "knots" in a piece of rope.

This log is how they measure speed. They had no technology, but they were pretty creative. They throw the wooden end off the stern of the ship and as they sail away the line unreels. There is a knot tied in the line every 50 feet, and they’d count how many knots slip between their fingers in 30 seconds. 50 feet in 30 seconds is 100 feet in a minute. 60 minutes in an hour, 6000 feet = 1 nautical mile per hour, and that’s why we measure boat speed in “knots” even today.

A note about the flags on display in the second picture: the nearer one, red "X" on a white background, is the Cross of Burgundy. It is a military flag and the flag of the Spanish overseas territories, and would have flown over the Galeon when it sailed in historic times.  The scraggly X symbolizes St Andrew, who was crucified on a hastily-made cross of brambly branches. The modern flag of the state of Florida contains a red X on a white ground with the seal of the state in the center, in a nod to the state's Spanish origins. The further flag represents the houses/kingdoms of Castile and Leon (castle and lion) in 1230 and might have flown over Columbus' ships.

El Galeon Andalucia Virtual Tour Part 3: Quarterdeck

One of my favorite visitors to the Galeon was a middle-aged black gentleman who came aboard in New York City. He commented on my nametag, one of the very few who got it right,and told me somewhat admiringly that "Janye" is a black name. (Um, yeah, and I think it's so cool.) We had a nice conversation about the ship, and about our jobs.  He was a tourguide on a bus tour of Manhattan. He commented that the ship was beautiful, and I gave my stock reply, "I had nothing to do with the construction, but thank you anyway," and he burst out laughing.  Huh? I thought to myself, that phrase is not that funny; I don't get it.  "Now I KNOW you're a real tourguide," he told me. "I heard you use that same line, with the same inflection, a few minutes ago!" And then it was my turn to laugh, because he was right, in a takes-one-to-know-one kinda way. I was busted! After you've been giving tours for a while, you learn what works best for the visitors and you say the same thing the same way.  Completely memorize your lines, spacing, tone, and inflection. He gave me his card and offered me a complementary tour on his bus, which I never got to take, but I was inspired to write out, word for memorized word, my tour. So if you never got to visit the ship while I was aboard, here, in the third of four blog posts, is what I would have said when you visited. And note, this is MY tour. I do my very best to get facts accurate; but any mistakes here are my own.

Overview of quarterdeck and poop deck

Welcome to the quarterdeck.  Now you’re in officer country; the common sailors wouldn’t have much business here.  Notice how well you can supervise everything that is happening on the main deck from up here. Behind the door (behind the wheel) are two cabins for the captain and first officer, they look just like the cabin on display downstairs except that that one has the window at the side and these have the window at the back due to the geometry of the hull. In the old days, that’s all that was back there, now the corridor between the two cabins is our ship’s bridge with the autopilot and radio and radar etc; behind the scenes we’re modern.

The wheel is still where we steer the ship. In the old days it would be connected to the rudder with ropes and pulleys.  It was built so large because it could take the strength of two or three men to hold the ship on course during a storm. Now, it is hydraulic; I have steered the ship with two fingers.

(FAQ: Generally if there are kids, one of them will ask if the boxes contain treasure. “If I have treasure, it’s gonna be waaay more than just a couple of boxes! It’s gonna take up the entire cargo hold! Those boxes might be for weapons. The captain keeps them locked up so if the men get into a fight with each other, they can punch each other but can’t shoot each other. If an enemy comes then he can quickly distribute the arms to the crew. Now the boxes hold things like flags, sometimes fishing gear, and that one in the back has the ship’s batteries.)(Underway, they also hold the ropes and canvas covers on the life rafts.)

The sail here is the mizzen sail. The other 6 sails go crosswise and use the pressure of the wind in the sails to push the ship downwind, like a plastic bag blowing across a parking lot. This sail runs lengthwise and doesn’t add to the propulsion, but helps the rudder provide balance and steering. Funny, when they built the ship they knew what it should look like based on plans found when they did research in the Spanish archives; but there was no one to teach them how to use this sail. No one has sailed a galleon for 300 years, so they had to trial and error to figure it out.

This image of the ship, on souvenir t-shirts from the festival in New Hampshire, shows the triangular mizzen sail at the back, and one of each of the two square sails on each mast.

The uppermost deck is the poop deck, and it is also strictly officers only.  The name of this deck has nothing to do with bathroom function. That was taken care of if you’re an officer you got a chamber pot; if you were a common sailor you’d go to the downwind side of the boat and do your business and wait for a nice wave to wash it clean. Instead the name of this deck comes from the Latin word puppus, which morphed into the Spanish popa or the French poupe (sp?) and it just means “the deck at the back of the boat.”

These ships go downwind only, so that means the wind and waves are always coming from behind you. That is why this is the tallest, narrowest part of the boat, so it can split the water to either side as the waves come.

The lantern on the stern

The other thing to notice up here is the lantern. The galleons would travel in company for mutual aid and protection, 10 or 20 or more galleons together escorted by the Spanish navy. During the day they could see the other members of their fleet. At night they’d light the lantern to keep track of each other, and they could use it for some simple signaling and communication. (Not Morse code; that hadn’t been invented yet.) Now we have an LED in there; back then they would have used something like the 4-wick oil lamp in the display case. Although, the idea of burning oil on a wooden ship that rocks and rolls just gives me the creeps… If it’s foggy, day or night, and they can’t see each other, they’d ring the bell on the foredeck, one gong every minute or two, and they could tell by the sound “Hey, it’s getting quieter, we’re getting too far away,” or worse, “Hey, it’s getting louder we might be too close.”

 (FAQ: Often someone will ask how they could see to steer when the sails were down. Well, the thing is, you don’t need to.  There’s nothing to see – in the middle of the ocean, it’s just blue in every direction and you merely steer a compass heading. If you do need to see you’ll send someone into the crow’s nest.)

(FAQ: What’s it like to travel on? “Different than anything else I’ve ever been on.  The ship has no keel; we only draw 10 feet.  As you came aboard you might have noticed the Roman numeral XXIV (24) painted on the bow. That’s 2.4 meters, very shallow.  We have a round bottom and just a shallow ‘structural rib’ that helps with tracking, but cannot help us go to weather. We only go 130 – 180 degrees off the wind, broad reach to run. We rock and roll further off the vertical than a modern ship, but it’s a different motion than a modern boat which will fairly quickly snap back to horizontal. We roll pretty far, but it’s more of a slow sway. To me it’s more comfortable, but then, we’re all a little crazy, to live on a 17^th century ship.”)

(FAQ: Why can’t we go to the poop deck? “Well, in order to make it historically accurate we had to build it without safety rails, and the Coast Guard just hates it when we let visitors go places where they could fall overboard.”)

The helm is also the most popular place on the ship for photos -- everyone wants one here!

El Galeon Andalucia Virtual Tour Part 2: Foredeck

One of my favorite visitors to the Galeon was a middle-aged black gentleman who came aboard in New York City. He commented on my nametag, one of the very few who got it right,and told me somewhat admiringly that "Janye" is a black name. (Um, yeah, and I think it's so cool.) We had a nice conversation about the ship, and about our jobs.  He was a tourguide on a bus tour of Manhattan. He commented that the ship was beautiful, and I gave my stock reply, "I had nothing to do with the construction, but thank you anyway," and he burst out laughing.  Huh? I thought to myself, that phrase is not that funny; I don't get it.  "Now I KNOW you're a real tourguide," he told me. "I heard you use that same line, with the same inflection, a few minutes ago!" And then it was my turn to laugh, because he was right, in a takes-one-to-know-one kinda way. I was busted! After you've been giving tours for a while, you learn what works best for the visitors and you say the same thing the same way.  Completely memorize your lines, spacing, tone, and inflection. He gave me his card and offered me a complementary tour on his bus, which I never got to take, but I was inspired to write out, word for memorized word, my tour. So if you never got to visit the ship while I was aboard, here, in the first of four blog posts, is what I would have said when you visited. And note, this is MY tour. I do my very best to get facts accurate; but any mistakes here are my own.

Dan's the real expert on the foredeck.  Here he's at his favorite station, ready to explain anything and everything about 17th century ship life.

On the main deck, looking forward to the forecastle deck ("castillo de proa," in Spanish). The roped-off area below the forecastle is our (modern) galley and office area; forward of that is our bathrooms and showers.

Anchors, then and now.

Several things to look at here on the foredeck, or forecastle deck, fo’c’sle on British ships. The big anchors hanging over the rails are what they would have used originally; each of them weighs about a ton, or as much as a small car. The anchors lying on deck are what we’d use today.  Modern more efficient design and materials allow them to have the same holding power with half the weight, “only” about 1000 pounds. But we rarely anchor.  The ship is either sailing 24/7 to make it to the next port, or we’re tied up at a marina like we are now to allow visitors to come on board. Because of course if we’re at anchor and no one can visit we’re not fulfilling our mission of education and outreach.

Capstan

This thing in the middle that looks like an excellent table for cocktails is the capstan. It’s used for raising heavy weights like the anchor. The whole assembly turns. They would wrap the anchor line around the base and put rods or spokes in these 8 square holes around the rim, then 8 sailors would walk in a circle around the capstan to slowly wind the chain and raise the weight. You’ve possibly seen this in the movies.

Bowsprit. The grated deck below it is the cutwater deck, ("tajamar"), a favorite hangout for the crew.When underway and conditions permit, its a great place to watch for dolphins playing in our bow wave.

Looking over the front rail you see the cutwater deck and the bowsprit. The bowsprit is actually the hardest mast to climb even though it’s shorter and a gentler slope than the others. On the others the rigging is pretty stable and it’s not much different than climbing a ladder. But on this one the ropes are free and they wobble. There are obstacles in the middle to go around. The bowsprit itself bounces up and down so if you should fall off, you’re immediately run over by the ship! That’s why it was nicknamed the “widowmaker.” At the Naval Academy museum in Annapolis, MD, there are model ships from the Napoleonic wars, a little later period than ours. The models were made by prisoners of war. They would save the bones from their meal rations and carve them into models of the ships they had served on. Most of these guys were illiterate and they were working from memory, but the models are generally pretty much to scale, with one exception: the bowsprit, and often the masts as well, could be twice as long as they should be – because that’s what it felt like to these guys, climbing up and out there!

The ship's bell. 

Also here is the ship’s bell. The bell provides the best most positive identification of a shipwreck, because you can find cast into the bell the name of the ship (El Galeon Andalucia), the year it was built (2009), and the home port (Sevilla). The bell had many uses on a ship where no one had a wristwatch. It marked the passage of time with a gong or series of gongs every half hour; it also marked change of watch; it could signal danger or all hands on deck. In fog it could signal our position to avoid collision. On this ship in port the most important thing we use the bell for is to signal mealtime.  Three bells and we’re headed to lunch, you folks are on your own!

Six miles of rope rigging

The ship has 6 miles of rope rigging, and one of your first tasks when you come aboard as a new recruit is to learn what each rope does. You know the phrase when you start a new job and someone says you’re “learning the ropes?” This is where that expression comes from, you very literally learn the ropes. These little lines, for example, are brioles. You ease them to let down the sail and pull them to raise (furl) the sail again, and everyone has to work in sync so the sail doesn’t bunch up. (I have no idea what these lines are called in English. To me, briole sounds like something you’d buy at a fancy bakery to eat with your latte.) These heavier lines with the block and tackles are for raising or lowering the entire assembly, spar (wooden cross piece) as well as the canvas. The main sail for example weighs two tons and needs 16-18 people to deploy.

Ingenious sail slides, hundreds of years before Teflon

Closer view of the same thing ... taken when the sail was lowered almost to the deck in anticipation of a rough passage

This thing that looks like a matrix of wooden tennis balls is our 17th century ball bearings. It is racamento in Spanish or parrel in English. It does two things: holds the spar to the mast as the ship rocks in the waves; and allows us to raise and lower the spar.

Foredeck on a misty gray day.

El Galeon Andalucia Virtual Tour Part 1: Main Deck

One of my favorite visitors to the Galeon was a middle-aged black gentleman who came aboard in New York City. He commented on my nametag, one of the very few who got it right,and told me somewhat admiringly that "Janye" is a black name. (Um, yeah, and I think it's so cool.) We had a nice conversation about the ship, and about our jobs.  He was a tourguide on a bus tour of Manhattan. He commented that the ship was beautiful, and I gave my stock reply, "I had nothing to do with the construction, but thank you anyway," and he burst out laughing.  Huh? I thought to myself, that phrase is not that funny; I don't get it.  "Now I KNOW you're a real tourguide," he told me. "I heard you use that same line, with the same inflection, a few minutes ago!" And then it was my turn to laugh, because he was right, in a takes-one-to-know-one kinda way. I was busted! After you've been giving tours for a while, you learn what works best for the visitors and you say the same thing the same way.  Completely memorize your lines. He gave me his card and offered me a complementary tour on his bus, which I never got to take, but I was inspired to write out, word for memorized word, my tour. So if you never got to visit the ship while I was aboard, here, in the first of four blog posts, is what I would have said when you visited. And note, this is MY tour. I do my very best to get facts accurate; but any mistakes here are my own.

The galeon docked in St Augustine

At the entry on main deck:

Welcome aboard El Galeon Andalucia. My name is Janye and I’m a crew member here; I live oucia. My name is Janye and I'n the ship and travel around with it (I know, tough life).

A galleon is basically a cargo ship, and Spain used some variation on the galleon design for about 300 years, in the 16^th, 17^th, and 18^th century. It was a very successful design for Spain, in those 300 years galleons moved 1.4 trillion dollars’ worth of goods across the oceans – settlers and their supplies to Spain’s colonies in the New World; gold, silver, and spices on the return voyage.  (Including a galleon similar to this one that founded the city of St Augustine 450 years ago.) We are armed with 12 cannons, not because we’re a fighting ship (we’re not, we’re merchants, we hate fighting – it cuts into our profits) but because we’re slow.  So: full of valuable cargo, too slow to run away, we better be ready to defend ourselves because this ship is not a pirate ship, it is a pirate target. 

This ship is a replica; it was built in 2009 in Huelva, Spain, and since construction it has traveled over 40,000 miles under its own power, mostly under sail; the map in the corner shows all the places we’ve been.  We have two, 375-hp diesel engines; we use those mostly for docking and close maneuvering. There was no such thing as marinas 400 years ago so they neither had nor needed that kind of exactness, they’d just drop anchor anywhere in the harbor and row ashore in small boats. Instead, we visit marinas so people like you can come aboard. We also use the engines for meeting a schedule, because of course in the old days if the wind ain’t blowin’, the ship ain’t goin’.  You’d simply wait. But we have a schedule of port appearances to keep. So if there’s no wind, or wind from the wrong direction, we turn on the motor. But we prefer to sail.  Sailing is more fun, it’s more comfortable, and hey! We’re owned by a non-profit! Wind is free, diesel is expensive! And we use a lot of diesel, we don’t measure our diesel in gallons; we measure it in tons.

As galleons go, we’re at the large end of the historic size range. We’re 170 feet long, 496 tons, and our main mast is 120 feet from its top to its base two decks below our feet.  We all have to climb it to do our work today.  And, being 21^st century people even though we live on a 17^th century ship, we all have our selfies from the top. 

In the old days, a ship like this would have needed a crew of 130. (If there are any kids in the audience, add: “starting as young as 9 years old.  One of the first jobs for the 9 year olds is to climb the rigging up to the crow’s nest and be a lookout.  Look for enemy ships, look for land, look for whatever the captain tells you to look for.  Do you think that would be a good job?” If they say yes, “That’s why they used 9 year olds! They have this rockin’ awesome attitude that everything’s an adventure!” If they say no, “Nine year olds are so much smarter today than they were back then.” Continue, “They used 9 year olds because they are light, they are agile, they are fearless, they have great eyesight.  And they’re also … disposable. If one falls, at least you haven’t wasted years training them.  Just go to the next port and pick up another one.”) This modern replica ship crossed the Atlantic with a crew of 34, plus Mr. Computer, Mr. GPS, and Mr. Radar. So thank you, modern technology.

Overview of the main deck, looking forward from the quarterdeck

(FAQ: Why did it take so many more people back then? “They would have had to maintain the ship; they would have had sailmakers and carpenters and caulkers, in addition to sailors. All things that are not necessary now with modern materials.” )

(FAQ: How long did the trip take? “Then, two to three months. Now, the modern ship crossed the Atlantic from Canary Islands to Puerto Rico in 24 days, and 17 of those days were sail only.”)

(FAQ: Why the difference? “Three reasons. (1)  Modern weather routing lets us take advantage of winds. (2) Modern hull materials – the old wooden hulls would grow barnacles and algae that would add friction and slow them down. We have modern fiberglass hull and antifouling paints to make that far less of an issue. (3) When they had no wind, they waited. We could use the engine.)

(FAQ: Who owns the ship and why was it built and how long did it take and how much did it cost? “Built and owned by the Nao Victoria Foundation, a non-profit in Spain, for purposes of education and outreach and to help preserve Spain’s maritime heritage. 150 people worked for 16 months to build it at a cost between 5 and 6 million Euros (about $9 million))

Overview of the main deck, from foredeck looking aft

The main cargo hatch

We’re here on the main deck and behind me is the main cargo hatch. They could remove this grill and load cargo directly into the cargo hold. If they are small items they’d form a human chain and hand things down via a bucket brigade; if they are larger heavier items they’d use ropes and pulleys and the capstan you will see when you go below to the gun deck.  And, at the end of the day, when you reward yourself with that cold beer and go, “Glug, glug, down the hatch?” This is the “hatch” where that expression comes from.

At the back of the main deck is the Zona Noble, the Noble Area. These ships only go downwind, which means the freshest air and best breezes come from the back. So the wealthy and powerful glommed onto this area.  The officers and VIPs and wealthy had their cabins here, and here is where the captain would entertain visiting dignitaries or the ship’s owners, for example.

Map of the galeon's travels

This map shows everywhere this replica ship has been. Built in Huelva in southwestern Spain near the Portugal border. This is the same place some of the original galleons were built 400 years ago. The maiden voyage was to Shanghai, China in 2010, and back to Spain in 2011. The worst weather the ship has ever been in was in the Philippines, they caught the tail end of a typhoon. I’m told that the waves were as high as the quarterdeck. Then in 2012 they visited various ports around Spain, and in 2013 crossed the Atlantic and have been traveling up and down cities on the East Coast, and Puerto Rico. Winter before last they were in Puerto Rico filming an NBC mini-series about Blackbeard called “Crossbones,” and a couple of Captain Morgan rum commercials.

The Atlantic crossing was similar to the route the original galleons took. The ships could only go downwind. So they would leave Spain and sail down the coast of Africa until they got to the latitude in the 20s, where the trade winds blow steadily from the east. They’d ride those winds straight across to the colonies in Florida or the Caribbean, do whatever they’re doing. Then they’d get on the Gulf Stream and let it carry them north and back west. Here at the latitude in the low 40s, New York City or Madrid, the winds blow predominantly from the west and would carry them home. One giant clockwise circle around the Atlantic once a year. This is also why Spain clung so tightly to the cities of Havana and Miami: the Gulf Stream runs very close to shore here and they wanted to protect that shipping route. It is one of the reasons Spain was so powerful during this period, because they knew about and controlled the Gulf Stream to get them across the ocean faster than their rivals.

Mind the Gap

Maybe it was just because we were tired, and anxious to get back to our normal lives on Cinderella. Maybe we were distracted, or out of practice after our time on the Galeon. Whatever the reason, we didn't follow our normal procedure for moving items aboard, and it cost us.

The evil "gap."

Our slip is aligned more-or-less along the current, but there is a small sideways component. There are no pilings on the other side; we can only single-side tie to the floating pier.  Therefore, incoming tide jams our boat tightly along the finger pier (thus the large collection of fenders along that side), and the outgoing tide pulls us away (as in this photo) creating the dreaded "gap" between the pier and the side of the boat.

We have regular, very simple, rules for how we get things aboard. Generally one of us in on board and the other is on the dock handing things across the "gap."

The rules:

1. 1.  Don't let go until the other person acknowledges they have a good grip on the item, by saying something like "Mine" or "I've got it." 
2. 2.  One item at a time.
3. 3.  The change of hands happens over the deck or over the dock, not over the water.  If something is dropped you want to go "clunk" instead of "glug glug glug."

It's a pretty straightforward -- and pretty smart -- system.  Costs us an extra 30 seconds here and there, but we have fewer stories of items dropped overboard and lost to King Neptune than many of our boating friends. Until last week, when for reasons that are still unclear, Dan handed up a bundle of swords and sword belts all tangled together. Mistake #1: We broke Rule 2: One item at a time. I carefully counted the armload he was passing to me: two steel swords in their leather scabbards and baldrics, two plastic photo prop swords. I made sure I had a solid grip on all of the items I could see, and said, "Mine," and he released his hold. We had gotten Rule 1 right: Don't let go until the other person acknowledges they have the item in their control.  But because we had broken Rule 2, all the items I could see wasn't all the items there were.  Unnoticed in the jumble was another prop, a Pakistani dagger in its own sheath, on a leather belt. Mistake #2: Outgoing tide was pulling us off the dock, creating the dreaded "gap." The bundle was a full armload and the gap was wide, so our arms weren't long enough to span the gap, so the exchange happened over water and we broke Rule 3: Change of hands happens over the deck or the dock, not over the water. So guess what happened? Glug. Glug.

At low tide there's only about 5 feet of water in our slip, so at low tide Dan went swimming.  We pressed a boat pole into service as a descent aid and marker where we thought the dagger went down. On his very first attempt, Dan came up with the belt and we hoped the rest of the recovery would go as easily.  No such luck, though we spent the next hour trying, until the currents became too strong and darkness was falling.

Long story short, the next week our regular diver was scheduled to clean our hull so we asked him to have a look. We showed him what he was looking for; we still had the previous sheath, now protecting a kitchen knife of similar size to the dagger.  We waited on the surface while he handed up an eclectic collection of items he'd found on the bottom, previous victims of the "gap" by previous occupants of our slip -- a steel shackle, a copper saute pan, a chunk of wood (don't ask me why that last had never floated away, I don't know). He was about ready to give up when finally he found it, and handed up something that he said he had first thought was just another piece of wood. "That's so cool!" he exclaimed.  "I'm usually asked to dive for things like sunglasses or cellphones. But this ... I've never been asked to find something like this before. This is like discovering historical artifacts!"

The time spent underwater just made the dagger look even more authentic and weathered, and adds to its mystique.  So next time you see Dan in his historical or pirate persona, ask him to tell you the story of the dagger that crossed the ocean from Asia and was rescued from the bottom of the Matanzas, and has never been defeated in battle. (It as also never won a battle, because we don't use it for fighting or stagefighting, but we leave that part out to make the story better.) And next time you're coming or going aboard, mind the gap.

Don't know how well you can see it in the photo, but when this pan first came up it was bright pink. Electrolysis maybe?

Fierce!