Ahoy yeee land-lubbers

This is what happens when there is no wind on the ocean, I have never seen it so calm.
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We left around 10am on Sunday November 20th from Las Palmas de La Gran Canaria and arrived off the coast of Barbados, 19 days, 2911 nautical miles and 4 time zone shifts later.  We were on a 60 meter square sail rigged sailing boat, just like in the old days – well this one had air conditioning, 2 motors, showers, normal toilets, and a fully stocked bar. 

At the beginning of the trip the wind was not so good.  The typical plan is to go south and try to reach the trade winds which "always" blow from east to west in the tropics.  We had a bit of difficulty finding them.  With the wind we had we were not able to keep up the necessary 5 knots per hour average needed to make the Caribbean on time.  So instead of sailing we either sailed with the motors or used only the motors (2x 400hp).  This meant a bit more noise while sleeping and the use of a lot more gas.  In the last week to everyone’s delight we got some great wind which allowed us to average up to around 8 knots a day, getting us to Barbados a day and a half before we expected.

An this is during a storm
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The goal of the trip is to provide a semi-realistic sailing trip for this type of boat.  The boat had 11 permanent crew members who get paid and are familiar with ever aspect of running the boat.  There was the captain, first mate (takes care of the crew), second mate (navigation), cook, medical purser, a couple engineers and a couple people for maintenance of the boat.  

The other 30 or so of us, who paid to be on board, were considered "Voyage Crew".  The motto is that there are no passengers aboard, meaning we had to work.  Our responsibilities were to put up and down the sails, drive the ship, work in the galley a couple times during the trip, watch out for other ships, and then everybody’s favorite “Happy Hour” – an hour of cleaning the ship. 

Roger and I on the tip of the boat.
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When we the Voyage Crew got on board we were arranged into 4 watch groups, each with a watch leader (a Voyage Crew member with experience from a previous voyage).  I was actually only one of two Americans, the rest of the boat was people from all over England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.  When I first got on board the most important thing my watch leader Bill thought he should show me is where I can make tea. :)  At this point I realized I wasn't in Kansas any more.  They may have the same language as us, they may have governed us once upon a time, but certainly a lot has changed.  It was fun living with them and learning first hand about the differences.  It really felt like living in the British Isles for a month.  There were so many subtle differences in humor, diet and language.  "Tea" can replace the name of every meal, "pudding" is general for "desert", except when it is "black pudding", which is made from pig or cow blood.  And I got to hear all about that they think about the "Colonies".  It was all in good fun!

Roger climbing the mast
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The ages of everyone ranged from a group of young cadets (being trained for life at see) between 19 and 23 to 70 year old retired people and everyone in between.  As far as disabled people aboard, there weren’t really any.  One guy had a titanium knee and by the end of the trip was no longer walking with his cane.  Cool!  Sam who was in my watch had a stroke and couldn´t use the left side of his body, but this didn´t really stop him even during rough seas. 

Each day was split into 8 separate rotating watch periods (6 4-hour watches, and 2 2-hour watches).  And our watch was responsible for 2 watches each day.  The “best” watches are from 12-4am and 4-8am, NOT!!!  During the watches we had to look for boats and steer the ship.  Both of these things were not so necessary for a full group of us to do considering that it only takes a couple people to look at the radar and the ship is equipped with an autopilot, but the goal of the trip was to get the most out of the experience of sailing one of these old ships. 

Each one of these ropes does something on the boat... this is where "learning the ropes" comes from, I guess
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It was of course necessary to clean the ship every day.  For 1 hour each day 2-watches cleaned below and 2-watches cleaned the deck.  As the trip progressed, it was totally interesting to see how the enthusiasm for “Happy Hour” decreased... no really, why do you need to clean the ship every day, every other day is fine :) 

Another responsibility we had during the trip was “Mess Duty”.  Helping our great cook make breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.  I would never want to be the cook on one of these ships.  It means working every day without a break and trying to satisfy everyone.  Our cook Gram did a great job.  During the whole trip we didn´t have the same meal twice and it was always delicious and in abundance.  To have mess duty mean you were relieved from watch duty, but you had to work the whole day.  We helped serve the food and clean the dishes and cut the potatoes.  It took up a whole day.   

Our watch at quiz night
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One really exciting part of our duties was going up the masts to adjust the sails.  The second day of the voyage I got to go up and onto the yards (thing that holds the sail) in the middle of the night to remove some ropes which store the sail when in harbor. 

Also to keep us busy during the trip we had some inter-watch competitions.  There were a couple of quiz nights, an egg toss competition and a kite making/flying competition.  I am pretty embarrassed to say that our watch failed pretty miserably at the last 2 competitions.  Luckily we were in 3rd place overall instead of last.

Sunrise, sunset... I dont know there were so many!
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With all of this to do there was still free time.  Since I don´t really like sunbathing, I read a couple of books, played cribbage every night and started studying Spanish with the Medical purser, Carol.  I also got to learn how to use a sextant see how navigation was back in the days before GPS. 

There were also plenty of sunsets and sunrises to watch.  We saw whales and dolphins.  Many mornings we would wake up to find flying fish had jumped on to the deck.   We also had a couple of egrets hang out with us for a couple of days. 

Dave during "Happy Hour"
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There was also a fund-raising, head shaving.  They raised almost $800 to have a couple of people heads shaved.  I guess this is pretty typical – Brits!!!  I didn´t want any part of that. 

With all of these things to entertain us, 19 days is still a long time.  It was a great experience to be isolated from the world for so long.  A couple of times you really realized that there was no hospital to go to, no supermarket to pick up your favorite food... and no way to get away from the other people on the boat!!!  I did notice that the ocean doesn't seem that large when you are confined to your little boat.  We were 44 people on a little 3 story, 65m x 20m island.  With good visibility we could see in an around 15 mile radius.  And being mostly alone all you see on the horizon is blue sky meeting blue waves, so it is easy to lose perspective about what a large place it really is.  But when I consider that we were just 44 people in at least 30 square miles it seems in vast contrast with urban life.  Seeing a ship became a rear treat and being passed by a huge bulk cargo ship by half a mile in the middle of the night became too close for comfort.   

Happy Hour
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In the end you could tell people were ready for land... but it was a great time!!!