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.