I made it! 22 days without touching land… and then when I
did it felt pretty much the same and rather anticlimactic. Anyways, that’s the
short story, keep reading for more details.
Pre-Crossing Thoughts That I Meant to Post Before Leaving
We’re about to start crossing the Atlantic, the first (and
only) crossing of the semester but the third this year. I’m one of the few on board who hasn’t yet
experienced an ocean crossing. Am I
nervous? Yep, a little. Or maybe we’ll call it healthy respect! So far I’ve been pretty fortunate in the
seasickness department, hopefully that continues. And if it doesn’t I figure the worst that
happens is I throw up a few times. Or feel like crap for three weeks. I’m most worried about feeling exhausted for
three weeks straight, rolling seas do not make for the best sleeps. There’s also something about being on this
ship and knowing you won’t be able to get off, or get away for such a long
period of time. The sail from Costa Rica
to the Dominican Republic, at 11 days, was a taster of how a 24 day crossing
might feel. But on the other hand it was
fairly different as we motored the whole way through fairly calm waters and I
expect the Atlantic will be quite different!
What makes me feel confident headed into this crossing? Well all my sea time so far I’ve survived and
for the most part enjoyed! Yes, there
will be rocking and rolling and I’m sure I’ll come out with a few more bruises
then I have going in but in the end I’ll be able to say I’ve crossed the Atlantic
on a tall ship! The maritime crew are
also all experienced sailors and I will, literally, be trusting them with my
life. Whatever gets thrown at us I feel
absolutely confident in their abilities to handle it and get us to our
destination safely.
***End of Pre-Crossing Thoughts***
Any special preparations before crossing? Well, I stocked up
on snacks although with Slapps and the General Store you know you can get that
sugar fix if you need it. I also made a “Countdown Calendar” which I stuck up
on our cabin door. Kinda like an advent
calendar, there were 25 days and each day had a piece of paper with the number
of days left on it. Each night
Anna-Marie and I took one down and wrote what went on that day and stuck it on
our closet door. It was very satisfying
to see the numbers move from one door to the next!
The crossing was pretty varied as you would expect from so
many days at sea. We had good sailing
the first two weeks and then had to turn the engine on as the winds were not
favourable to the direction we needed to go.
Unfortunately we had to motor the rest of the way but on the other hand
thank goodness we have an engine for those times the wind doesn’t cooperate.
The most excitement we had was a few days in when we had
hurricane force winds (over 60 knots an hour) that caused the main deck to be
awash in water most of the time which meant it was closed which meant we
couldn’t get to galley for one and a half days.
That was interesting times! Luckily I’d just baked a bunch of bread and
we also had a lot of hard boiled eggs in the fridge (for those who don’t know
all the food storage is not in the actual galley which makes it a bit of a pain
most days, running around getting food from the walk-in and dry stores but in
this storm situation it was handy) and had cheese, cereal, milk etc. The
morning of the storm when I got my wake up call I was asked to go up to the
bridge before heading to galley. That’s
when I was told the weather conditions, also that two of the sails had blown
off (!) and that we’d be serving a cold breakfast as best we could, where we
could. Honestly I wasn’t at all worried
when I heard the news, a big part of that was that the maritime crew always
appeared calm and in control no matter what they may have been thinking inside.
The weather varied a lot, there was a day or two where
people were out in shorts and T-shirts, then more stereotypical North Atlantic
weather when people were in sweaters and foulies permanently. Most days had a variety of weather, you might
wake up to rain and by lunch it would be beautiful and sunny!
We had a planned storm/snow day on April 6 where there were
no classes and students got a sleep in day.
From 0600-0800 the teachers stood watch and set out breakfast for the
maritime crew as well so Jess & I also got a sleep in day! Everyone had to be up for 1030 colours and
then cleaning (there are some things on the ship that you can’t skip!) and at
1130 we had brunch. It was a very
relaxed morning, I didn’t get up till 0800 and then didn’t have to start work
till 0945! I opened some mail (I
rationed my mail from Bermuda and got to open one about every other day) and
did some knitting.
Thanks again to everyone who sent mail! By careful rationing
I opened my last piece the day before we arrived in France and a lot of the
crew were quite amazed to find me opening mail mid-Atlantic.
Other business as usual that continued during the sail
included: 5 time zone changes (all the type where you loose an hour of sleep),
Slapps and the General Store a few times each, Sunday family dinners in the
Banjer (the galley teams really stepped it up with table side service,
conversation starters, etc.), baking, birthdays (Class Afloat tradition
dictates the birthday person gets buckets of water thrown on them at 0800
colours), drills, laundry (one good thing about calmer waters is laundry
facilities stay open)
Our sailing schedule has some cushion time built in so we
arrived a bit early in France. We were
due to arrive April 16 but ended up dropping anchor in a bay near Brest on
April 13 and then came into Brest on April 15.
The kids still had classes on the 16th but had an evening of
shore leave on the 15th which everyone was excited for.
So how did the crossing compare to what I thought it would
be? Well, except for that one day we got
off pretty easy in the weather department.
I did come out with more bruises then I went in with and thankfully the
seasickness stayed away. There was some
rocking and some less than ideal sleeps but I never felt completely exhausted
(although mid-day naps are always appreciated).
The length of the trip didn’t bother me at all, I was much more ready to
reach land on the 11 day sail to the Dominican then the 24 day sail to
Europe. Interesting. Maybe I just had it
set in my mind as such a long sail that I was mentally prepared? At any rate when we first spotted France I
have to say it felt very anti-climactic.
And yes, my faith in the maritime crew was well placed. Couldn’t have made it here without them.
No comments:
Post a Comment