Another 'Nother Life Lesson Along With Your Tour of the Galeon (No Extra Charge)

 Ah, the best-laid plans. We arrived here at the dock in Newcastle on time, ready to open…and this is what the tide gave us! The ramp is normally straight or slightly sloped. (Yes we knew the tidal range here, but couldn’t predict how we’d interact with the dock until we arrived.) This ramp is not exactly welcoming, and is a challenge even for our very fit and agile crew not even considering the public. So, we wait until the change of tide, as patiently as we can, with some disappointed people on shore looking on. Longer term solution involves some very large fenders so we can sit further away from the dock and decrease that crazy slope. We’ve had this situation before. As our manager reminded us, “It’s not a ‘problem,’ it’s a ‘situation’ we can adapt to and manage.” (Sounds a bit better in Spanish but still, attitude and how you frame the question, determines how and whether you address it.) 

The "passarella" (gangplank) doing its best to adapt to the extremely low tide.

The Prettiest Passage

After Blyth, our next trip after that was just a short one, a coastal hop from Blyth to Newcastle that could have been designed by the chamber of commerce. Sunny, warm, delightful in every way. And the wind direction even gave us a chance to use the sails! Couldn't have planned it better if we'd tried; we had a ride-along reporter from the BBC who interviewed the captain and several of the crew during the day trip. Here's a short video of the ship underway, and a longer clip on youtube, courtesy of the local news. 

We're sailing!! 

A still from the news ...

and another. We're famous! In fact numerous visitors during the week would excitedly say that they saw us on the news, during their visit. Happy for both them, and us. (Except, I'd already given away some of my best lines for the camera, so had to do a quick pivot to bring new information for the tour.)

We lucked out that the weather was so benign the day we had the news sailing with us; some days at the helm are definitely warmer than others! 

During the North Sea 2-1/2 day passage

Just a week later, on the coastal trip, it was warm enough for t-shirts!

Blyth, England

North Sea could definitely be moody! And after our last rough voyage we weren't sure what to expect, on the way back. It turned out to be cold and damp, but just an "ordinary" amount of bumpiness and weather expected for the area.  After 2-1/2 days at sea we arrived in the northeastern corner of England, where we'd spend much of the next month. 

Our first port was the relatively obscure town of Blyth. The port had been a port for a thousand years or more, but the town really started developing during the Industrial Era, and was a center for coal mining and ship building. When those industries pretty much vanished the town went into decline, and recently began redeveloping itself with clean energy replacing the coal, though still a somewhat depressed area. We went looking for coffee and internet one morning at the local Wetherspoon's (think of something at the level of Olive Garden, but with a pub side with great beer selection along with all-day restaurant) and found people getting two-fers on beer. Jolting at 8 AM!

Definitely an Industrial-Era vibe around town. 

Apparently there was plenty of money around the town back in the day. This place was a pub and now a coffee shop.

Quite the elaborate entry door.

A local shipbuilding museum. They're always so gracious to us as crew of a visiting exhibition ship, we got a detailed private tour.

You can't really tell from this camera angle but the wind turbine is huge! I love the contrast between our ancient rigging and this modern use of wind power.

  

Other Ways of Seeing

 

Thought-provoking, challenging, a bit sad and a wonderful experience: we put together a tour for blind people to come aboard the ship. I realized how much of the info we portray is visual—looking at the height of the masts, or viewing the helm or the “noble area” (equivalent to the first-class section of the airplane). And none of those would work for this group. Our customized tour required us to think about how to use the other 4 senses to understand the ship. (Actually, only hearing, smell, and touch, as we didn't invite them to lick anything ... ) The night before the tour my colleague and I walked around trying to figure out pieces they could touch to put together in an integrated way to tell the story of the ship.

 Just as sighted people did, I'm sure they got a sense of scale by walking the decks, and they were able to listen to the audio tour. But there the similarity stopped. Our tour included feeling and gently ringing the ship’s bell, and let them both feel the thickness of the rigging and hold the stays to feel the vibration as the wind blew through the rigging. They held a cannonball, felt the difference in texture between the rough wood of the deck and fine finishes in the zona noble, and more. My favourite was showing them the plaques on the wall, gifts from different cities we have visited. Amazed at how quickly their fingers glided over them, and how much information they seemed to get so quickly. They were very eager to explore every bit of the ship. I’m sure, in retrospect, that we got as much insight out of watching them experience the ship, as they did actually having the experiences. Oh how I hope I never outgrow my own sense of wonder, living and working on this ship. 

Gift plaques from many of the cities we visited. On one long passage many years ago it was Dan's and my job to take these off the wall and polish them (Q-tips were involved; some are quite intricate!)

The ship is all about details; this very intricate latch is on a broom closet.

The ship's bell currently has a crack so we can't ring it loudly.

The foremast. 

The massive scale of some of the rigging.

The conquistador helmet is actually from an earlier era than ours, but it's so quintessentially Spanish that we include it anyway. For the record, it's heavier than it looks!

Another "Life Lesson" Along With Your Tour of the Galeon

Our passage from England to the festival in Netherlands was very rough. About half our watch was seasick, including most of the new people (what an introduction!) The other half, who had their sea legs, were hopping around with the motion of the deck — my own was a cross between a drunkard’s stumble and a toddler’s wobble. But as long as we were moving weirdly anyway, we made the most of it and started dancing the macarena. (Except me, I was holding the wheel half to keep the ship on course and half to keep from falling.) Later a local newspaper interviewed several of us about the ship and the trip, including one whose memories of the passage were a rotation of sleep, barf, work, and repeat. But my memories of the same trip were laughing with my shipmates at midnight. Same ship, same passage, very different memories. It’s all personal. Sure, bodies don’t always cooperate and my sick crew mates had little choice in the matter. But the rest of us could have grumbled, or we could have laughed and danced in the rain. It’s how you frame it.

(Life lessons along with your tour of El Galeon, no extra charge.) 
 

Dancing on the quarterdeck, during this passage which was calmer than the outbound one.

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"There's no bad weather; just bad clothing," they quipped in Iceland while talking me into buying a super-warm wool cap. Conversely, good raingear makes any weather good. If you don't have good raingear, a good attitude works as well!

Laughing at the helm, after the rain.

Recapping the macarena during the crew party in Delfzijl.

An oldie but goodie -- going around the top of Nova Scotia in 2017. This was my longest passage on the Galeon (12 days) and the coldest I've ever been in summertime -- during one night watch it was 35 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind was 35 knots on the nose. 

The newspaper article mentioned. I don't read Dutch but I could make out the "pirate ship" and "Delfzijl" in the headline. One of our Dutch crew translated for us as we sat around the galley table.

Tidbits: "Learning the Ropes"

 

Our ship has 10 km/6 miles of rope rigging of various sizes, and a new crew member’s first task when coming aboard is to learn the name of each one and what it does (in Spanish of course, although “brioles” to me sounds more like a pastry one would order along with fancy coffee at Starbucks than the name of the small lines that hold the sail to the spar.) And where do you think the expression, “oh that new guy on the job? He’s still learning the ropes” comes from? Anyway a former captain gave Jaye the responsibility of making sure all the lines were correctly coiled and stored after each evolution. Only between former captain’s imperfect English and Jaye’s imperfect Spanish, the new job title came out “Mistress of the Ropes,” which is definitely a good porn star name, but perhaps not so much a good job title! 

Delfzijl, The Netherlands

 Our third crossing of the North Sea was an insanely rough passage, followed by an intense weekend festival and then an immediate return to England. 

It has been a really rough passage across from Great Yarmouth. Now skimming the north coast of the Netherlands. Not many pix; I was mostly focused on keeping my footing! OTOH, I became a better heavy weather helmsman, so that counts. Here’s a tall ship sunset for you, from one of our quieter moments.

One thing about the sailing community: we are actually a very small tight group, very spread out geographically. It was beyond spectacular to get a visit from an old USNA Sailing colleague and his family! 

This was our colleague's photo, his first view of the ship.

Shades of Jaye's former life as a scientist involved with environmental regulations: We hosted a private event for the EU’s regulators and shipping industry about new greenhouse gas emissions limits. Here’s a presentation on use of wind power on cargo ships. Deliciously ironic, on a replica of a wind powered cargo ship from 350 years ago! (Zoom in on the slide to see some of those newer technologies.) Texting with former environmental boss about this event, we noted that both the newer technologies and the trade offs they discussed (for example if time is money and sail is slower how do you quantify the balance with the unquantifiable ecological advantages?) reflected problems that we'd faced 15 years earlier on the other side of the Atlantic. But it really was a fun venue for the regulators! I guess if you've got to host a meeting, this would be an excellent way to guarantee attendance.  

An example of one of those newer technology wind cargo ships was docked at the festival.

Like many festivals, it included a crew parade and an outrageously fun party for all the ships' crews to meet each other. And unique to Holland, a snack tent where they made stroopwafels (delightful Dutch cookies) while you watched, and could eat them still warm (which we did every day while we were there!)

Fireworks every night, and we had a perfect front-row-viewing-platform right on the ship!

 

Looking back toward shore during the fireworks. Quite crowded!

We got our requisite visit from a "Jack Sparrow" ...

...as well as some other local pirates.

We didn't have a lot of time off to explore the town, but did make a somewhat hurried visit one morning to buy European-style chargers for our phones since the ones we had brought broke, and passed this stall of Moroccan pottery. Good thing we were so limited on space or I would have bought half the stall! We still had to buy an extra suitcase to get home, but more on that later.

All too soon it was time to move on. Fortunately our return passage was a lot calmer than the trip out. On June 18, my kid brother's birthday and almost the summer solstice, I posted that this far north (we’re at 54 degrees latitude, closer to the North Pole than the equator) it doesn’t get all the way dark. Here’s a hint of what the sky looked like when we got off watch at local midnight. This morning, hello England!

Great Yarmouth, England

 We spent a lot of time in northeastern England on this tour. Great Yarmouth (literally, the mouth of the River Yare) was the first of many cities. This town had a huge herring fishing industry until the fish population crashed in the 1950s; now it’s somewhat struggling to reinvent itself. But like many such towns we’ve visited, its maritime focus meant we received a warm welcome.

 We always visit local museums when available; I love the stories small towns tell about themselves. This one was all about the herring fishery. Here, an immersive opportunity to experience a recreation of a “row” in the 1950s. There was a chandlery, grocer, tailor, etc -- everyday life 75 years ago.

Diorama of the fishing industry of the time.

The pier on the seafront: like a 1950s time capsule with boardwalk and arcade across the street. 

The flamingoes are obviously not local to England (reminded me of Florida) but the entire street was alternating arcades and fish-and-chips shops and ice cream. 

The walk to our favourite pub went along, then through, this medieval wall surrounding the city.

Another bit of the wall; just casually accepted and interspersed with more modern buildings.

We were visited by a guy with this gorgeous macaw on his shoulder. He posed the bird at several places on the ship, and allowed me this photo op.

We’ve had a “Jack Sparrow” in every port. I have a running bet with myself on the Jack Sparrow thing — almost broke my streak until finally this guy came on our next-to-last day here. By the end of the tour I had a file of "Jack Sparrows" on my phone and the bet became a bit more public, going double-or-nothing at each port. 

On one of our days off we took a train to Norwich ("Norritch" is how it sounded to me when one of our visitors suggested we go.) Gorgeous medieval architecture; this is a guild hall from the 1400s.

This was the gate to the cathedral area.

Part of the cloisters.

This tall quiet place

Was a cathedral,

'Ere they cut the trees

To build a chapel.

According to my friend Moni, indeed the architecture in some parts of the church is designed to echo a walk in the forest.

With the lighting, this corridor does feel like a forest.

Here's a random photo of an aspen forest that came across my feed. It claims to be from Colorado but it's just a bit too regular; I think it could be a plantation, or it could be AI.

OTOH, I'm pretty sure this one is legit, from Arizona.

June 6 at exactly noon this reenactor read a proclamation about D-day eighty years prior. As we would learn on our tour, the memory of the two World Wars was very prominent all over Europe.

Pasties were tasty and convenient hand-meals for the miners back in the old days, but I prefer to eat mine with a fork; I'm messy!

My photo of a photo of our ship docked at the South Quay, a gift from a local photographer.