Sea Time

We were scheduled to spend the entire month of July in Canada, celebrating the 150th anniversary of their existence. We'd visit 5 cities, the first 3 weekends in smallish towns with a subset of the 51-ship tall ship fleet; then the last two all together again in Quebec City and Halifax. First up, Pictou, Nova Scotia -- a tiny town that I had never heard of. Not that surprising, as it housed less than 5,000 people.

Leaving Provincetown for Pictou was the first long-ish passage of the tour, and I quickly fell into my meditative at-sea rhythm. My notebook is full of random jottings as my mind quieted from the quick zigzags that I'm used to when on land and in internet range, to thinking more slowly and deeply: notes on the weather, our latitude-longitude, odd Spanish phrases or idioms, and my musings on advancing age and whether we could/should do the Atlantic crossing. Being indoors, with climate control and artificial light, we're insulated from the daily cycles of the natural world. But now, without the distractions of the internet, and surrounded by air and water and light (and little else!), the cycles of light and darkness, clear days or cloudy, wind or calm, were impossible to miss or ignore.

Sunset at sea. And since we were on watch 8 PM to midnight, we were always on deck to see it.

When the seas were sparklingly clear and calm, anyone who wasn't needed for navigation spent their watch doing ship maintenance of the kind that we couldn't do when we were open for visitors

Captain Pablo was willing to get his hands dirty too!

I love contrast and juxtaposition -- the con trails of modern jets almost seem to echo the rigging of our older form of transportation

When the Captain told us we had crossed the international boundary, Dan and Ryan changed out the U.S. courtesy flag for the Canadian one

Over the next month, we got used to seeing it high in the rigging

Perhaps in the old days this would have been a common sight -- one tall ship meets another, just a smudge of white sails on the horizon

Gorgeous when they got up close; one of our fellow ships on the tour, Europa

At the helm -- my favourite job! Here, early in the summer, we're in the middle of the ocean, nothing to hit. Later on as I gained confidence, the captain had me steering in ever-more challenging conditions.

Fog so thick you can't tell where the sky ends and the ocean begins.  Not all days are vacation-brochure sunshine! 

Safety training: fire drill.

After 3-1/2 rejuvenating days at sea the scent of land is always overwhelming. It's as though spending time surrounded by that clean sweet air resets -- and re-sensitizes -- your sense of smell. After our last long passage, the ordinary smell of farmland seemed terribly strong to me, like a feedlot. This time coming in to Canada smelled the magical delicious scent of true pine.

We're docked across from a ship of the Ecuadorian Navy. Since we couldn't leave the dock until we were cleared in by Canadian Customs and Immigration, a quick game of "football" (American soccer) was organized. It helped that there was no language barrier. 

A proper Pictou welcome, with bagpipes.

Canada Day -- military uniforms from two different periods in their history

Lots of crowds on Canada Day. We had almost 3,000 visitors per day -- a very impressive turnout for a town whose population was only 5,000.

Not quite sure what the deal was with the inflatable pirates but they were everywhere in town. Here with me, Jemima, Bosco, and Fernando. 

Random bit of the street, Pictou

Boston to Provincetown, and Provincetown -- What You Remember

The way the day was in my imagination. I lead a rich fantasy life!

My Facebook post to my pirate community page referred to doing something that should be on every pirate's ultimate bucket list. "Today I took the helm of a Spanish galleon and at the captain's command pointed our bow toward the open Atlantic."  Considering that we're the only Spanish galleon sailing the seas today, it is quite an exclusive club. I know how very lucky I am!

Even though I was dressed more conventionally in an El Galeon uniform t-shirt and khaki pants, in my mind the moment was more like the dashing adventure above. Granted it was extremely benign conditions, sunny and flat, and we were pretty much away from the worst of the boat traffic departing Boston although there were some fishing vessels to avoid, but I loved steering! (This theme will come up often in the stories of our adventures this summer.) The irony is that I rarely take the helm of our own much smaller and easier boat except for docking, but with the Galeon I was happily engaged.

Pointing our bow toward the east!

It was a calm, mild easy day for our six-hour motor trip from Boston to Provincetown at the tip of Cape Cod, and for us the beginning of getting into the El Galeon summer tour mode. Every week we'd be underway to someplace new, where we'd stay a few days before moving on. Most of our in-port days we'd work as tour guides but our informal contract guaranteed us at least one day off in each port for exploring (though never on a weekend, generally our busiest time). 

We were in Provincetown for the Portuguese Festival and Blessing of the Fleet. I remember the former from New Bedford last year, when we learned that many whalers came from Portuguese areas. And the latter, I'd always found it amusing that these blessings occur at the beginning of the season, which we have participated in anywhere from late March/early April in warm Florida, to now late June in the chillier north, as the seasons advance with the latitude. The festival had face painting and music and dancing and food and local history/heritage. Fun, and the dancing was colorful and the music very good, but somewhat expected. (Oh, look at what my life has become, how rich and amazing, that I can be blase about "just another summer festival" weekend!!)

When blogging, I usually contend that it's better to write while the memories are fairly fresh. Within reason, of course. During this year's Galeon tour I was too busy having adventures to spend time writing about them! With only one day off, one chance to explore, I sure didn't want to spend it in front of a computer screen.  I was keeping a pen-and-paper journal during passages though.  But I found an unexpected benefit to the forced delay to blogging. As the memories settled, I lost some of the details, but the experiences of more importance bubbled to the top. My most lasting impression of Provincetown was one of those, and had nothing to do with the Galeon.

Provincetown has a long long history of being gay-friendly. One gentleman we chatted with said their population was as much as 50% gay. I first noticed it in advertisements. I realized that I was used to seeing (for example) billboards advertising liquor including an elegantly-, and often scantily-clothed young woman along with the bottle. Here, those ads all featured buff young men. I saw it in the (gay) couples holding hands. There was lots of live entertainment and in the early evening before the shows, the performers would be out walking the streets interacting with the passers-by and encouraging them to see the performance. In one case, a campy overdone cross-dresser was wheeled around the street in a bathtub (!); for a later show two guys in red speedos.

We walked through the town to a small park by the seashore. There were benches to sit and contemplate and a bricked patio, the kind where you can support the park by buying a paver and having it inscribed with a celebratory or commemorative message. My most lasting memory of Provincetown was of these stones. this somber note: poignant memories of the times gays couldn't be together, and so many death dates that coincided with the AIDS epidemic.  "Patrick, I love you forever, wait for me in heaven, Christopher," was dated in the late 1980s. "Joe and Tony, together since 1992, married 2011..." bore witness to the nearly 20 years that these two waited for the legalization of gay marriage. 

I have no pictures of that park or its memorial pavers, I had no idea that it was going to become so important to me. In lieu of that, I offer you this view of a rainbow over the harbor, seen from the deck of the Galeon.  Because these tributes to lives and loves to me say it all.

And a few more pix from Provincetown, in no particular order:

"Black Sam" Bellamy, one of history's most successful pirates, now hawking t-shirts at the Whydah Museum. One story is that he turned to piracy when he didn't have the money to marry his sweetheart. 

Poster at the theater advertising the evening's lineup of shows.

Pavement art for the Portuguese Festival.

Free outdoor concerts included this extremely good Elvis impersonator.

Advertising the night's show. Notice that I'm wearing a fleece sweatshirt and long pants, and these guys are wearing ... well ... (can't blame it all on my thin Florida blood, either!)

Interrupting the Summer Retrospective to Bring You Up to Date on "Irma"

One big nasty mess!

First off, we are okay. Cinderella is okay. That's the perspective. The details and the scramble in between were incredibly stressful ... and we didn't lose anything! The only real damages were to our wallets and sleep cycles, yet the stress was intense.  I Just. Cannot. Imagine. what it must be like for friends who lost homes, boats, and businesses to this hurricane storm, or to hurricane Maria that followed.

The initial storm track and size looked serious enough for us to want Cinderella on the hard. Such peace of mind to have paid to reserve our spot at the beginning of the season. One boatyard here in town when we arrived 4 years ago has a "hurricane club." For $250, you are guaranteed space to haul out if there is a named storm. If there are no storms, you wasted some money. This had been the case for us the last 3 years, but this year, we were getting mega value for that guarantee.  Our insurance company was very, very happy.

Except when we called to arrange the haul, the less-than-helpful owner told us that he couldn't haul any boats because his travel lift was broken.  What dreadful timing! And of course because we had the guarantee, we hadn't made any backup arrangements and now everyone in town was full. Plan B was a protected marina 2 days travel away, that had one remaining slip. We'd have to get moving.

After a sleepless night filled with visions of charts and tides, the co-owner called and said that the problems with the lift were fixed and we scheduled our haul after all. Giant sigh of relief! Turned out that when they had done previously-scheduled maintenance on the travel lift, the mechanic had put back the controls in a new and unfamiliar pattern. The operator, the grumpy guy I had first talked to, was absolutely unwilling to learn a new system when he had many many boats to move quickly in the days before the storm, and rightly so. He had scheduled his work assuming he would be able to handle the lift nearly on autopilot as he had done with that particular system for many years. But now the mechanic came back and reorganized it the way it had been and the boatyard, and we, were back in business.

On a beautiful day it was hard to believe that there was a monster storm coming. Here we are getting into the new old travelift.

A friend with photoshop stopped by to really help us secure the boat. (Laughter helps stress.)

When they ran out of jackstands, they got creative! We were absolutely delighted with this, made us feel very secure.

After Cindy was secured, we evacuated with a few things to a motel about 5 miles inland. It was at the same location as the county's emergency services operation was set up, so we figured it was a safe spot.  After all, if it was good enough for them...  There was a mini-fridge and microwave in the room, and we brought our electric induction single burner cooktop and some pans and food, and we were ready for whatever the weather would bring (we thought). We were even happily planning some internet time. Our air conditioning on the boat had no been working so we were looking forward to sleeping cool and dry.  I brought a bottle of maple syrup also because there was an ihop restaurant attached to the motel.  There were also two raunchy "sex toy shops" directly across the street, but we didn't know that at the time we made the reservations!

Things went comfortably until 5 AM during the height of the storm, when there was a pounding on our motel door.  Earlier I had dimly heard thumps and running feet, heard someone yell to shut off the power, "Yes, the entire building." Turned out we were being evacuated from our evacuation because the roof had blown off the motel! If we hadn't had a rental car we would have been totally SOL, but since we did, we loaded our possessions into it and after the wind quieted later in the day, we drove to another motel. Of course since everyone everywhere had evacuated, the only motel we could find was one that had no power itself -- but that was better than one with no roof.  We settled in with our lanterns and paper books and had a dinner of leftover cold foods. 

Friend Scott sent us this photo of the marina as the winds began. "Well played with the haulout decision, guys," he wrote. 

What you do not want to see at your motel! After we all left our rooms we hung out at the ihop attached to the motel. Funny moment, as I posted on Facebook that the roof was gone, our marina manager was posting the same thing on his page.  We have to be at the same motel, I thought. And sure enough, he was sitting just two tables away.

Being interviewed by the TV news about the motel experience.

The storm had taken its toll. We were glad we had hauled out, although the motel stay and car rental ruined the progress we had been making on paying off old debt. Could have been so, so much worse. While the boat was out of the water anyway we serviced the seacocks, painted the prop and replaced the zincs, all necessary maintenance.  And discovered a few things we hadn't been aware of that needed attention. The boatyard was a depressing place that Dan nicknamed "Boatyard of Lost Dreams." There were many forlorn boats that would clearly never see saltwater again. One had been converted into some sort of standing shack, the props and drives removed and the holes fiberglassed in.  The people living on these "shack hulls" were not malicious, just directionless, jobless, and frequently drunk.  Some were theoretically working on their boats, the others didn't even pretend. And there were cockroaches everywhere.  With our through hulls taken out and soaking in buckets of vinegar there was nothing stopping them from coming aboard.  Still, we were safe and undamaged! We could deal with the insects, and the colorful characters who were our temporary neighbors.  Still we were delighted when the jobs were done and, with the weather benign again we "splashed" the boat back into the water. Nowhere to go, though, with the marina destroyed.  Fortunately it is a pleasant weather season in this part of Florida, because we'll be living at anchor for a while.

Friend Scott posted this photo of our marina afterward. There were several sunken boats and more boats gone from their moorings.  The marina has great protection to the north and east, but this storm came from the south.

Very happy to be moving our stuff back aboard!

Toasting our mutual storm survival with friends Mike and Lori. Their blog post on the storm is here. 

One Crazy Day in Boston

Boston was the first stop on the boat show festival circuit for the summer.  I counted 51 participating ships on the official website (which also has some lovely photos of the event in their banner); even if not all of the ships made it there were still plenty of ships and crowded docks.  Our ship was so popular that our jobs were more traffic control than tourguide; we never really had opportunities to chat with the visitors so no good stories there. 

The crowds were intense and we were busy on our working days, so when we had our day off we made the most of it.  FOMO (jokingly referred to as "fear of missing out" inspired by social media pressure) is real, and I'm quite susceptible to it. We ended up having a day off so active, we couldn't wait to get back to work to "rest!" 

The old, lovely tradition of ships displaying their crews on the yardarms coming in to port is one that we almost never do on the Galeon -- we simply don't have enough crew to pull it off well. Some of the military sail training craft, however, have crews as many as 200-300 people, so they put on the show.

Our unique profile on the dock. Most other tall ships represent a period in history that came much later than ours, by a couple hundred years. 

Watching from the foredeck as the dusk settles and the city lights come on is a wonderful way to wind down at the end of a long day.

One of the best crew perks is the ability for more in-depth conversations and visits with other crews. (Not having to stand in lines helps as well.) Here, getting a sense of scale from the Chilean training ship Esmeralda. 

The daughter of an old colleague, now friend, came to volunteer while we were in Boston, and posed with the captain and two of the crew members. 

We heard the sounds of the parade coincidentally just after our visit, so we stopped to watch.

Zany crew from one of the ships.

When the El Galeon delegation passed us ...

... Alvaro our watch leader encouraged us to join in ...

... so we did! Here's V. holding one side of the flag. 

We walked a long circuitous route through the streets of Boston...

... but by the time we got to the end, we were thoroughly lost and wouldn't have made it back to the ship without the help of our phones' GPSs.

On the other hand, there was a lovely lunch celebration at the end.  My first sample of Boston Creme Pie.

Yeison hamming it up playing air guitar with our sign.

That evening there was a crew party aboard one of the other ships.  The theme was "anything but clothes." Apparently this is a thing in England. Old sails, trash bags, bedsheets all qualified. People also wore cardboard boxes, duct tape -- literally anything except clothing!