10-9: DAMN THE TORPEDOS, RAMMING SPEED!

Today I dropped everything and surged to the bow of an oncoming ship with six other deckhands as it careened towards the port side of the Merc, full speed ahead, inches from rending a hole in the side and sending us to the bottom of the harbor.

Let me back up.

It'd been an efficient day so far. Wrestling the PVC framing for the covers into place, the combined crews of the Merc and Grace were making outstanding headway.

This was less true for the crew of a ship which we'll call, to both spare a bad reputation and assuage the history nerd lurking not so deep within me, the Farragut. Although they already have their cover on, they needed to navigate across the harbor to get mast work done. Fair enough.

Less fair were the conditions. Like the prevailing wind pushing it hard to the south. Or a pair of severely underpowered yawl boats to maneuver it. Or, like us, a lack of onboard engine. So, as we watched them drift about the harbor, scraping across other ships and pylons, we debated whether or not we should send a boat out and lend them a hand.

Then the wind shifted. And the Farragut started drifting, slowly at first but rapidly picking up speed, bow-first towards the side of the Merc.

"Fire up the yawl boats!" roared the Admiral, as the rest of us scooped up fenders and sprinted to the port. I snatched the eight-foot boathook from its stand and jumped housetops to get to the side. Our two yawl boats cast off and coursed towards the oncoming bow, and the Admiral shouted after them as though from the bow of a destroyer, "YOUR JOB IS TO DEFEND THIS BOAT!"

The ship was now no more than twenty feet from crashing into ours. Its bowsprit passed over the rail of the Merc, and two-hundred tons of schooner pressed closer and closer.

I stood on the housetop and pushed directly against it for everything I was worth, as six other sets of hands did the same. Two inches from my straining face was the blue star painted on the heavy wooden tip, closing the distance with the slow, irrevocable pace of an ocean wave.

And there, I think, is the cool thing about ships. Take six people together and tell them to move a log or a boulder just by pushing it. That fucker isn't going anywhere. It's just physics--weight, and ultimately just friction, hold it on the ground.

But put it in the water, and something cool happens (okay, the boulder will sink. Take the log instead): You take away the friction, and suddenly six people working in serious concert can move a few hundred tons. Not very far under these conditions, mind you, but just far enough to buy an extra second.

Sometimes a second is all you need, though. It was all the small fleet of yawl boats needed to move into position and shove the Farragut back into the harbor, where it safely navigated to the other side of the marina and docked up.

The rest of us got back to work. I re-racked the boat hook, and pondered my newfound respect for physics as the Farragut's cover fluttered softly in the breeze.

10-7: Downrigging--A Highlight Reel

Boy, it's been a while! Allow me to explain myself by elucidating the insanity that has been the downrigging process--taking off all the sails, all the ropes, all the heads (fun process, that), all the pumps--everything but the kitchen sink. And we thought real hard about removing that too.

And what better way to do that than a montage! By all means, I encourage you to read this with something jaunty and constructive--howsabout "The House That Jack Built" by Aretha Franklin, or maybe "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding. Got it queued up? Good!

Still didn't stop us from spitting over the side.

• First thing's first: we dry docked the Grace, and it was fucking awesome. Less awesome was listening to not one, but two hilariously uncommunicative captains (the Admiral and the owner of the dry-dock, who I suppose we'll call The Commodore) shouting orders and watching them verbally duke it out.
• Consequently, I totally lived in a boat-treehouse for a week. Check it out on the left!
• While walking around the Shop looking for painting supplies I come across--inevitably--the Conan hammer from a few posts ago. "What else do we need?" the Admiral asked aloud, as we readied to load things into the truck. As a joke, I gesture to the hammer. He looks for a minute. "Grab it." I paused. "What for?" He shrugged. "In case employees get out of line." I laughed, and started away. Looking at nothing in particular, he quietly, unambiguously put it in my pile and walked away.
• Using the hammer (hell with it--I'm naming it Hullcleaver) to pound caulking irons an inch into the ship's crevasses in an attempt to seal up any leaks. Thing hasn't sunk yet, so I guess it worked!
• Picasso, signaling me to pound the iron by yelling "BONK!" because really, the thing is pure Looney Toons gold.
• What scientific standards refer to as "an unholy fuckton" of lead paint on a good amount of my skin. Which might explain why you're getting this post in bullet points. At least I didn't get any in my eye!
• Definitely got some acid in my eye. While walking along the scaffolding, a piece of wood came up on an unlashed section and sent me backwards. Did the same with the jar of phosphoric acid in my hand. I responded by emptying a water bottle into it, then climbing into the shower fully clothed and having a staring contest with the faucet for twenty minutes (I won!)
• Plenty of fun times laying under the 200-ton ship scraping barnacles off of the keel. It's kind of like hanging out in a cave, but it smells much worse.
• The Admiral's temper gradually fraying has been a source of boundless entertainment. Upon attempting to show Picasso how to whip a line (cinch the end of a rope with sewing thread/needle to keep it from coming undone): "You take it like this...*pinches it tight*, wrap some duct tape around it...*wraps a few inches on the end*, cut it here...*cuts it short*, and you COME BACK NEXT SEASON AND LEARN THE REST! *throws it to the ground and storms away*". Nothing like a boss with a sense of humor.
• Last but not least, carrying away the entire bathroom contents of both the Merc and the Grace:

What a shitty situation.

9-25: Sam the White Collar Stiff

So...I work a 9-5 now. This is weird.

Okay, it's not the average 9-5. I spend a lot of time now painting ship hulls on a derelict raft, or climbing the mast to unscrew blocks the size of my head, or driving a pick-up truck full of marine toilets to the Shop. But it's a 9-5 in the sense that...you know. I work from nine to five.

Don't skip that part over, now. When you're on the water, it's more like a 6-11. Even--maybe especially--on the turnover days, the job's hectic as hell. Now that the Bailey's downrigging, we're going by the ring of the bell at the top of Union Street. Nine rings means we start, twelve rings means we stop for lunch, and five rings means quitting time.

Of course, because this job wouldn't be this job without spontaneity and chaos, they put a drunken toddler in charge of the bell. This means that sometimes at nine o' clock, nine bells ring. Sometimes at nine o' clock, seven bells will ring, then two more a minute later. Sometimes the five o' clock bell will ring at 4:45, which is great. Sometimes the 4 o' clock bell will ring at three in the morning, then the three o' clock bell will ring, which is just absurd. At least it keeps us on our toes!

And just because our downrigging couldn't have gone that smoothly, we went ahead and found that the main boom had a few inches of rot in it.

The bad news: this meant that we had to pop the entire boom--think a telephone pole, sideways, covered in varnish, hung over the deck--off of the ship and carry it back to the Shop. Yikes.

Fortunately, we didn't have to call Comcast. If we did, the boat might have capsized.

The good news: by its very nature, it's already rigged up to a crapton of pulleys. And it's surrounded by water. And it floats.

Which is how, as the Admiral disinterestedly worked the halyard, Wolfman, Picasso, Little Chef, and I put all our weight into the two-ton boom as we did our best to drop it into the Camden Harbor.

It's not really as hare-brained as it sounds. Or maybe it just feels that way in comparison, because half an hour later we lashed it to a trailer a third its length, hitched the other end to the Tundra, and towed that forty-five foot fucker ten miles up Route 1 with a bright red mooring pennant waving on the back, pedestrians gawking and diving out of the way.

The Admiral, one hand on the wheel, shrugged, adjusted his steel-colored aviators, and casually began telling us the first of many stories in which he'd towed much crazier stuff.

Like I said--keeps us on our toes.

9/16: Landlocked

Well, that's the season, folks!

It happened pretty fast, actually. The Admiral laconically informed us last week that at the end of the 9/8-9/12 voyage, we were to get all the food off the Grace Bailey. Downrigging would soon commence. Just like that, the last voyage began.

It actually went pretty straightforward. Go figure--just as I start to get deckhanding down, I end up landlocked. Although two events of note (aside from my ninjitsu escapades) occurred on this sail:

• Thursday saw, as if in some kind of nature-given boss battle, the most intense winds through which I have ever sailed. While tacking--a maneuver that under normal circumstances involves the relatively docile moving of the jib from one side of the ship to the other--I stood feet away from whipping lines that could easily have knocked me out. The jib wasn't passed so much as sucked from one side to the other by the roaring winds; the staysail club swung towards our heads like a baseball bat the size of your leg. All of this went down with salt spray and rain washing over my body every few seconds.
• Friday, conversely, saw us taking a two-hour day sail with forty-five 5th graders from a local school. In one sense, it was a nightmare. Try communicating across a hundred-twenty three feet with forty-five screaming children in the middle. It's amazing we didn't crash the thing. In another...holy crap, that was adorable. They were excited, hauled up the sails better than the adults ever did, (although it was nigh impossible to get them to drop the line) and the pirate references just kept coming. I'm not saying I'd do that everyday, but it certainly was a great perspective.

This last week has been a bizarre downrigging process. The icebox, the stanchons (hand rails), the water barrels--so many things on the ship I'm used to have disappeared, taken away to the Shop.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Shop. Think of your basement. If it's anything like mine (for those of us without finished basements), it's a strange mix: racks and racks of tools hang on musty, dust-covered walls in between nigh-opaque windows, wreathed by half-finished projects, old appliances, "treasured" family heirlooms, broken picture frames, Christmas decorations, Halloween decorations, Independence Day decorations, St. Patrick's Day decorations, Arbor Day decorations--all kinds of miscellaneous crap. Accenting all of this is a vague feeling that there should be a dissonant minor chord playing in the background as a ghost forlornly shuffles from the Halloween section to the Christmas section. Sound about right?

Cool. Now pretend your basement was owned by a mad sailor with hoarding issues. And it was ten times the size it is. And three stories tall. Now you've got an idea of the Shop.

Everything you would ever need to build a boat is, I shit you not, in this building. The Shop is three doubtlessly-haunted stories of woodworking tools, spare heads, spare ship parts, piping, and enough scrap and intact lumber to repopulate the Amazon.

Today, my job was to split most of that scrap wood into kindling with a hatchet. Shirt off in the crisp autumn air, swinging the hatchet thousands of times over the course of a few hours, I can safely say this was probably my favorite day in quite some time.

I'm still here for a few weeks--the Merc is still out and we've still got plenty to do on the Grace. Beyond that, I've got some kind of travel plan going. It will be cold, it will be northern-bound, and it will be epic.

Oh, and I leave you with goddamn Mjolnir, a little treasure I found in the corner of the first floor. I pray I get to swing it someday.

Ain't no kill like overkill.

9-11: The American Ninja Warrior

Exhausted and at the library for a short hour, so I'm just going to tell the story of how I didn't go for a swim yesterday.

We came in towards Castine, a small town on the coast known for a Merchant Mariner academy. The cool part was that there was a great wind putting us towards the dock; the less cool part was that there was a rather massive tide tearing us the other direction.

So, you know. Tricky conditions, nobody really knowing what to do, and a big decision bearing down on us--drop a serious amount of anchor, or try to catch a mooring--a small hook that'll fasten us to the bottom of the harbor?

What the hell. Let's shoot for the mooring.

Remember those cables I was balancing on? Well this time, I found myself sitting on the lowest one with a red hook attached to a black mooring line the thickness of two fingers. The goal: to get the hook around a three-inch diameter shackle attached to the buoy that marks the mooring. Yelling commands up to the captain at the helm, I get it to within a few feet of the ship.

I stretch and try to hook it. No dice--it's still a few feet away. And drifting past the ship. Fast.

I look up, and I see another chain. I prop my feet on my seat, grab the other chain, and lean out more. Nope. Just short by a few inches.

At this point, pandemonium is going down on the deck. Picasso is cheering me on, the Admiral wants to know what the hell is going on, and the passengers are reasonably sure their deckhand is about to get keelhauled. Suddenly, the image of having to hand-crank a hundred feet of anchor chain the next day pops into my head.

Oh, fuck it, I decide, and let go with my legs. As I dangle, twisting in the wind, by one hand, I swing my momentum over and jump onto the buoy. The red hook swings around, and click-- it's on. Sweet!

Ah, right. Now I'm stuck on a mooring buoy.

I scramble back and manage to grasp the cable. Holding on with both hands, my feet scraping the water, I look up and see the Admiral handing me another black line.

"Swap it out."

Oh, joy.

I swing back over to the buoy, manage to thread the shackle, and hand it back to him. As soon as it leaves my hands, the boat shifts, and I'm left hanging again.

"Oh, gosh." the Admiral says, and his tone indicates something approaching mild alarm. "Don't fall in."

And, because I am a bonafide master of clever one-liners, I of course respond with something kitschy, dashing, and clever, right?

"I have great upper-body strength, sir!"

Oh, fuck off. I was too busy being a ninja.

That's what the passengers seemed to think, anyway. After I pulled myself back onto the deck, I received a number of high-fives, and one decided that I was "the next American Ninja Warrior" for the rest of the day.

It's been that kind of week. Today we furled the headsails--the one that involves climbing across the bowsprit--in eighteen-knot winds and bitter rain, then did a surprise docking in Camden. Got compensated in shore time and steak, though, so I'm calling it a win. Catch you later.

9-5: Sam Goes Back to Serbia?

Another Friday, another weekend trip. We board the passengers as per usual. Frantic, rushed. We try to keep the ice from melting under a sweltering sun as we try to raise our awning through whipping wind. Wolfman reads off the passenger list, and I hear the name "Dragan."

Huh. That rings a bell.

The trip commences, and as I'm pumping the bilge, I see him walk by. We strike up a conversation, and to my incomparable delight, Dragan is from New Belgrade! I tell him that I used to live and study in the Balkans, and when he hears that I studied conflict resolution, he nods sagely.

"You know," he says, as a matter of course, "the Americans started that war."

Ooooh boy.

Which is how in conceivably the last place I'd expected, I became embroiled in the knock-down, drag-out, strangely, pleasantly familiar conversation of who-the-hell-started-the-Yugoslav-War. My personal favorite part was when I brought up the involvement of paramilitary war criminal Arkan (in concurrence with the thirty page paper I wrote comprising most of my last semester in college). Dragan brightened up and said, "Ah, Zeliko! I taught him to box when he was fifteen!"

Arkan, and yes, that's a real tiger cub. No, I don't know how much your balls have to weigh to rob a zoo.

Well, shit. Where was this guy a few months ago?

Aside from meeting the primary source of my dreams, this trip was unique in that we were wracked with one of the most formidable storms I've ever had the pleasure of sitting through. Storms are great on porches, even better in skyscrapers--they're downright entrancing on a ship (as long as you've dropped anchor and flaked out some extra chain. Otherwise, I'd imagine they're much wetter).

As it pitched the ship around like driftwood and spat jagged dashes of lightning a few dozen yards from the deck, Wolfman, Picasso (the messmate--you should see him paint) and I undertook one of the most intense dishwashing jobs I've ever heard of. Hey, just because Thor and Zeus are throwing around in the firmament doesn't mean we get to skip dishes. And since everybody (understandably) packed into the galley when the thunder started, there was only one place to do them.

Up on deck, we ignored the sideways sheets of rain buffeting our faces, instead allowing it to rinse off the soapy suds as we lathered up half of the galley dishes.The paltry glow of a few headlamps cut through the lightless night, and as we belted The Doors off-key against thunderclaps that cracked hard enough to shake your chest, it hit me: stress, exhaustion, and disrespect aside, sometimes you wouldn't need to pay me to do this shit. I'm not sure what that says about me, but I'm pretty sure I'm okay with it.

Back on dry land, I heard rumors that we narrow down to one boat after the five-day that starts tomorrow--meaning that in a week, I'll theoretically have about twice the shore time that I do now. Granted, considering how my last week "off" went, this probably means I'll end up in the forest mushing sled dogs or something equally insane. Not a terrible thing, I suppose. I'll have more concrete details next week!

Interlude: Summertime in September

Remember those few days off I talked about? Well, so far I've been pressganged, moved towns, joined the ship of the insane, possibly died for a few days, and drank an inordinate amount of Dark & Stormies. Yesterday I found myself dangling 45 feet above the deck, clinging to the mainmast amidst bouts of uncontrollable laughter at the absurdity of it all.

Needless to say, the days off didn't really happen. Should've seen that one coming.

Sunday featured an open house on the boat, in which hundreds of people got on board, commented on the galley, and asked the same five questions. As Wolfman, Little Chef (the cook on the Grace--kind of the opposite of Chef) and I sat slumped in the galley after a week's work, the Admiral came down the stairs.

"Sam," he said, not a trace of anything behind his opaque aviators. "Can you be on the Summertime tonight?" The Summertime, located a few miles north, is a ship half the size of the others that runs day sails and overnights.

Don't let punctuation fool you, kids; tone and body language are where the money is. And this was not a question.

"Good," he said. "It's an overnight. Be ready at five."

I checked my watch. Five of four. Awesome.

Which is how I found myself in the work truck bound for Lincolnville, a small fishing village a few miles north of Camden, sitting next to Hawaii. Hawaii is a hell of a character, having spent much of his life sailing from one tropical paradise to another. Captain of the Summertime, he now spends his time doing daysails, overnights, and repairs, while singing '50s pop songs and drinking Barbados rum. He runs a revolving door crew ("I go to the bar and see who's mostly sober"). This week he had Maine, a gentle fellow with a good attitude but a poor grasp on punctuality, and myself.

The Summertime is surreal. Due to the booze, exhaustion, or some other factor, much of our time here is spent in a wandering state of ambiguity in which conclusions are never reached and tasks take hours to finish.

Adding to this is the fog that rolled in an indeterminate number of days ago. Until this morning, we could see roughly fifteen feet in any direction--roughly enough to make out a single other ship in our mooring field. We could hear the bell buoy, or occasionally the ferry go by, but nothing else.

I think I went a little crazy at this point. Maybe, I thought, I'm dead, and my company here in purgatory is a crazy old Hawaiian and an IT professional-turned-sailor. Instead of Dante's mountain, however, we sit in a ship in the endless fog, making repairs that never seem to take.

It didn't get boring, though. One of these repairs necessitated my going up the mast in this, a rig called the Bosun's Chair:

Hauled by this guy:

And, as I ran line through a shackle  high off the hard wooden deck, my life swaying uneasily at the behest of an old belaying pin and Father Christmas up there, I was struck with a wave of laughter at the stark absurdity of all this.

A lot of these sailors--the salt-sprayed old hands, not the seasonal chumps like me--have been saying the same thing: you have to love sailing. Mate, Obi-Wan, the Admiral--you have to take it up, feel it in your blood and bones.

And I don't think if I do. I don't mind hard work, rough conditions, even the injuries (the daredeviling, admittedly, I'll probably do for free). But I can't say for sure that I love this. I certainly have a few personal reasons that I don't. And if that's the case, then it might be a long month ahead until the end of season.

But I won't lose. I gave my commitment in to October, and I'll be damned if I renege on that. So I guess we'll see how it goes. Maybe it'll grow on me. Maybe it won't. Either way, I think the term "adventure" as laid out earlier is well beyond applying.

Anyway, I didn't die horribly up there! So I'm calling that a win.

I'm getting off the floating carnival and back to Camden today. I've ordered some Onnit stuff to give me an edge, and maybe I'll pull through this lunacy on top.

Finished the Odyssey. It was...eh. Good story, but I just don't care about sacrifices to Zeus enough to read fifty pages of them. To quote Mark Twain (or Oscar Wilde?), classics are the books everybody loves and nobody reads. Maybe there's a reason for that. Incidentally, I've started A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway, and am so far immensely enjoying it. Go figure.

Also of interest: I might be hiking the highest mountain in Maine after all of this. Stay tuned!

8-30: Sam ALMOST Crashes the Boat

Well, shit.

First week of deckhanding is down. Through a lot of fuck-ups, I've managed to come through it. The meat of it is that there were a couple close calls with lines, a busted starter on the yawl boat, and a captain who thinks I'm an idiot.

I'm not sure I buy that last part (although I suppose an idiot wouldn't know--similar to how a crazy person doesn't necessarily know they're crazy) I think that I'm on my twenty-sixth straight, fourteen-hour work day, and I've been promoted to this position with absolutely no training. I don't like to shift blame, mind you--I totally fucked up at least a few times. But I'm also burnt out, which is why I'm putting a perhaps imprudent amount of faith in the rumor sthat we're not going back out for four days.

At any rate, I'm scraping my way through. And I'm getting gradually better. My fingers have gotten some grip strength back, and my blisters have turned (mostly) to hard callous. So that's good.

Mentally, some things are starting to click too. Today, the jibsheet snapped on the port side--the rope that controls the direction of the foremost sail. Which meant that I, on the starboard side, was left holding the entirety of the sail in my hands. The sail that filled with enough wind to catapault me off the deck like greenbeans out of a toddler's spoon.

For those of you complaining I haven't posted any pictures of myself.

I took in the line and dropped to the deck, making it off as I clutched it in. Thinking about it, at the beginning of the week I'd probably have gone for a swim.

I'm also taking to heart the fact that, technical skills aside, I still have little to no compunction about the daredevil side of things. Like leaning off the bowsprit--the very foremost tip of the boat--with an eight-foot boathook as we tear through the water leaning hard to port at 7+ knots, reaching out to snag the severed jibsheet so we can turn away from the shores of the rapidly-approaching island.

So hey. If you can't be the smartest or the fastest, be the bravest.

Or the stupidest. Eye of the beholder, I guess.

We made it into port yesterday in time for the Windjammer Festival, kicking off with a big parade of schooners into the harbor, where a fairground setup was taking place. Sights included:

• A bagpipe-playing clown rocking the Star-Spangled Banner like a champ
• An Orthodox priest inexplicably wandering our boat
• Paper lanterns drifting through the sky
• One hell of a fireworks show.
• Obi-Wan wandering the crowd. Always good to see him.

And, of course, the ships. To see one is, well, mundane. I live in the freaking forecastle. But to see a forest of masts, many of which encompass the oldest working watercraft in the country, is simultaneously an awe-inspiring sight and a transporting one. Looking above the modern vehicles in the parking lot and taking in the flagged masts of these ships, you could almost glimpse a day when these didn't take tourists around the bay, but took wood and granite all along the eastern seaboard. Sometimes it's easy to forget you live and work on the Industrial Revolution equivalent of a big-rig. Hey, I guess the head still beats a rest stop.

I'm about to sink into some sorely-needed R&R tomorrow. A long shower at the Y, a longer stint in the library, and anb unreasonable amount of hard cider seems to be in order. Catch you later!

8/25: Bilges and Bowlines

Whoops.

I didn't screw up (at least not much). I wrote that word because I want you to look at its width. Maybe half an inch? Well, that's about the width of the semi-slack steel cable I spent half an hour balancing on tonight. Twenty feet off the bow. Over dark, frigid, impermeable waters.

God, this job rocks.

I woke up this morning on the Grace and climbed out of the forecastle. My firs tlesson as a deckhand is that most of the terminology is based on drunken, uneducated British antiquity. Case in point: "forecastle" is pronounced "folks-ull." Same way "main sail" is pronounced "mainsull" and "jibe" is spelled "gybe". Just drink some rotgut, hum "God Save the Queen" and roll with it. I promise it'll make sense.

Being a deckhand is a lot like what I was doing in the galley: lots of washing, punctuated by stressful intensity. I wash the heads thrice (see? Think British thoughts) a day, wash down the deck at least four times, and cautiously pull and push a myriad of levers that keep the boat afloat. The key differences lie in the amount of sunlight I get (more), the amount of smoke I inhale (less), and the required skillset (enough to make me wish I'd joined the Scouts as a kid).

Every activity has a routine, and it can get stressful. In the galley, they were independent--wash the dishes, wash the floor, all self-contained. Up on the deck, something like raising the sails or dropping the anchor has a few timed, precise steps. Diving right in has been a bit nerve-wracking. It's getting better, and easier every day, but nerves are still wracked.

Where I shine are moments like tonight, where we drop anchor late just for the opportunity to literally sail into the sunset. We did; it was indescribable (so I won't try). It left us, however, sitting with the two foresails still hanging out and unfurled--and the night fog rolling in, with not a light in sight.

Furling the foresail and mainsail is pretty straightforward--remember my cowboy gig? It's that. Except instead of hanging out on the back of the sail, I'm on one of the halyards (big rope that lowers/raises the gaff, in turn controlling the height and tautness of the sails). The headsails, however, involve walking out on the tightropes in front of the ship and rolling them by hand like a giant cloth cigar. As your objective is to furl up the sails, there's very little in the way of handholds.

And, in keeping with the chaotic theme of my sailing escapades thus far, it should go without saying that my first time doing this took place on a brisk, windy night, surrounded by impermeable fog that coated the steel cables under my feet and varnished wood under my hands with a fine, slick sheen of water.

Just in case this was all getting too boring.

Wolfman led the charge, climbing out in front of me. Named for his epically shaggy beard, Wolfman is the first mate on the Grace, a competent sailor, patient teacher, and enthusiastic person. As we inched our way out on the tip of the bow, he instructed myself and the messmate on the way to get the job done.

"Grab a big chunk of sail," he said, clutching the canvas in his grip. "We're going to give it three shakes, and after the third, we'll pull it aft [back]. Hard." and, because sailing isn't complete without rhythm and psychopathy to distract from the fact that we're balancing over a boreal Maine ice bath, he began a chant to match our tempo."

"My-NAME is-SAIL-or DAN--HUH!" on the "huh!", we yanked back a section of staysail. The club, sheeted in, rocked back and forth, threatening to sweep our shins.

"I-AM a SAIL-or MAN--HUH!" the sail moved backwards. Our handholds got smaller.

"Some-BOD-y KISS-ed my-WIFE--HUH!" in the inky blackness below, something--let's say an adorable harp seal for the sake of my imagination--splashed quietly through the water.

Close enough.

"I'm GON-na GET-my-KNIFE--HUH!" The cable shook in the wind, and the fog-shrouded night was silent as a morgue.

"And THEN I'll END his LIFE--HUH!"

Charming bunch, the sailing industry. We soon finished and slinked back to the deck.

So that seems to be the deckhand gig. I'll spend eighty percent of my day making beds; the other twenty will consist of getting punched in the face by a flogging jibsheet as I try desperately to make it off, or slacklining over cold water with no tie-in to furl the sails. After a few days, I can only say that despite a wicked sunburn and flog bruises, I'm loving the hell out of it.

We've got a huge schooner festival back in Camden on Friday. A boat parade, fireworks, food, and maybe best of all--shore time. I'll keep you posted.

8-24: Sam Escapes the Galley

The short of it is, I've been promoted to deckhand. The long of it goes like this:

It's been almost a month on the water, and things had not exactly been pleasant. While I was (and continue to be) enamored by Maine as a whole, and am taking to the boat like--excuse the pun--a fish in the water, I've come to the conclusion that I've got an issue with chefs.

You see, Chef (as we'll call him) is one of those people you ought to hate despite the fact that they're pretty damn likable. He's something of a dick, but when he's cheerful it's so infectious that you can't be mad at him. For vaguely sanitary reasons that you ultimately can't define, you'd hesitate to drink from the same bottle as him, though he'll always offer a pull. His stories make you want to both vomit and hit him, rapidly instigating some kind of vomit-covered grappling-oriented slugfest.

I really didn't want to image search that. Here's a kitty instead.

At the same time, however, he always tries. Maybe he doesn't try not to be an asshole, but he tries to care about not being an asshole. And he did put in a good word for me to the Admiral, who owns the company and all three ships, because at the end of the day I did work my ass off in the galley for the last month--a month that oscillated between blunt hostility and begrudging enjoyment.

So this morning, after we made port (in style--ask me about it sometime), I was scampering around the galley with a broom and a dustpan when I see the Admiral come down the ladder. Oh, shit.

"Can you pass a drug test?" he asks. Loquacious, the Admiral is.

"Yessir." I respond, inwardly preparing my urine.

"Excellent. You've got a promotion." He extends his hand.

Dumbfounded, I shake it, hoping he doesn't notice that my palms are drenched in stove-black. You see, the previous deckhand on the Grace Bailey, the Merc's sister ship, went and skipped town without telling a soul. And, in the words of the Admiral, "you can sail without a mess-mate, but deckhands are pretty important."

"So you know how to do a bowline?" he asks, a matter of course.

"Um...not yet." I respond. Not much call for a bowline hitch when you're washing dishes.

"How about work the anchor?"

Well. I saw them do it once. Through a porthole. It was pretty neat. "Not much, but I know the basics."

"How about raise the sails?"

Finally, a break. "That one I know!" I said.

He seemed less than excited, but my brain finally kicked in. "I'll learn as I go, and I'm willing to work my ass off. Thank you so much for the opportunity."

He grinned, and headed back up.

So that's my day. On the bright side, I'm out of the galley--and away from Chef. I'm on payroll, I'm up in the sun, and I'm doing what I came here to do--learn the ship. On the downside, I've got a lot to learn and not a lot of time to do it. It's going to be intense, stressful, and not a small bit terrifying.

Wait, what am I saying? I love that shit! Catch you next week, folks.

8-15: Seasick Sam

It took thirteen days to vomit!

Hey, it could have been worse. I still haven't fallen off the boat. Or gotten tangled in a mooring line, crashed the ship, gotten keelhauled, or beaten by the skipper. But as green ordeals go, I'm less than pleased to announce that I wrestled with my first (and hopefully last) bout of seasickness yesterday.

We've been busy these last few weeks. Since the fourth--my second day here--it's been nonstop three- or four-day cruises. Take on passengers, into the galley for half a week, see 'em off, and turn around the boat to take on the next load later that same day. Fast-paced, maybe, but ultimately pretty straightforward. Once you figure out the routine, you focus in and get the job done.

Sea sickness, as I've gleaned from various anecdotal sources (and virtually no scientific ones) is essentially a disagreement. Your rational mind recognizes: "I'm on a boat, motherfucker"

Figure 1

You know where the floor is. You see the walls. And you know why the floor occasionally rolls by twenty degrees (see fig. 1)

Your gut, however, registers that, while the floor and walls aren't moving, you're being pitched around like a pinball. It's kinda like being drunk--sensors working for balance in your brain are misfiring left and right. And like being drunk, there's a standard operating procedure to rest it all--purge, baby, purge.

So, you know. I threw up around eleven. A lot.

It's interesting, though. My day can be handily divided into pre- and post-vomit. Tossing my lunch (breakfast, actually) stilled the vertigo, settled my stomach, and allowed me to get back on track.

Don't read too much into that--this isn't an issue of Cosmo. I'm not espousing the curative powers of throwing up. But in a way, spewing up like Jed Clampett's front yard felt like a very visceral rite of passage. Though I wouldn't recommend it, it almost felt like one more obstacle getting shot down between where I am now and actually getting the hang of this place.

Or, similar to my Confucian approach to dishwashing, I might just be waxing philosophical about vomit.

I'm about two hundred pages into the Odyssey right now. I'm torn. On the one hand, it's quite formal in its presentation, which can be occasionally trying--I'm not so invested in a full page describing how cattle thighbones are burned as a sacrifice to Zeus (incidentally, take note--when I ascend to almighty godhood, I will accept sacrifices of Serbian cevapi, Nutella, yogurt pretzels, and large denominations of cash).

On the other, it's a hell of a story--the moments painted by the text are epic in damn near every sense of the word. It helps a lot that the rocky shores, tossing storms, and vast expanses of water sound a lot like what I'm seeing and sailing through on a daily basis.

Side note--Odysseus is kind of a sociopathic dick. Lots of raiding and senseless murder. At one point he bemoans his unjust punishment after a botched raid executed by himself and his crew, still riding high on a kill-boner after the sacking of Troy. I mean, I get the heroics and the archetypes, but sheesh. He's a goddamn Greek viking.

Off on a week-long sail. This might get a bit ugly, but I took my first shower today that didn't involve cold water and a foot pump in two weeks, so I'm feeling good and limber. I'll let you know!

(P.s. The title is, besides a pretty uninspired descriptor, a reference to Seasick Steve, an outstanding blues guitarist. Give him a listen!)

8-13: Boats are...

Trying. I've been relocated to the galley twice now. I now sleep in the crawlspace all the way up in the bow, where I have one foot of headroom, a teddy spider, and leaks in my face. I make it to bed at 11; the cook starts clanging around at 4. I climb out of the bed, brush my teeth, and do dishes. Among numerous responsibilities in the kitchen (during any one day I will spend at least 45 minutes scraping burn off the bottom of a pot), I will eventually be sent up top to perform another activity. Which reminds me, boats are also...

Dangerous. I act as what's called the "cowboy", which is to say it's my job to lean off the back of the boat grasping the sail and use my weight to draw the sail taut so it can be folded up as it comes down. I then have to follow it in, disengaging in time to avoid being crushed by the gaff (a two-ton log lowered down by a pulley).

Me, top right, thinking about Freud.

In addition to this, I am occasionally asked to either row out ahead and secure the mooring lines coming into port, or told to retrieve them on the other end and pull, essentially stopping the motion of the entire schooner with a deadlift. And with that in mind, boats can also be...

Thankless. What do you think I'm getting paid? Whatever it is, you're thinking too high. As an entry-level employee, I am here on a volunteer basis. Tips are good--when they come--but besides that, I've got lodging and food. Boats can be...

Challenging. I'm making myself do more with less. I don't get much food that isn't carbs, I get very little sleep, and there's no rest for the wicked here--we've taken passengers for a week straight, and we've got at least a week and a half coming up. I'm writing this in the two-hour window between cleaning up after the last wave and boarding the next one.

I'm not great at this, but I'm taking the "do it 'til my hands bleed" approach. Pound for pound, hard work beats natural talent every time. And when I'm called out to the stern to learn a jibe on three hours of sleep, I'm under the gun to make it stick. More than most things I've done, this is a 24/7 challenge.

You know what else boats are? They're...

Liberating. After doing the cowboy gig last night, I hung out up there for a little while. Balanced twenty-five feet off the water between a pair of lazy jacks (little guide wires that keep the sail in line), I looked around and took in the view. An immaculate sunset, framed by an opening in the channel. The wind hit the folded sail, and I heard no other sound. I looked to the sun, and had an honest-to-god 'Murrika moment--a massive osprey swooped down and snatched a fish from the water, rising into the sky with its dinner. Where else am I going to get that? Boats, after all, are...

Unique. I wake up every morning and climb into a goddamn National Geographic still to brush my teeth. My nights are spent swapping stories with Israeli security contractors, former Naval officers, movie producers, ex-convicts--everybody's got a story, and everybody who books passage on this ship seems to have a great one. There's music billowing out of the galley every week. I spent an hour of precious downtime yesterday sitting on the very tip of the bow, tearing into my copy of the Odyssey with the sun and spray on my face.

Boats are shitty work, my friends. But goddamn, are they worth it.

8-7: Here Comes the Coast Guard!

I'm sore, blistered, and burned, so I'm feeling bullet points today. Let's begin!

• Yesterday (8/6) was our last day of downtime; at 5pm, we took on passengers. This consisted of last-minute repairs, several touch-ups, and a trip tot eh barn to stock up. I was tasked to covertly liberate bacon, which quite frankly sounds like the job I was born to do.
• The Coast Guard arrived, and valiantly guarded the coast by spending forty-five minutes debating the semantics of a bylaw on schooner guardrail height regulations. Guess somebody's gotta do it.
• While tying down line, Obi-Wan appeared from, as near as I can tell, absolutely nowhere and showed me half a dozen knots applicable to the situation. "More to learn." he said encouragingly, clapping me on the shoulder and then vanishing into the ether.
• After taking on the passengers, we shoved off and made great time into the Penobscot Bay, none of which I saw because I was looming over the galley sink, doing dishes. Oh well.
• Adding to the list of faintly horrifying yet appreciably awesome jobs given to the galley apprentice in between dishwashing and floor cleaning, I've been tasked with climbing onto the boom (the long, bottom beam on a sail that runs parallel to the ground) and pulling the sail backwards as it's lowered, holding on as it viciously whips my face twenty five feet over open water. Cool! I'll throw in a pic of it when I can.

Gonna call it here. I'd forgotten how much figuring out a kitchen's rhythm takes it out of you.

 

8-5: "You Must Row to the Dagobah System..."

Captain lined us up to teach us how to not get scuttled by the United States Coast Guard.

Well, maybe it wasn't that dramatic. But seeing as we are due for an inspection tomorrow morning, it seemed a good idea to run through the very basics of safety, locations of fire extinguishers, and the most important rule of Coast Guard inspections: don't give them a damn thing for free.

"They like to bust balls." Captain paused contemplatively, then declared "They've got a complex."

That done, we set about more maintenance work. It was at this point that the deckhand (we'll call him Hand) dropped an interesting bit of information on me.

"How's your rowing?" Hand asked, gesturing to the small rowboat situated off the bow.

I responded honestly: despite a hell of a lot of time on the rowing machine, I didn't have a lick of practical experience.

Hand nodded. "Well, you're going to want to get on that." he gestured to the mooring lines, ropes thick as a kid's wrist that anchored the ship, holding it fast to massive slabs of granite sunk to the harbor floor. "It's the galley's job to row out ahead of the Merc and toss us mooring lines. We pull like hell and tie her off."

I nodded. So I had to race--and beat--the schooner in a rowboat. Sure.

"What happens if we don't make it first?" I asked offhandedly.

He gestured to the dock with a grin. "We crash."

Oh. Cool!

Which is how I spent the next hour flailing in a rowboat.

Ever see those scenes in movies where the chiseled hero has to cross some insurmountable distance of water? There's always that scene where he jumps in the tethered canoe, casts the line onto shore, and then sets off, grim-faced, across the channel or strait. There's probably a low whistle or some uillean pipes playing in the background. Highlander, Rambo, they all do it.

Yeah, that's bullshit.

For one, without some extensive training, you're not going anywhere fast. As I found out, even with a strong back, an amateur rower suffers from a hilarious lack of coordination. With three hard strokes, I found myself listing directly towards a sailboat that probably costs more to paint than the original sticker price of my car.

And you'll always see the burly action hero hauling on the oars in these picturesque, climactic strokes. That's probably not happening either, unless there's virtually no tide or wind (e.g. he's rowing through a fish tank). The water does something; you compensate. It's tricky, and it's hard.

All of which is to say I spent an hour, made it half a mile, and chafed my hands raw.

Sitting on the aft cabin roof, I turned to aft port (back-left) to behold a disheveled looking gentleman climbing aboard the Mercantile.

Fair enough.

He introduced himself, and for all intents and purposes (as we'll see) I'm going to call him Obi-Wan. Former captain in this fleet, friend of the crew, all-around interesting guy.

Eh. Close enough.

"Feel like a boat ride?" he asked.

Jumping into a boat with a stranger? What the hell!

We cut through the afternoon bay waters courtesy of a powerful yellow yaw boat, and as we traversed the forest of masts that constituted the outer harbor, he regailed me with a fascinating life story including Vietnam, years spent as an international educator, and a childhood filled with no small amount of Semtex explosives.

We arrived on his ship, a schooner no longer than a school bus, where he set about repairs. In the process, he quickly discerned my appreciable lack of searfaring experience (seeing a pattern here?) and the visit quickly became an introductory lesson.

The gale of knowledge, as we returned to the Mercantile, concluded with a speculative look. "The art of sailing is done not by thought, but by the transformation of practice into habit and habit into doing--a process which, when mastered, is applicable to any walk of life."

"Seamanship by Lao Tzu." was all I could think to respond.

Obi-Wan seemed to appreciate that. "Welcome to the industry." he said with a grin, extending a hand.

Fifteen minutes later, ignoring the reopening blisters, I climbed back into the rowboat and set out.

8-4: Downtime

Sleep on a ship, it seems, is all about developing a system. Trial and error tells me my best bet is to use my pants as a pillow and curl up in my sleeping bag. This gives me both an adjustable pillow and a workable means to not overheat, as it tends to get pretty warm when you close the hatch.

All of which is to say I slept outstandingly well last night. I could get used to this.

Up at seven to provision the two ships leaving today, I spent the morning on supply runs. Heading out with a fellow deckhand was neat, as I got to get a sense of the kind of personality this life attracts--singular people with ambition, whose existence reacts volatility with a conventional job. I'm working with some pretty great people. Crazy, probably, but cool nonetheless.

We picked up a small palette of food from the local grocery store (or, as I call it, breakfast), a crate of eggs from the barn (or, as I call it, second breakfast), and a few pounds of fresh, live lobster (or, as I call them, flailing vengeful alien insects from the Great Beyond that will, in a pinch, function as third breakfast).

His beady eyes peer into your soul, and it looks like chowdah.

Having stocked the boats, we saw them off. The Mistress went first, slipping from our starboard as Parks blasted a conch shell. The Grace Bailey followed minutes after, laden with excited guests. As their clamor subsided, we were left on the Mercantile, quietly bobbing up and down with two days until we took on passengers.

Time to get to work.

The captain unveiled a long, full list, and I spent the next several hours cleaning what their was to clean in the galley. Call me crazy, but dishwashing is the best job I've had in a while.

Don't get me wrong, IT is lovely. And accommodating refugees is fulfilling, and every other job (yes, even--especially breaking rocks) has its virtue, but there's a level of mindfulness found in dishwashing that I really haven't found anywhere else. It's hard to focus on anything but the dishes and rag. If you let it, the world is reduced to two hands and the action of making clean what is sullied. In washing off a charred kettle, you can reduce your mind to nothing but the here and now, can fall into the harmony of the endless cycle of dirty and clean.

Or maybe I'm just a sucker they got to do the dishes on the cheap. Y'know. Either/or.

The rest of the day was mine, and as I relaxed atop the galley (that's right, kids. Send me five hundred miles north and stick me on a boat, and I'll still end up on the roof of something), I experienced the occasional curious soul asking questions about the ship. Three days of experience, notwithstanding, I still managed to provide some pretty useful answers.

My favorite was a lovely older woman who excitedly inquired about the ship and its rates. Then, as I told her my life's story (college, disillusionment, Google, phone call, Maine!) she laughed and told me with breezy reassurance that Jesus has a plan for me and my gifts.

Oh. Well. That escalated, and to make a long story short, I'm the proud new owner of a pocket-sized New Testament. I put it in my bag's front pocket, where I hope it won't start a fire when ti brushes against my copy of the Tao Teh Ching and start to sizzle. Not my cup of tea, but I was still touched.

A few of the crew and I took the little motorboat out on the bay, and i got my first look at these open waters. The postcards don't do its beauty justice; nor do they capture its size. A harbor full of ships that exceed hundreds of feet is dwarfed next to even one of the smaller islands on the Penobscot. A glance east reminds you that these islands are specks on a vast, churning ocean.  

Be like water, advises Bruce Lee, the truncated version of a statement advising you to live as needed--as a small drop on a bamboo leaf, or as a churning mass of power and potential. Only on open water can I process the enormity of that statement, and this was a gentle reminder.

Another day of downtime tomorrow. Who knows? Maybe I'll find myself a copy of the Old Testament and we can get some fireballs up in this bitch.

I'm just going to leave this shameless plug here: I got published! Check it out here: http://matadornetwork.com/notebook/blood-ink-sarajevo/
 

8-3: Meet the Captain

After the best sleep I've had in years, spending an hour scrubbing the galley floor, falling in with a ragtag crew of miscreants, and polishing off half a barbeque, I've decided that I"m going to like it here.

I woke up at seven, hauled myself to the deck, and instantly recalled that I was on the water. It seems pretty easy to forget the rocking, although maybe I'll eat those words as soon as we get out of the harbor.

I set about my daily routine (full disclosure--it's harder to feel cooler than doing bare-chested pushups on the deck of a schooner), which culminated with the novelty of spitting my toothpaste into the murky bay waters. I'd like to think there's a minty-fresh lobster floating across the Penobscot Bay.

That's around where I am, by the way (Growing up next to Conshohocken, off the Schuylkill River, this name doesn't faze me as much as it should). Camden is a small port situated in the bay's inlet, and our cruises take us out to and among the islands that dot its expanses.

I met back up with the Mistress crew and met its chef, Patrick. We sat around the galley (kitchen), shooting the shit, when a voice as cool as a martini in November came over the radio.

"Mercantile, coming in a mile out."

We headed topside and within a few minutes we saw the impressive ship cutting the water. Two monolithic (dilithic?) masts rose up from a graceful, gleaming wooden deck. People dotted the deck in various positions of casual, and hands ran around tossing line to the deck. Two smaller boats paced a careful, coordinated dance off the bow and stern, and with the right leverage the Mercantile came to a smooth stop on the deck. Within minutes, we watched the spectacle repeat with the Grace Bailey. The two ships stood next to one another, gems of the harbor.

I finally met Captain Ray, until now known only to me as a laconic voice on the phone. Sporting a killer 'stache and a pair of aviators I have yet to see removed, he is the definitive sea captain. Three decades of owning this fleet seems to agree.

Still no parrot, though.

He introduced me to the crews. The Grace Baileyis crewed by himself and a group of young men and women, most younger than myself. The Mercantile, on the other hand, is run by a crew of sarcastic, salty, hilarious guys the likes of which you'd probably find at a pool hall or a Metallica concert.

It is for the sake of personal taste, a learning experience, and downright hilarity that I will be working on the Mercantile.

After getting acquainted with the Mercantile by scrubbing and sweeping the hell out of the galley floor, we headed off to Captain Ray's lake house for a barbeque. Massive farms, sprawling mountains, and not a speed limit under 55. What a state.

Taking on passengers to the Grace Bailey and the Mistress was a blast. Orientation, or How Not To Tragically Perish at Sea, went smoothly, and I ended the evening engaged in lively discussion with a 76-year-old fan of spy novels, who told me cheerily that I can make a shitload of money spying for the Russians.

Not gonna touch that one.

Sun's dying, which makes this whole process a bit difficult. I've found writing this out by hand makes for some terrific introspection. And yes, I feel kind of epic sitting on the highest part of deck scrawling in a notebook. Just once, I might tie one of these blog entries to a dove's leg and release it dramatically into the air.

Ah, poor thing will probably peck my face in. Maybe I'll put it into a corked bottle instead.

• Sorry about the dearth of pictures. Still figuring out this Windows/Ubuntu switch.
• Not sorry about the lack of pirate jokes. I'm saving them up.
• Send me letters! I'll return the favor. C/O Sam Rapine, PO Box 617, Camden, ME 04843
• Still haven't started the damn Odyssey. Half because I'm waiting to go to sea, half because I'm keeping pretty busy, half because I'm still only half done Gates of Fire by Stephen Pressfield, and half because I suck at fractions.

8-2 (II)-First Night on the Water

I'll level with you--I felt like a bad motherfucker.

Battlepack and bedroll slung over my shoulder. Spec-ops stubble caking my face. Five hundred miles of long road behind me. Step after step, the rugged vagabond, making his way toward the docks.

All of which went right out the window when I padded up to the sweet old lady watering her petunias and asked "excuse me, ma'am, which way to the port?" with what I hope was a pleasant smile on my face.

She directed me down the road, and I trudged on.

Eastwood incarnate, baby.

Camden, I soon found out, is a freaking gem. Its inviting shops contain all the fluorescent panache of a beach down; its demeanor exhibits all the blunt, charming sincerity of the American South. Its main (Maine--ha-ha.) street forms a pair of hills, the bottoms of which meet to spill into the harbor. Here, unsurprisingly, the boats are docked.

In a phone conversation with the captain, he told me I could crash on one such ship until the Grace Bailey and the Mercantile come back to port tomorrow. And that's how I came to be sleeping on this tonight:

Not pictured: Rum, parrot.

The Mistress is the smallest in the fleet, but she makes up with all the latest amenities--hot water, electricity, the works. Not bad at all.

I meandered the town, and after purchasing a much-needed pair of sunglasses, I began my crusade for an even more sorely needed burger and a beer. I found a small bar called Cuzzy's, sat down and ordered both.

The beer was good, the burger was better, but perhaps best was the stern education undergone courtesy of the waitress, who informed me in inarguable terms that I am now a Red Sox fan.

Eh. Why not?

I returned to the Mistress and met Captain Parks and his companion Alexia, who it turns out, despite well over a decade of sailing experience between the two of them, are as new to the Mistress as I am. In a way, it's reassuring to know I"m not the only one on an adventure, as I drifted off in the tiny, cozy, and inky dark confines of the cabin.

Adventure. That term was on my mind all day. A friend of mine tends merrily to proclaim "it's an adventure!" immediately prior to shit catastrophically hitting the fan. I tend to agree with her definition, even as many well-meaning friends and family tell me to "enjoy my adventure". Are the two at odds? Or do things have to go a little bit wrong to make a story worth telling? I guess I'll find out soon.

8-2: Watch For Moose on Roadway

Spoiler alert: I made it to Maine. Let's take it from the top.

At 3 this morning, I was roused by my father, at which point I discovered that my alarm had blatantly, unequivocally failed. I took this to be a terrific sign.

We set out in the pour rain (speaking of good signs) to make the 4am bus deep in the heart of Philadelphia. After following the directions of three pairs of cops, a garbage collector, and possibly a crackhead, we made the bus station at 3:53. Forgoing a heartfelt good-bye for "seeyalaterdrivesafedontdie!" as the van door shut, I hauled ass to the platform.

The driver, I found out quickly, exhibited something of a philosopher's streak:

"Do you want to take that on board?" he asked, gesturing to my colossal battlepack.
"Can I?" I asked, a glimmer of hope in my eye.
"No..." he replied, in a firm but pensive tone.

I stared at him for a second, tossed it in the hold, and got on the bus.

I didn't quite sleep. Rather, I occasionally found myself with my head lolled and my mouth agape, wondering how I got there. Me? Tired? As if.

Miraculously, my transfers went smoothly, and on the road out of Boston, I found myself amicably chatting with a pair of cute girls about the subject of lazy eyes (I confess it made more sense in context). As that subject only runs so deep, I soon found myself watching change slowly, irrevocably overtake the landscape. A few things in particular made me stop and take note.

• The people only became more entertaining. On the bus with me (in addition to the young lady who, despite her conviction to the contrary, did not have a lazy eye) was a free-spirited insurance investigator riding the roads from Idaho, as well as a spunky old man named Carl who recited, with inexplicable but unmistakable personal pride, the plot of the 1991 film The Fugitive.
• All roadsigns reading in miles and km, perhaps complimenting the increasing presence of Canadian flags. And here I thought I wouldn't need a passport.
• "Watch for moose on the roadway." I'm starting to like this place. Bonus points for the correct plural!
• After miles--sorry, kilometers--of uninterrupted wilderness, we rolled by a wan, decrepit shack, the signs of which proclaimed...fresh produce? Lobster rolls? Bumper-tenderized moose jerky? Nope. DirectTV. Go figure.

Also of note: I have not been murdered by a clown.

Bear with me, here.

Perhaps due to overexposure to Stephen King in my formative years, I must confess a preconception of Maine as something of a rolling horror movie. Although so far this is hardly the case, I did notice a marquis on a church proclaiming "what we tolerate, our children will embrace..." sure, it's ambiguous. Maybe they're doing their best to tolerate gay marriage. Or maybe they're warning against their tolerating it. Of course, as discussed, my oversaturated imagination ran wild, and so I came up with...well, you know.

It's just not my blog unless Cthuhlu shows up.

 The bus spit me out at a roadside gas station, and I started toward Camden with 40lbs on my back and three hours of sleep in my bones.

8-1: Sing In Me, Muse, and Wake Me Up at 3am...

The Plan

Well, this all seems terribly familiar.

Not the flannel, mind you, but I'll get to that in a minute.

No, what's familiar is that bizarre feeling in my gut, part-countdown and part-espresso shot, that tells me exactly how long until I toss a single backpack on my shoulder, load onto a bus, and spend twelve hours surging northward at that insatiable speed that only .556, celestial bodies, and Greyhound buses seem to be physically capable of achieving. Yes, it's that indescribable feeling that can only mean one of two things: either I'm going into cardiac arrest, or I'm about to go on an adventure.

You see, my friends, I have elected to live and work aboard the schooners Grace Bailey and Mercantile for the next two or three months out of Camden, ME, with the good Captain Ray Williamson and his crew at Maine Windjammer Cruises. After a summer of waiting and working, the eve of departure is upon us. I, for one, have prepared well by ingesting a pint of bees and allowing them to zip around my stomach.

Pictured: The dinner of champions.

Which isn't to say I'm nervous. Excited, actually. But nerves are nerves, and I suppose the great unknowns of the future bring with them a barrage of questions I cannot yet answer. What will life be like aboard a ship that was built over a century ago? What kind of interesting people will I meet along the way? Perhaps most importantly, can I pay off the hulking tyrant of student loans in fresh lobster?

Well, we'll have to stow those questions for now. In the meantime, let's lead with a few salient points. This time around won't be precisely like the last adventure. (For those of you who are just joining in the mad crusade of unorthodoxy that's beginning to categorize my life, I shamelessly plug Nikola Tesla and Gavrilo Princip Walk Into a Bar, a timeless, coming-of-age tale of a young man who learned the true meaning of extra portions while stumbling around the Balkans.) Here are two reasons why:

1. For one, I'll be working. While I have no doubt that wackiness will ensue (It's me, on a boat, for fuck's sake. How can that not end in hilarity?), the job comes first. If that results in a few gaps in update time, that's that.
2. To the chagrin of telemarketers across the country, there's not much signal of any kind miles off the coast of Maine. This means that I'll be writing these entries out by hand and publishing them (hopefully two or three at a time) in large batches whenever I'm in port. So when you see one, make sure to check to see if any others have been published.

Now that that's out of the way, I make you several promises:

1. I will limit it to one pirate joke per post.
2. And one viking joke.
3. I will do my damndest to put in as many original pictures as I can. Not only are these some pretty epic-looking ships that I'm going to call home, but (after meth and moose) the thing I hear most often about Maine is its staggering natural beauty. Seems like I'll be in a great position to take advantage of that, especially as the colors start to turn.
4. I'll focus on whatever feedback I get. Want to know more about the ships? Certainly. Want to hear about the lobster? Awesome. More pirate jokes? I'd be happy to.

The Odyssey

Ah, speaking of transitioning sentences, I've also elected to bring a copy of Homer's Odyssey aboard. Because I'm anticipating the occasional lack of interesting things to discuss as the novelty of living la vida Sparrow begins to wear (there goes the pirate joke), and because I'm generally enraptured with the story, I'll be giving my musings on the text as I trudge my way through it. Bear with me as I indulge my classics obsession, and hopefully we'll all get through it together.

The Loadout

Good! We're all on the same page. Now, let's look at a few choice items that I'm taking with me to Maine:

• Datsusara Battle Pack: My trusty hemp backpack. Yes, I saw you snicker. You're probably thinking it's got a chain of flowers attached to it, coming in pastille pink, maybe with the faint smell of sage, right? Wrong, son. It's 2100 cubic inches, triple-woven, decked out in PALS military-grade webbing, and rugged enough to survive my training regimen--and I've worn through sledgehammers this summer. This thing is adventure incarnate, and it's about to serve me well again.
• Flannel: I'm told by multiple sources that flannel is worth its weight in gold when the autumn night sets in in Maine. Today I set out to track down two or three heavy woven shirts to pack in, because luck favors the prepared. Then I remembered that it's the first day of freaking August, and after three hours of searching I came back with one light shirt with a tear in the breast from the thrift store. Good start.
• Shemagh: Also known as a kefiyah, the shemagh is a ~40 square inch piece of fabric. The pros: it can be worn as a head wrap, used as a scarf, a covering to keep dust off, improvised as a bandage, a tourniquet, a crude water filter, used for signalling, burned as quick kindling--whatever you might need. The cons: you see them donned by militant groups pretty much the world over. As it would be a really short blog if I got my head blown off by an overeager militia in rural Maine, I'll keep that one towards the bottom of my bag.
• Sleeping Bag: The brand name has long-since worn off, but I've been told to bring a sleeping bag, as there is purportedly ample opportunity to sleep on deck. My heart swells at the opportunity; my back cringes.
• Multitool: Strapped to the small of my back is a Gerber Multitool. It contains, in no particular order:
• Straight-edge knife
• Serrated-edge knife
• Saw
• Pliers with wire cutters
• Screwdrivers (flat/Philips)
• Can/bottle opener
• Scissors
• Awl
• Coffee maker
• 50cc atropine
• The coordinates of Jimmy Hoffa's remains
• The mate to that unpaired sock in your drawer
• A brief but concise treatise on the conic nature of time

All of which is to say I feel more than prepared. Naturally, I'm certain I've forgotten something.

It's about that time. Sleep--all five hours of it--seems welcoming at this point. Next time you hear from me, I should be sitting in a harbor in Maine, lounging in a stupor after a twelve-hour bus ride. Pray for my soul, friends. And maybe my legs.