As promised yesterday, some insights into my time at sea.
The Good List:
None of these pictures really relate to the content of the blog, but you need to see pictures.
1. As a general introduction to the overall theme of life aboard the Cramer, I offer you this shortcut. To translate anything from land-life to sea-life just add ‘EXTREME’ before your gerunds.
EXTREME CLEANING: Field day, which occurred every Saturday, featured an all-hands cleaning frenzy. Every single item was fire-lined out of the galley to the deck; ALL surfaces, including bulkheads and overheads, were scrubbed with 2×4 sponges, which required some exciting ninja-ing about and suspending oneself over active fire-lines; crevasses between any two solids were to be excavated using “mung knives” (mung defined as a state of matter somewhere between liquid and solid consisting mostly of dark green and human funk); and to top it all off, you have under two hours to complete this task and these surfaces will not remain in a consistent orientation related to the gravity which controls your body, i.e. the boat is rocking.
EXTREME COOKING: Cook for 30 people, extracting food from all corners of the ship and the abyss of two huge and ominous cold storage holds. Oh, and the boat is rocking. One evening I found myself in the galley gimballing a gallon of boiling barbeque sauce over a 500-degree stove for nearly an hour during 16-ft swells. And you can’t really stand up.
EXTREME SHOWERING: Cold water. Navy shower. Good luck standing up.
Amelia and I in the lab. Doing science on a boat. Nbd. Note: microscopes at sea are pretty much a guaranteed puke-jerker. Also, you thought Analytical Chemistry was hard? Try titrating on a boat.
This extremism counts as one of my first three good things about the trip because I realized this gerund modifier early in the trip and just turned every otherwise-ordinary task into a game. I took that cleaning madness to heart and always worked up a sweat and ninja-ed as much as I could during field day. I cooked my butt off in the galley and accepted its test of my skills as a culinary defense artist. Showering didn’t make a very good game, but I did it anyway.
2. . Bioluminescence. This was probably my favorite part of the trip. In addition to the bioluminescent copepods and dinoflagellates I mentioned earlier, whilst anchored just off St Thomas, we saw bioluminescent squid. They gathered near the stern of the ship just after darkness descended on our final swizzle–a surf and turf feast–dotting the calm water with glowing puddles that tricked the eye. I could never really tell how large the squid were, but they left a glowing slick of at least a few feet. This biological wonder helped to remind me of my purpose at sea; I was there because I love the ocean and the magic that it contains. The eery glow never ceased to excited and inspire me, distracting me on bow watch and catching my attention through portholes at night.
That's me putting a harbor furl in the tops'ls. It was my first time aloft and I stayed there for over an hour as the top student on the mast. One of my favorite experiences.
3. As you may have gleaned from my last post, my time aboard the Cramer was a bit more of a challenge than I had expected. I’ll go more into the details of said challenge shortly, but what occurred in response to the challenge deserves a spot on the good list. As I found myself in an unfamiliar place and unusual state, my person sought some coping mechanisms, and what it found was the capacity to create.
I began writing songs, sowing things out of sail clothe, painting, coloring, writing, doing puzzles, drawing on myself in pen. Many of these are things I do on land, but on steroids. I composed a five-verse song with a completely original melody on bow watch one morning, and performed it with two shipmates and a ukulele at an all-hands party. I fashioned a draw-string slip cover for the lab’s jumbo wire cutters which featured a strategically-placed footprint on sail clothe. I covered most of my left leg in a maze of blue pen double-lined squiggle, which lasted pretty long since we didn’t shower often. I co-authored an all-student theater production in summary of the staff aboard the Cramer for our final party.
Of course, I also spent some time leaking tears and snot on the deck, and cowering in my bunk, but a few of my emotional outlets ended up as productive expressions of my creative power. I did things I didn’t know I could. It was pretty cool.
Some shipmates, including Logger Cat Jenks.
I should also point out that my song was a hit and plagued the Cramer Crew for at least a week after its debut. That must be how Katy Perry feels.
That’s not my top three Good Things, but it’s a start. More to come.
My hair was kind of curly at sea. I think it was the salt and human grime.