Last August, my mother, Shelly
Ballering, stepped aboard for the Members Only Expedition. She’d only sailed a
handful of time on small boats, and joining me and 34 others on Adventuress
was an act of love, curiosity, and apprehension. She had many of the questions
that come up for first time sailors who have never seen Adventuress in
the flesh. My mother lives in Portland, and her knowledge of the ship was
confined to the handful of postcards I had sent. When it came to assuaging her
fears, I was at a surprising disadvantage. She was my mother, after all, and
she seemed to believe that I’d tell her anything to make her join me on the
trip. “What would the heads be like?” She asked. Would she be able to climb
into her bunk? Would she be seasick?
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| Mama at the Helm! My mother takes the helm
under the guidance of Chief Mate Esther. |
I still remember my own highlights: porpoises past our bow as we returned to Anacortes, a blazing
orange sunset, and a platter of dolma that the Galley Coordinator, Frankie,
created as a last hurrah on her final trip.
My mother’s fondest memories came
from Anchor Watch. Under the guidance of Drew, the shipboard Engineer, we stood
Watch together, took navigational readings, listened to the breathing of an
invisible harbor seal swimming somewhere nearby, and tiptoed all over the ship.
Says my mother, “Anchor Watch was amazingly tranquil—a space in-between
sleep and waking that puts you in a calm and centered place.”
Because the Members Only Expedition
brings together Members of every stripe, the participants aboard were amazingly
diverse. They included a grandmother who sailed on Adventuress many
decades before and wanted to share the experience with her two young
granddaughters; a long-time volunteer who brought along the friends she met on Liberty
Clipper; two Sound Experience Board Members; and a young woman from an
earlier teen trip who returned to sail with her father.
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| The full "crew" for the trip—36 wonderful individuals who created a vibrant shipboard community in three short days. |
Counting crew and participants,
there were 36 people aboard. My mother, a psychologist, was impressed by the
dynamic created by a relatively small number of people living and working
together in such a unique environment. “I got to know fellow participants
while I was on Adventuress more deeply than I would in other
circumstances,” she says. Recalling the aforementioned grandmother, my
mother adds, “I met a woman, Carol, who was close to my age and who also lives
in the Portland area. We connected over what we had in common—some of it having
to do with recent challenges in both our lives—and ended up communicating for
several months after the trip.”
My mother was also enchanted by the educational
aspects of the program. On the second day, two naturalists from Kwiáht, a
nonprofit dedicated to tracking the human ecology of the Salish Sea, gave a
detailed presentation on the structure and society of the Coast Salish people.
My friend David, a meteorologist and fellow participant, spoke about
barometers, drawing with chalk on deck to further illuminate his points about
air pressure and high and low systems. As with all trips, we did a plankton tow
and studied the contents of the water under the deckhouse microscope. Recalls
my mother, “I was surprised by the sheer number of living creatures in just
one bucket’s worth from the Sound… Being on Adventuress gave me a sense
of all the life both in the water and along the shore. I had a sense of how
essential it is to preserve the life that surrounds us.”
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| My mother and I gave this
Adventuress quilt
to my Grandma for her 90th birthday. |
When my mother and I talked recently
about the trip for this story, we were sitting at a kitchen table in Wisconsin.
We were visiting for my grandmother’s 90th birthday, and as one of her presents
we gave her a small quilt showing an image of Adventuress rendered from
one of photographer Elizabeth Becker’s stunning images. As a lifelong
Wisconsinite, my grandmother loves the boat—to her it represents the beauty and
promise of a place she's never known. My mother feels similarly about the ship:
“I’m from Wisconsin originally and I chose to head West when I was young.
Being on Adventuress reminds me of why I love living where I do… The
trip offered me pure physical beauty, interest and learning, and the chance to
connect with myself, with others, and with the amazing world of nature.”
The year’s Members Only Expedition is
from August 26-28. I’ll be aboard again (my mother, sadly, will not) and I
would love to meet you, sail and learn with you, and capture your memories of
what it's like to step aboard. The Members Only Expedition is open to Sound Experience Members
only; children 8 and up are welcome when accompanied by an adult.
