Those pictures I promised, plus a video.

Life has been good so far. Lots of hard work. We turn-to at eight every morning, and end the day at five.

One of the major perks of Canadian citizenship has got to be the socialized medicine. Well, though I am not a citizen here, I have enjoyed this perk. I threw my back out this summer and have been pushing through it ever since. One of my former shipmates, who is staying here in Lunenburg with us, works as physiotherapist in Bridgewater, a town just a few minutes away. Last week I cooked a delicious dinner of seared tuna steaks rubbed with chili and lime, served with wild rice, and in return asked only for her professional help on my aching back. She obliged.

She stretched and contorted my back, pushing on each vertebrae. "Does this hurt? How about now?"

My answers went like this: "no, no, no, no-YES-a little, no, no," etc. From there she had me lay down on the floor and administered my first session of acupuncture. It was weird. It didn't hurt, but when I moved, and one of my back muscles contracted, I could definitely feel the needles going down my spine. Weirder still was when she ran her fingers up and down the row of needles. It felt like someone was playing an upright bass that had been built with its strings embedded in my back. But, after fifteen minutes of this, the needles came out, and my back felt brand new. It still gets sore after the work day, but that is the just muscles -- a welcome change.

So, I promised pictures of Nova Scotia after blubbering about how nice it is here. Well, here they are. This first few are of the surrounding Lunenburg Harbo(u)r, basically what I look at every day.

This one is of the Dory Shop owned by Picton Castle. They make wooden dory's, modeled after the traditional fishing boats and other small watercraft by hand here.

The following are pictures of the town of Lunenburg, taken from aloft on the Picton Castle. A pretty picturesque town, I think. Can't wait to see it after the first snow, which will probably be sooner than later.

These next pictures were taken at Peggy's Cove, one of the more famous locations in the southern coast of Nova Scotia, about 45 minutes from Lunenburg. It was a windy, blustery, fantastic day.

I love the sarcasm in this warning. This attitude of "please don't be an idiot" is a good example of the unassuming air and common sense inherent here in the maritimes. This would never pass in the states. Some bloated tourist with big-ass sunglasses would probably shrill, "we get a REWARD?" and then run into the water only to be smashed on the rocks and the subject of 1000 different law suits and 12 hours of Nancy Grace bellowing, "I don't care if they were just sitting there, someone should do something about those giant rocks! They do not deserve to be alive! They've clearly shown that!"
Also, here is video of just how windy it was that day. A pretty view of the coastline.


That's it for now. Not too much adventuring to do at present, but living the hardworking sailor life nonetheless.
Until next time.

Getting Back To It

10/10
On the road to Lunenburg, finally. I was three weeks between ships, and though the time was rich, I am poor. At least, poor-ER. With my ship-work winding back into action, so does this blog, and here I find myself knee deep already in my voyage back to voyaging.
As it was, I didn’t have enough money for a plane-ride to Nova Scotia, so I emptied my bank account and bought a Greyhound ticket. $73 to Montreal. That got me about half way. I didn’t really have enough for the rest, so I did some odd jobs and got some help from generous benefactors more commonly known as “parents,” and will not have to walk after all. Even still, I do not look forward to traveling to Nova Scotia in a bus.
My trip started, conveniently enough, where I was: Kansas City. Unfortunately, our bus arrived an hour behind schedule, and by our departure was an additional 12 minutes late. Our driver, however, more than made up for the delay. Not from keen driving, though. We arrived in St. Louis down another ten minutes.
Our bus driver was a commanding, middle-aged black woman named Annie. This is what she said to us as we embarked on our great Greyhound adventure:
“Ladies and gentlemen we do have some rules and regulation on this coach. first off, do not leave your bag on the seat next to you. I don’t care if nobody is sitting there; that is not your seat. If you would like to buy that seat, then I would be happy to take your money for the fare. I am all about increasing revenue for Greyhound.
Second, this is a non-smoking coach. No smoking on the coach, no smoking on the coach, no smoking on the coach.
Third, there will be no shout-outs. If you need to talk to me, then you may politely make your way to the front and I will politely answer you question.
These are the rules and reguluations. If you do not choose to follow these rules, then you choose to walk.
Also, I have one more announcement, ladies and gentlemen. We are currently 72 minutes behind schedule. Now I cannot promise that we will make up those 72 minutes, but what I can promise you, ladies and gentlemen, is that I will get you to St. Louis safely, OK? Have a nice day and thank you for going Greyhound.”
Scattered throughout the bus came timid cadences of, “you’re welcome,” from a few faint-hearted passengers.
Sitting across the aisle from me was one of the more interesting of my travel companions, a woman, early 60’s, in a motorized wheelchair, her left leg elevated.
“I shattered m’ kneecap,” she wheezed with a voice that was both smoky and cartoonishly high-pitched. “They started surgery here, but I’m headed out to Columbia where they got better doctors.”
She patted her swollen knee. “The wound’s still open. You can see all the hardware and stuff in there. All the tendons and stuff. It’s wide open.” She beamed with pride. I wrapped up my sandwich and put my lunch back in my bag.
“Only another ninety miles to go,” I said, trying to sound encouraging.
She told me a lot of things. Besides the knee bit, most of it I was glad to know.
She had won tickets to Super Bowl 27, sat in the lower level, and got to meet Mike Ditka.
Her mother was dying of cancer.
Her daughter was hooked on meth, and her grandson had been taken by the state.
This was the first of the two conversations I had during the three-day bus trip.

MY TIME ASHORE
It is good to be headed back to ship work, but my three weeks away was a very rich time.
Reunions with some of my favorite people in the world, weddings, and dancing at those weddings were the most fun, but perhaps the most important time was not a reunion or a wedding, but at a funeral, saying goodbye.
My friend Spencer died on Friday, September 28th. I was blessed with a chance to see him Thursday night. Spencer had been battling cancer for five years. Maybe even six. It’s hard to imagine it had been that long. He had had it for as long as I had known him.
He went through cycles of treatment, prayers, and remission. We went through it with him – at least, as best we could.
We sat there, that Thursday night, in the Green family living room; Spencer asleep in a hospital bed, his family and a few friends sitting around him. When he woke up we told him our names, and said we loved him, and sent love from others who couldn’t make it.
That night, saying “I love you” to a friend in his last few hours, I got a glimpse of God – the most crystal clear glimpse I’ve ever seen. Spencer’s family, his mother, father, and little brother, ministered to those of us there to visit our friend.His father and brother were telling stories and making us laugh, and his mother was offering us snacks, and asking us about what we were doing with our lives, and we all shared.
They were experiencing possibly the most painful thing they will ever face, and yet they were hopeful, and they were sharing their hope. They told us of something Spencer had said to them that afternoon, some of the last words he ever said.
He told his family, “I love you.” He told them each that he loved them. Then he asked them why they were crying. He knew he had nothing to fear in death. “I love you, and I love the Lord.” Then he added, “We all love the Lord.” He knew that he lived a life as fully as possible. He knew that he had lived out his faith. He knew that whatever the afterlife was, he could face it with unblemished confidence.
He lived and died with hope, delivered it to his family, and they in turn, through red eyes and broken voices, delivered it to us. It was beautiful. It was God.
Spencer’s funeral was perfect. I have never heard so much laughter at one before. It was a profound and intense celebration of a profound and intense life.
A rich time indeed.

10/11
5:00 P.M.
Just passed through Kingston, Ontario. I have been on the road now for nearly 30 hours. The first leg of the trip, despite being behind schedule, was full of promise; I had two seats all to myself, meaning I could lounge with my legs stretched out athwart-ships. This is key to surviving a long bus trip. However, the luxury was not built to last.
The first five hours notwithstanding, I have spent the entire trip imprisoned in these contemptible torture racks, these iron-maidens in sheep’s clothing, unfit for human use outside Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo, or some other place that rich liberals and college students pretend to care about when their reminded of it. I think that the only conceivable explanation for such shoddy (I’d like to buy a vowel and two T’s, Pat) bus seats is that they must be cast-offs from some ill-conceived chapter of the Lord of the Rings movies. I will send out a petition, and the rich liberals and college students will no doubt be enraged for a time – maybe even as long as until The Daily Show comes on.
The two hour leg from London, Ontario, to Toronto looked good for a bit, until my lounge was halved by a young Canadian man who turned out to be my second and last conversation of the bus-ride to Nova Scotia. He was a friendly sort of guy; a professional cook, had gone to culinary school, hated working at franchised restaurants, loved Led Zepplin, and was hungover. A nice guy, but he took up my leg room, and he hated football. A person can only stand so much.
So, I remained captive to my single seat, my knees jammed in the metal seatback ahead of me. When I wanted to move my legs I had to hit the side of my thigh with my fist several times in order to dislodge myself from this cruel compartment.
The countryside makes up for it, though.
As we head east, the scenery is simple but a pleasure nonetheless. The fall season is in full bloom here, and the bold colors of the trees are interrupted only by wide golden fields punctuated with a single barn, silo, or farmhouse. To our right we can catch an occasional glimpse of the Lake Ontario.

10/12
In New Brunswick now. Two and a half hours from Halifax. My friend Maggie, the purser of the Picton Castle, is meeting me there to take me the rest of the way to Lunenburg. I am excited.
I can’t wait to see my friends. The land is beautiful. The hills and valleys roll by, blanketed in a forest that’s exploding with autumn. Two and a half hours! What is two and a half hours? I’ve been traveling now for more than two and a half days! Though, right now, they feel about equal.

10/20
Finished with the first week of work. It has been varied, with no workday offering a repeat task. We’ve done everything from moving furniture, to replacing seams in the deck, to being filmed working and answering questions for a Japanese travel show. Eventually, though, I think we will settle into a nice maintenance routine. I’ve spent probably 3/4ths of my evenings at a local pub called the Grand Banker with crewmates, enjoying pints, laughing, and watching rugby. Invariably, at the end of the work day, someone wants to go, so we all end up going along to keep the person company. It’s not gotten old yet, though. Good company tends to stave off tedium as well as anything, I’ve found.
Fall has been nice so far, with some days warm, and some colder, but in all, this is beautiful country and beautiful coastline. Pictures coming soon, I promise.

Soul Selling? Not me! Probably! I Bet... I mean, It's Doubtful!

9/13
My time on the Harvey Gamage is coming to a close, and I am feeling the same feeling of reluctance to leave that I felt this May as my departure from the Picton Castle approached. The new crew is here, the ship is in the best shape she’s been for a long time, and all this plus the talk of the fall itinerary in the Caribbean make me sad to go.
But, just as it was this summer, I am excited about where I am going. I have not been able to escape this problem of loving where I am and loving where I am headed. It’s a terrible burden I bear, but if it is my lot, then I suppose I must accept it.
There is a big fancy motor yacht hauled out in the shipyard and we have gotten to know the crew a bit, and they are all good guys. We’ve gone out to some of the local Boothbay pubs and shared seafaring stories, and they buy most of the rounds because they get paid actual money, and then they offer us jobs and we squirm a bit because we know we are too young to sell our souls. It’s a nice motor yacht, and the crew is cool, but man… there’s nothing to climb up! There’s no tar! There are no sails! I think I would feel a bit nauseous every time I looked up from waxing the fancy teak decks and mixing mojitos to see a boat cruise past under sail with a tan and happy crew hauling on lines and getting rope burns and being screamed at by the captain and having their clothes ruined, and I would sit there in my khakis and white polo and feel sad inside. No, it will never happen. Unless I get into debt. Then, maybe.

Yard Time

9/8
Times have slowed down a lot with the summer season’s end. I missed the last trip, a four day scoot from New London, CT, up to Boothbay Harbor, ME, to be in Phoenix for the wedding of Mr. Kyle St. John, my best friend since the second grade.
From there it was back up to Maine to reconnect with the Gamage and get my hands dirty in the shipyard. Currently she is hauled out of the water and “on the hard” so to speak, as the yard crew have been working diligently to patch up seams and replace some rotting planks in the hull. The sweet joys of wooden vessels.

Harvey Gamage "on the hard"

The atmosphere has been pointedly industrious, yet a relaxed mood keeps the days fun.
As much of Gamage’s crew have moved on to other endeavors, I have found myself as senior crew member onboard and responsible for directing the workday under the captain’s orders. This new challenge makes the workdays all the more satisfying. I love looking at the ship at the end of the day and seeing how much we got done, and much happier she is for it. I am supremely proud of the work we have been doing on Gamage. We have been working hard all summer to keep her in shape, and now we get to do all the big projects we haven’t had time yet to do. We’ve varnished the main boom, painted EVERYTHING (not kidding), spliced eyes in wire rope for new headstays, replaced old turnbuckles, fixed broken hatches, chipped rust, rolled oakum for the seams, and tarred our thirsty rig from top to bottom.

Freshly varnished main boom

Wire eye-splice for a new head-stay

The rig: tarred and happy

My palette

It’s amazing how much difference new paint or fresh varnish can do for a ship. Our bowsprit iron was afflicted with an embarrassing amount of rust, but a few hours of chipping and wire brushing, some osphoric acid, lead primer, and a couple coats of paint, and she is healed and sealed! And oh so pretty now, too. Sailors know that a fresh coat of paint can fix anything. As medical officer this summer, I had a student come to me after twisting his ankle. My first instinct was to crack open a quart of semi-gloss off-white, but I wised-up and opted for Tylenol and an ice-pack instead.

My glorious white bowsprit iron

My only complaint about my time here is the lack local establishments with NFL satellite TV subscriptions. There are none. So instead I will be forced to listen to Chief’s games online at the KCFX website. I want to WATCH them go 5-11, dadgummit!
Though I'm afraid I am mistaken. I do have more than one complaint. There's always the issue of the curious tourist. It can get irritating answering the same list of questions from sunglassed rubbernecks 3000 times a day. I love the interest in tall ships, and always am polite, if not at times begrudgingly so, but I can only feign a good-natured smile in response to "Ahoy mateys!" so many damned times. One imposing old woman even asked me to pose for a series of pictures, and it was only the spirit of Jesus in me that kept my middle fingers down.
Football dilemmas and lubbers notwithstanding, it has been a productive yard period thus far, and I am looking forward to more hard work, and a good rest when it’s all done. Just like the great poem Sea Fever says,

“I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.”

Thank you John Masefield.

Reunions

8/17
As the summer season with Ocean Classroom comes to a close, I find myself at a point of great personal richness. I have advanced as a sailor, I have grown closer with my shipmates and I hope the friendships last.
I have been tested as a man by the seas and the ship and by all the other facets of everyday life I find myself in.
Here we are, full circle, back in Boston, where the summer began, preparing for the final stretch of the season. This time, though, the whole Ocean Classroom fleet is together, as Gamage is rafted up alongside the Spirit of Massachusetts and the Westward. It’s not often we get to have all three ships together like this, but here we are, and we will all finish the season together.

After my stint on the Gamage, I will head up to Nova Scotia and spend the next 18 to 20 months back with the Picton Castle, maintaining her through the winter and sailing her across the Atlantic, around Europe and the North Sea, down Africa, to Brazil, and back to Nova Scotia by way of the Caribbean. Someone will be giving me money to do all this, by the way, a fact that still baffles me.
The recent days have been challenging, and as is always the case, my alone time and quiet moments for meditation have been my closest allies. Perhaps the greatest challenge of the summer has been the separation from loved ones. It is extremely difficult for me, though luckily, having grown close and bonded with crewmates, I am never far from a brother or sister. Unfortunately, as is always the case, we will soon be parting ways and I will gain more friends whose company I will soon be wishing for.
So it goes.
That is why we can dream of heaven, and I can dream of having all my friends and family with me on a ship and we can all sail and have adventures together.

New York P.S.

I forgot to mention (I have no idea how) that I set foot on hallowed ground whilst trekking amid the towers and traffic flow of that venerable Gigantic Granny Smith, the Burgh of Insomnia. I saw -- and I recognized it immediately -- the firehouse that was used in the filming of one of the great archetypes of cinema: Ghostbusters. I saw it. From a quarter mile away, the very instant mine eyes laid rest on the brick-red edifice, I knew what it was.
Says I to Shayma, "Look thusly, good sister, that monument, lit from behind with the seraphic light of Olympus, be it not the same one as in the glorious and noble moving-picture from our youth, starring the gentlemen Akroyd, Ramis, Hudson, and Murray? Nay surely not; we are nary so blessed to receive such a heavenly eye-full."
She saith back, "I don't know, Ben, there's lots of firehouses in New York."
Yet, as we approached, the vision proved to be no counterfeit, mine eyeballs decievethed me not. I walked inside and waved to the firemen, and was greeted with stupefied looks. I called some friends to boast, I grinned widely, my gait gained gusto. My childhood had come 'round full circle and culminated in this one event, my Hajj. I am fully man, fully realized, fully awesome.

Victims, Villains, and Wanderlust

8/1
Saw the Yankees. It was just about everything one could ask for in a trip to Yankee Stadium. They set the stadium record for home-runs with eight. The crowd was electric. It was about the loudest I had ever heard a crowd at a baseball game, though my background as a Royals fan is a handicap in that category. I think if I had been born in New York I would be a Yankee’s fan myself. There is something a bit magic about being in a stadium with so much tradition and energy, and seeing a team that fields half a dozen future hall-of-famers every game. But, alas, I am a Kansas City boy and hate the Yankees. Maybe even more so after today. Views of the Stadium, and A-Rod at the bat, going for number 500.
In the afternoon I walked to Ground Zero. It was powerful, as if the grave caverns stretched out and over the surrounding block, creating still sanctuary amid the energy so palpable throughout the rest of the city.
I was overcome with sorrow as I peered through the chain link fence and into the hole left where the towers once stood. The last time I was here was ten years ago with my family. We had bought lunch from street vendors, sat in the inter-tower pavilion and watched a big band play old standards. Now it was debris, and men in hard hats, and onlookers, still reverent after nearly six years.
What I felt more than anything else was that sorrow. Not a surprising feeling to be sure, but what followed was another, more painful type of sorrow. Where the first wave of sadness came in response to those who lost lives and loved ones in the attacks, the second came with the acknowledgement that this was small potatoes compared to attacks in the like of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Dresden, the campaign in Vietnam, to mention only the worst of those we inherit and must account for.
There is a fine line between “terrorism” and “war.” That is not a new idea. Neither is the fact that the victims and the villains each draw their own line. What troubled me is how quickly roles switch, and villains and victims exchange hats without a second thought.
Religious fanaticism is one of the most destructive, detestable, and obtuse forces on this planet. The second place entry is nationalism, and it is a photo finish. Both are diseases of the worse kind.
Across the street was the Church of St. Peter, undamaged in the blast and unofficial mission hub of the aftermath of the attacks. Workers came to the church to be ministered to mentally, spiritually, and physically, with the church feeding people, and offering the services of volunteer masseuses. Inside is a memorial to the post 9-11 ministry of the Church, which previously had simply been known for being George Washington’s home church.
The placards and signs described the efforts the parish had taken. I was struck when I learned that the church became an ecumenical worship hub in the truest sense, its worship services, prayer vigils, and Eucharist offerings being open to and attended by people of all faiths and denominations. What a beautiful image: all God’s children coming together, despite the different lenses through which they search for and view God, and, apparently, finding Him. Human beauty of the most profound type, of connection in the deepest way, of overcoming rifts so traditionally terrible and so seemingly impassable – especially when it was in the wake of violence triggered by the same rift.It was an exhausting day, but a good day. I needed it.

8/4
We’ve had good winds, finally. It had been hot and windless for the past month, with hardly a break. We had put in our time and were finally being rewarded. We made 11 kts coming into Nantucket Island yesterday. The blow is just as strong today. We have a shallow reef in our mains’l and are clipping along at seven kts.
Yesterday morning I spent three hours in Nantucket. It was plenty. What once had been a good, strong, working-class whaling hub had been systematically corrupted and robbed of anything resembling charm or spirit. As the whaling industry died out (a good thing to be sure,) the sailors and blue collar workers moved off the island and followed work elsewhere, leaving behind the wealthy ship owners to do with their private heap of rock and grasses as they saw fit, which meant creating a soulless vacuum of insular consumerism, pastel polos, and a general atmosphere of homogenous, lily-white financial exhibitionism. The ice-cream was good though.

8/5
Last night our watch underway was nearly perfect. We were on duty from midnight to 4am. Shooting stars were streaking through the black crystal skies, humpback whales were spouting and singing all around us as we clipped along in a fresh breeze, cleaving the black ocean beneath us and leaving a trail of neon phosphorescent krill behind us. All of this lit by a brilliant half-moon bright enough to read by.
I had a good conversation with Adam, the director of the Rocking the Boat program we have onboard right now. We worked ourselves up into a youth-worker fervor talking about all the intrinsic lessons tall ship sailing offers.
I think Nantucket topped me off. I am ready for a change of scenery. I miss the Caribbean. This summer, though it has been fantastic, many of our ports of call, minus Gloucester, parts of New York and Boston, and New Bedford, have seemed like places where the wealthy go to enjoy being wealthy without inconveniences like poor people. I’m tired of seeing a show made of the most meaningless of successes. I’m tired of seeing people work so hard and spend so much to insulate themselves from the rest of the world, and I am tired of feeling insulated from everything myself. I am ready to leave again, though I wish I could bring my friends with me.