A Story Made During Anchor Watch

By the Participants and Crew Aboard Adventuress
July 20 - 21, 2010

During anchor watch, each of our participants and crew stand guard over the sleeping ship. Well, we also like to have fun during anchor watch! Often we write stories or haikus as part of these one-hour rotations, with each watch adding a little bit to the tale! Here is one from our last trip:

While hiking on Sucia Island, the young sailors discovered...

a monol-bismol (a kind of pepto-bismal that does the opposite of pepto-bismal)

Adam thought that it was cranberry lemonade and drank it!

Once their stomachs recovered, they carried on and came upon an old smuggler's secret hiding place. In it they found not people, drugs or alcohol but rather...

purple sea lions singing shanties while turtles kept rhythm on their shells. On a large table were potentially explosive moose cupcakes... were the crew tempted?

They threw a cupcake out into the ocean to see if it would explode, and sure enough, it did. Everyone was pretty glad they hadn't eaten any. The young sailors spent the night on the island and were woken up by purple seals singing a new sea shanty. It went:

"Elijah has blue hair, oh my oh my!

Steve has cool glasses, oh my oh my"

And it went on, similar to that. It was midnight. The sailors were groggy, disoriented by the purple sea lions' song and managed to fall off one of the lovely sandstone bluffs.

With a splash and a splish they plummeted into the cold water! Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, came something they never expected! A line! Thrown in the water by a hooded nudibranch!

Its watermelon-y smell captured the nostrils of (purple) sea lions everywhere, and the young sailors balked at their sudden company. And Kat was pleased to finally meet her sea lion friend. Soon the sea lions were all hauled up on the deck of Adventuress (along with the hooded nudibranch) and a wild bluegrass dance party erupted. Porpoises provided the decorations to Elijah's delight, and Elijah said "porpoise!"

They all stayed up through every anchor watch (checking bilges as the party raged on) and it was the best night they'd ever had. It had swaggerfullisticalness!!!

The End

Adventuress Sailing Video!

This video was shot from the bowsprit of Adventuress during a Public Day Sail out of Everett, WA.

Down to the Sea in Ships: Daniel Evans and Adventuress

July 14, 2010 - KPLU-FM's environment reporter Liam Moriarty interviewed our own Captain Daniel Evans! Captain Evans is a third generation Salish Sea sailor, and the newest Captain of Adventuress

"There’s a harmonious feel to sailing on a wooden boat. That organic feeling to me, and that feeling of something that is wood, that has been living, that has come naturally to this place is, I think, a really important aspect in creating that environment for coming to understand [Puget Sound]."

Click here to listen or read the transcription.

Watch this video that Moriarty took from his time aboard Adventuress!

Glimpses from a Road Scholar Intergenerational Voyage, Part I

By the Crew of the Schooner Adventuress

At the beginning of our trip, we divided into three watches, which is an old maritime tradition. During the day, one watch is on deck sailing the vessel, while the other two watches choose between education stations and/or down time (the sun and sailing can take it out of you!). In the evening, after Adventuress has found a cozy anchorage, rotations continue! One watch cooks dinner & does dishes, one watch takes on the natural history report--which is about what they saw that day, and the remaining watch prepares for the "Resource Report."

The Resource Watch goes throughout the ship finding:

• How much fuel we used
• How much water we drank
• Estimating the amount of compost made from cooking
• Estimating food waste made from uneaten morsels
• Estimating trash produced that day

The resource report has been presented in various ways. Sometimes it comes as a skit, sometimes a discussion, sometimes a game. This time however, the Bodacious BarbaRays Watch (B Watch) presented a Resource "Opereta," which included the following rap!

Yo
This is Big Papa Sailor and
I'm on a boat
yeah, yeah, yeah
I'm on a boat
and it can float
We be rockin' and rockin'
making distance and distance
So let me give you a little somethin' somethin'
We went 10 nautical miles
Wow it's all down in our nautical files
Yeah
I know the number's pretty big
Yeah
I said big just like our nautical rig
Wait, before we run out of time
Let me give you one more rhyme
Yeah
Man, our boat don't cower
We got 2.4 nautical miles per hour
So do me a favor and keep it dope
Cuz get ready, get set,
I'm on a boat!

A Grandmother's Experience Aboard Adventuress

By Ann Collins

Age 74, and Grandmother of 10 and Mother of 5 (including Catherine, our Executive Director)

Road Scholar (formerly Elder Hostel) Trip from Friday Harbor to S. Lake Union

Where do I begin? From the minute you step aboard the deck of Adventuress, the crew and staff are so friendly and helpful; you feel “at home” right away. Within no time at all, you start to feel as if you “belong.” The crew have you working on hauling up the sails, swabbing the decks, and eating their wonderful food (that was one of the best parts in my estimation). The cook, Marilee, was a marvel in her “limited space” galley. I even helped her make orange-cardamom cookies for my daughter’s birthday that day! The beginning and end of the days, you would hear crew members singing or playing a guitar to either wake you up or quietly lull you to sleep. It was so soft and gentle.

What a gift this whole experience was. The group of participants formed a loving and supportive community. There was a lot of sharing and especially a lot of laughter. It was so easy to join right in and become a special part of this group of both crew and participants. What surprised me most was my own willingness to try new things, to put myself out of my comfort zone, like going out on the bowsprit under sail or taking the helm. That part brought back memories of my early sailing days as a young person on the coast of Maine. I think my father, who loved wooden boats and sailing, would have loved to see me enjoying every minute of this trip. I will have wonderful memories to take home to the East Coast to think back on for many years to come.