The Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race

This past week has been one of the best on the AJ Meerwald for me this season. We got back to Bivalve around five in the morning the day before yesterday after an exciting week participating in the Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race.

We left Bivalve in the wee hours of the morning on the 13th, headed for Baltimore.  Our crew of nine and our three volunteers were split into two watches with 6 hours on and 6 hours off. I was in the A watch and we were on first so we cast off docklines and got underway at 0200. With hardly any moon and very little light pollution, the stars were crystal clear in the sky and wonderfully numerous. It was surprisingly warm for the middle of October and, despite our lack of sleep, we all felt fresh and ready for the upcoming adventure. Although night watches can be stressful (it's somewhat like driving down a country road with no headlights) and bitterly cold, they are also the best. There is something so peacful and wonderful about sailing on the open water under millions of stars with nowhere to be but there. 

First light after a long, cold night on watch

While on watch, we rotate through a few different stations of an hour each. One person is always on bow watch, one is at the helm, one does boat checks and wake-ups at the end of the watch, and anyone else is on standby. Bow watch is probably my favorite, especially when there's nothing to report. On bow watch, we are on lookout for anything the person at the helm may not be able to see. During the day, we use hand signals to communicate with the helm but at night we walk back to tell them what we see. The best bow watches are when we are flying along with nothing to be seen for miles and you are occasionally weightless as the bow is lifted by a wave and sprayed by the sea as the bow plunges back down.

The best

Being at the helm can also be amazing, especially at night when it's too dark to see your heading on the compass and the best thing to steer by is the stars. Somehow it's incredibly calming, just you and the stars. The helm can be frustrating,  though, sometimes. The boat doesn't always like to stay on course and at times you are constanly fighting to stay on course - especially when under sail power and a small change could mean losing the wind and your power. One of my favorite times at the helm was on the way back from Portsmouth, VA after the schooner race. The wind had picked up right before our night watch and we were motoring right into it. The seas were swelling up to five feet and hitting the waves at the wrong angle sent the boat into a corkscrew which is very unpleasant for those below decks. When she hit the waves head-on, the boat would dive down an incredible amount so that the sea itself- not just the spray - was coming over the bow. The view from the helm, where you could see the extreme angle of the boat, was awesome and it made up for the fact that you were constantly fighting the sea and trying to avoid crashing into any buoys in the vicinity. 

Boat checks are also exciting in rough seas. They are normally just a calm check and recording of the bilge levels, navigation lights, battery levels, engine readings, course ordered, and weather conditions (and a welcome escape to the warmth below decks), but with the boat careening in every direction it becomes a test of your ability to avoid crashing into everything and waking up the entire off-watch as you check the bilge in the forepeak (the hold at the front of the boat where the crew sleeps), or to avoid dropping everything and/or falling into the engine room as you try to climb down the open hatch over the engine.

Our transit to Baltimore was relatively uneventful and took about 16 hours. After making it to Baltimore, most of us just wanted to sleep. Some of the crew went out but because we were on 24-hour dock watch and my hour on watch was in the middle of the night, I sat on deck and read for a while and went to bed early.

The next day we had education programs in the morning and a parade of sail in the evening. The parade was pretty cool because we were just sailing around Baltimore harbor and got to see all the other boats in the race while also getting a look at the city. I was on bow watch for most of the sail which meant I got a lot of practice tending the jib while tacking (when we turn through the wind the sails cross over to the other side of the boat and the crew member at the bow is responsible for making sure our forward-most sail, the jib, crosses properly). This would have been fine except that our volunteer mate, Tom, was firing our mini cannon (actually pretty awesome when you have ear protection) on every boat that came near us and it was very difficult to plug my ears to avoid going deaf while also holding on to the line and maintaining control of the sail.

Parade of Sail

The race started the next day at 1:00pm and it took us about 30 hours to make it to the finish line in Norfolk/Portsmouth, Virginia. All the boats are required to sail the whole way and turning on the motor results in disqualification.  We didn't place into the top three in our class but we did finish without motoring which doesn't happen every year. Most of the way was great sailing with a top speed of 9.5 knots (about 11mph)! We crawled across the finish line going about 2.5 knots at around 8:00pm, took in sails, and motored into port around 10:30pm. Although we were exhausted, a few of us on A watch went out for a bit to celebrate the fact that we had made it and were off watch and free for the next day and a half.

Sailing to the starting line

The race is on

At the dock in Portsmouth

The next day was a day of relaxing and enjoying Portsmouth. My watch had the whole day off and we went out for brunch, enjoyed the pool and hot tub and showers in the hotel where the crew had a couple rooms booked, went to the cookout for all the boat crews, explored the town, and hung out with crew from the other schooners.

We left the next day and made our way back up the Chesapeake Bay, through the C and D canal, across the Delaware Bay and up the Maurice River back to our home port of Bivalve a day and a half later. The transit was quite exciting as we spent a good portion of the time heading straight into strong winds with relatively high seas, in the dark but we made it back safely at around 5:30 in the morning. 

It's amazing to think that we have only a couple weeks left. We'll be mostly in Bivalve with one more big adventure to Chestertown, MD for downrigging before we all go our separate ways!

Sometimes it's the little things

I wanted to write a post today but I felt like I had nothing to write about. After all, we haven't even left Bivalve since the last time I wrote. But then I realized that the little, seemingly insignificant moments are often worth remembering just as much as  -if not more than- the big events. Like sitting on the dock at the lake with a friend and reminiscing about the past, talking about life, and dreaming about the future while gazing up at millions of perfectly placed stars. Or sitting around the table with the crew and laughing over the most ridiculous things that most people probably would not even find funny. Or realizing that I have absolutely no idea where I'll be in a year and that the world is bursting with possibilities.

Even though I've only been with the Meerwald for about two months, it feels like I've been here much longer and I feel at home here. It's funny how -as a friend of mine says- "The more you travel, the less home feels like home and the more you feel at home everywhere". Sometimes I feel like a crazy hobo without a "real" job and a "real" home (try telling a bunch of fifth graders that your only home is a boat) but I wouldn't trade the life of a traveler for anything.  I may never be rich but I never worry about what I will eat or where I will sleep and I'm surrounded by wonderful people.

My bunk

Someday, I would like to get my Master's and a job that requires my hard-earned degree a little more but right now I couldn't be happier, embracing every opportunity that comes my way and learning about people and the world by spending time with real people and living in the moment and experiencing the incredible world around me!

Sunsets are amazing!

Some of my highlights of the week:

*Stargazing and talking about everything and anything
*Riding my bike to work and enjoying the peacefulness of the morning and the beauty of the sky and marshes
*Hanging out with the crew and laughing
*Teaching kids who were actually excited about what I was teaching!

On the A.J. Meerwald

I'm on a day off from my job as a deckhand and I've been motivated to start blogging again after being interviewed by my shipmate, Erin, for her blog. I'm working on the schooner A.J. Meerwald in New Jersey and I'm loving being a tall ship sailor. We do day sails for the public, private charters, and educational sails for school groups. The Meerwald is an 85' wooden schooner (meaning we have at least two masts with the main higher than the fore) built in 1928 for oystering. As a deckhand, I do everything from raising and lowering sails, to maintaining the boat, to teaching people about local marine science and the boat's history. We often work 12 hour days and the work can be hard but I like it because it's different every day and there are few things better than sailing along with all the sails set and a good breeze and sea swell.

One of my favorite views

It's hard to summarize my time here so far. My first day on the Meerwald was August 15th but I feel like I've been here for forever. I love the crew and life on a boat. We've had some great times and awesome adventures in the past month and a half, exploring different ports and meeting lots of cool people, and we're looking forward to more in the last five weeks of the season. In particular, the Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race is coming up and we should hopefully get some good sailing in!

We are currently in our home port of Bivalve, NJ which is not even really a town with  its population of 6 people, a clam plant, an oyster plant, a Rutgers University research station, and our Bayshore Center. We do have a crew house here where we often sleep or spend days off when we're in Bivalve and the marshes and woods are beautiful so it's not a bad place to be.

Lake Audrey near Bivalve

We are all waiting see what happens with hurricane Joaquin. It's been cold and rainy and windy and we've had some seriously high tides but no one seems to know whether or not the storm will actually hit. We may sail to another port up the Delaware River to wait out the potential storm or just anchor out here. Either way, I'm pretty excited about the prospect of hunkering down and hanging out if we do get a big storm!

Our flooded dock

Back to Australia

I'm in Australia once again. I arrived in Melbourne the night before last after two very long days of travelling. Instead of flying through L.A. like before, this time I went east, stopping in Abu Dhabi. I had about a twelve hour layover there and I decided to go out and explore the city. It's very much like I imagined the middle east to be - hot and deserty with big palm trees - but I was surprised at how rich it is. The houses are huge and the cars are nice and the city is clean.

I admit I was a little nervous to go out on my own in middle-eastern country but everyone I met was very friendly and helpful and they all spoke English. All the signs were in English as well as Arabic and the public transportation is good so it was easy to get around. On the bus into the city, I met a Polish lady who had arrived the day before so I walked around with her for a bit since she knew her way around a little. Most of the shops were closed for New Year's (even though it was the second...) so there wasn't much to see but we stopped for lunch at a local restaurant and I got falafel and Greek salad, which was delicious and cheap, too! Actually, everything is cheap there. I spent about 80 dirhams (about 21 USD) all day on buses, food, and a taxi!

After lunch, we parted ways and I took a bus to see the Sheik Zayed Mosque or the "Grand Mosque". It is seriously one of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen.

Inside the mosque

Pools surrounding the mosque

After seeing the mosque, I took a taxi back to the airport. My flight boarded a little before 9pm and I was asleep before we even took off since I hadn't been able to sleep at all on the first, 14-hour-long flight and I'd been awake for over 36 hours at that point. The flight was supposed to be about 13 hours long but when we approached Melbourne we were put in holding pattern for about 30 minutes before we began to descend for landing. As we descended, we flew into a black cloud and experienced some of the worst turbulence I've ever felt and it was obvious that the wind was pretty strong. Instead of landing, we went back up and circled around again. This happened several times and it felt as if the turbulence got worse every time. The crew gave us very few updates on what was going on which made things even worse, and at one point they even reminded us over the P.A. to "stay in our seats, with our seat belts fastened, and keep in mind where the nearest emergency exit was"! Eventually we flew out of the storm system and circled around for a while longer and although I would have rather been safely on the ground, the view below was pretty great and it was cool to be able to see the storm from the outside. Finally, the captain announced that the weather was too bad for us to land and we would be flying to Sydney. We flew to Sydney and then returned to Melbourne, more than 5 hours later than scheduled. 

I got a hostel for the night and then met up with a friend for coffee in the city. A friend from college had put me in touch with one of her friends and I was able to arrange to stay with them for my time in Melbourne so yesterday I took the train to a place called Mont Albert in the suburbs of Melbourne. It's a beautiful area and the weather has been perfect! I went to church with one of the girls from the house last night, which was great, and it was cool to see what church is like here. It was an Anglican church but it actually wasn't much different from churches I've been to and I really enjoyed the service. 

Today I haven't done much, except go for a run in the morning and then out with a couple of the girls to check out some local shops. The rest of the day, I've just been trying to figure out what I'm going to be doing here. I still don't have definite plans for any of my time here but I might do some traveling on the east coast before I go back to Margaret River and get a job for the summer. I've never not planned so much before and it's kind of exciting!

Travelling the Southwest

Maria and I have now been traveling for a week and a half and we've stopped off in a nice town called Margaret River on the west coast about 2 hours south of Perth. It's a surfing town with lots of beautiful beaches and nice shops and places to eat. We arrived here on Friday afternoon and since then we've mostly just been relaxing.

Our second day in Denmark, we went out to Ocean Beach and spent the afternoon exploring the beach and enjoying the sunshine. The water is unbelievably blue and the sand is so white!

Ocean Beach

 We were planning on taking the bus from Denmark to Walpole the next day but we met a lady named Judy in our hostel who had a car and was headed the same way so we decided to get a lift with her so we could stop and see more along the way. It turns out she is a world traveler and has been to all but probably 5 or 6 countries in the world! She's even been to Antarctica! Along the way to Walpole we stopped to see two of the iconic spots along the coast, Greens Pool and the Elephant Rocks, and did the famous tree-top walk in the Valley of the Giants (a forest of giant trees known as Red Tingle trees).

Greens Pool

Elephant Rocks

Tree-top Walk

One of the Giants

We stayed the night in Walpole and then set off the next morning. Judy was only going as far as Augusta but we wanted to continue on so we took the bus to Margaret River in the afternoon.

Our first day here we just explored the town and then hung out with the other people in the hostel. There's a pretty good group of people here and I almost wish I was staying in the area longer because it seems like a great place to be. Saturday we went into town in the morning and had an excellent cup of coffee at a place called the Urban Bean. We wandered around town for a good part of the day and then went back to the hostel to relax for a while before heading back into town and going for a few drinks at the Settlers Tavern.

Sunday we went to Prevelly Beach and the Riverfront Beach. The beaches here are absolutely stunning and relatively quiet. The waves are huge and it seems like a great place to surf. If I come back to this area I'll definitely have to take up surfing!

The Margaret River Bakery

Yesterday was a quiet day spent mostly drinking coffee. We went back to the Urban Bean, wandered around town a bit, and then went to a cute little bakery called the Margaret River Bakery where they have delicious, fresh food and good coffee. How I've missed good coffee! Later in the afternoon I decided to go out for a much needed run and explore the area and I discovered a system of beautiful trails through the woods. The main trail is track left from the old railroad but there are lots of other small trails branching off of it. There are lots of pretty bridges and the forest is so green and lush with big, beautiful trees. The weather was perfect for running and I felt like I could've run forever! I only planned on doing a short run but it was so nice I ended up running for more than and hour!


We're off to a late start again today but I think we'll go back into town for more coffee and then maybe go out for $5 tacos tonight. It's a hard life being a traveler...

From Coast to Coast

Although it's been ages since I left the East Coast and arrived in Western Australia, I actually wrote a blog post right after I arrived in Kulin but never posted it because I haven't had decent internet access in months. I’ve put it in here since it’s easier to just copy and paste it rather than trying to recap everything:

My last Tuesday in Sydney was mostly a travel day. We slept in a little and then took a shuttle to the airport to catch our flight back to Sydney at 11:00am. Once back in Sydney we walked to Circular Quay to see the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Opera House one last time. We tried to watch the sunset from the front of the Opera House but the weather was cold and rainy and the sunset was nearly non-existent except for a few pinkish clouds. Afterwards, we walked back towards the city center and got dinner at a burger place where we had Indian-style veggie burgers in a purple bun! Weird looking but so delicious!

Our last day in Sydney (Wednesday) was nice and relaxed. We left the hostel around 8:30 and went to breakfast at our favorite little café where the lady at the counter knows our orders because we went there almost every day we were in Sydney. Then I went to the bank and cell phone company to finish up some last-minute stuff before leaving the city and then we walked to a part of Sydney known as Darling Harbour, which is a cute little harbor-side area with lots of shopping and food places and some pretty fountains, a man-made river and an awesome playground (of course we played on the playground for a bit). We were both eager to get to the airport and ready to leave Syndey so even though our flights didn't leave until after 7:00pm, we took the train to the airport around noon. Since Katherine was flying internationally and I was flying domestic, we had to check-in at different parts of the airport, so even though we would've liked to hang out until the very end, we said goodbye and went our separate ways - Katherine to Hawaii and home and me to Perth, Western Australia.

Darling Harbor

My flight left Sydney at 7:15pm Sydney time and arrived in Perth around 9:45pm Perth time. Just a couple days before I left Sydney I found a place to stay with a family outside of Perth and they agreed to pick me up from the airport which was so great. The family saw that I was looking for a place to stay through a site called HelpX which an absolutely wonderful resource for backpackers because it connects travelers who are looking for a place to stay with locals who are looking for help around their house or farm. In exchange for working for a few hours a day, the backpackers get free food and accommodation. The family I'm staying with at the moment has a 100-acre farm about 40 minutes out of Perth in a place called Gidgegannup. Their farm is absolutely beautiful and they have 30 horses which they play polo with during the summer. I help them out by helping exercise the horses in the morning. It's easy work because they have an automatic horse walker so all we have to do is put the horses in and out of the walker. It usually takes a few hours every morning to work the 13 that are currently in work and the afternoons are free. A few times they've taken me to the train station and then I took the train to Perth or Midland (the closest "big" town) and other days I just relaxed or explored the farm/local area. 

The view from my bedroom door at the farm - they have a pet kangaroo!

Wild emus on the farm!

I left the farm this past Tuesday (August 19^th) and got on a bus to a small town called Kulin, three and a half hours southeast of Perth. Since then I’ve been working at the Kulin hotel, which is a country pub, restaurant, and hotel that looks like it’s been here since Kulin was settled in 1910. I work at the bar in the evenings and clean in the morning. Kulin is a small, quiet but pleasant town surrounded by farmland and the people who visit the hotel reflect that. Wednesday and Thursday were fairly busy days but other days only a handful of people come in, but all the people that do come in are friendly and nice and most of them are farmers.  

I've just finished two and a half months of working at a country pub/hotel (the Kulin Hotel) in a small country town called Kulin in the wheat belt of Western Australia. It is located about 3 1/2 hours southeast of Perth, WA and is basically in the middle of nowhere. I wasn't sure what to expect when I first arrived in Kulin but it was really a great place to be for a few months. I spent most of my time working at the hotel, the local IGA, a café, and a daycare center but I did make friends with some of the locals and fellow backpackers and we did have some pretty good times. When I wasn't working I spent my time going for runs, going for bike rides, and enjoying the great social atmosphere in Kulin. :)

On an epic 18 km bike ride across the Australian Outback

The Kulin Hotel

All the lovely photos above were taken by my friend Maria Strong

Kulin's biggest - and really the only - event of the year is the Bush Races. It's a couple days of horse races and other events that people come from all over to be a part of. I was lucky enough to be in town for the weekend of the races and see Kulin become a bustling tourist hub rather than the quiet farming town it usually is. Because I was working I didn't get to see the actual races but I did make it out for the band at night and it was good to get out for a bit.

Kulin also boasts a few tourist attractions... It is the location of the largest water slide in Western Australia (unfortunately, it wasn't open while I was there) and the Tin Horse Highway, which is a collection of horses made by locals from scraps of tin and other materials, and it is an hour's drive from an interesting-looking wave-like rock called... Wave Rock.

One of the tin horses

The famous slide

Hippo's Yawn

As exciting as Kulin was, I was ready to leave and quite happy when the day finally came. I left early Saturday morning and headed south with a few of friends who have also been working in Kulin. We spent the weekend in Albany, the oldest town in WA, which is a beautiful port town on Western Australia's southern coast. We arrived just in time for ANZAC Albany which was a series of events commemorating the day 100 years ago when the first convoy of Australian and New Zealand soldiers left Albany to fight in the First World War. We missed the main event - the parade - but it was a busy weekend with a lot going on anyway. It was quite a change from quiet Kulin!

Sunset in Albany

A few friends had to go back to Kulin after the weekend and now Maria (one of the girls I worked with) and I are continuing to travel along the coast. Today, we took the bus from Albany to a pretty little town called Denmark about 40 minutes west. We spent the day cycling around the lush, green farmland, checking out the local wineries, and exploring a bit of the coast. Minus the hundreds of annoying flies that are constantly swarming you, it is a paradisaical place! We'll spend another day here tomorrow and hopefully explore some of the famous beaches before setting off for our next destination.

Sorry for the long post!

Til next time,
Sam

Ya Know, Just Scuba Diving in the Great Barrier Reef

Yet another amazing day in Australia - possibly the best one yet. Katherine and I got up early this morning and hopped on a shuttle from the hostel to the wharf in Cairns where we got on the Silverswift boat to go diving in the Great Barrier Reef!!!

The Great Barrier Reef

Me and Nigel

The photographer kissing Nigel

The weather was absolutely beautiful today (sunny and 27 degrees Celsius)but the sea was a little rough and lots of people were getting seasick on the boat though, fortunately, I wasn't one of them. It took us about an hour and 20 minutes to get to our first dive site and on the way there, the crew briefed us over morning tea. Once we arrived at the first site, we suited up in sting suits (full-body lycra suits) and wet suits and then got all our scuba gear on and we were ready to dive! Since I was doing the introductory dive, we first had to practice a few skills before we could actually dive. It was my first time diving and I didn't know what to expect but it was so cool! The hardest part for me was getting used to breathing through the mouthpiece, known as the regulator, since it feels really different from normal breathing. The pressure also makes you need to pop your ears almost constantly as you descend and it can hurt if you don't pop them. After I got used to it, though, it was so great and actually really relaxing. The coral and fish were incredible and we got to hold sea cucumbers and met the huge local Napoleon fish, named Nigel, who always comes to see the divers from the boat. It felt like we had just started when our guide signaled for us to come to the surface and we all had to get back on the boat.

Sea turtle!!!

We then toweled off and went inside for lunch as the boat took off for our next dive site. Certified divers had the option of diving at each of the three dive sites but I could only dive twice so after lunch I went snorkeling. The second dive site was even better than the first, with huge coral towers that were so colorful and intricate it didn't seem real. There were also so many amazing fish - some were rainbow, some were leopard-spotted, some were zebra-striped - I could hardly believe they were real. My favorite part of the       whole dive, though, was seeing a Green Sea Turtle right below where I was snorkeling!!! I wish I had been diving so I could've swum right down next to her.

Our last dive site was only about 10 minutes from the second one so we put all our gear on on the way and were ready to hop in when we got there. This time it was just me, the guide, and one other person and we got to swim freely and explore a little more. The guide showed us some giant clams, which are actually surprisingly gorgeous inside and if you watch them you can see them opening and closing their shell as they eat! He also showed some coral that changes color when you touch it. I can't believe how many amazing creatures there are living underwater that you wouldn't ever see without going in the water!

We got back from diving around 5:00 and walked back to the hostel (with a quick ice cream stop along the way) and I think tonight will be another night in since we're both tired from our day on the water. Maybe we'll finish the movie we started last night. :) Tomorrow we're off for our last two days of adventures before Katherine heads back to the states and I head to Perth for a job.

Take care,
Sam