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!