Though there is a rainbow around the sun behind me, this will be a picture-less post. The internet connection is not strong enough here, anchored in a bay in sight of the Mt. Hope suspension bridge adjacent to Roger Williams University. Recognition of the same set the students off with exclamations of "The showers are so close!" and, "Let's just sail in now!". But I don't think they regret having spent the afternoon on the boat. It was full of activities that probably wouldn't have sounded fun to them ten days ago, but they had a blast.
Yesterday we were up early to have breakfast, carry out duty and dishwashing and make our way to the New Bedford Whaling Museum, twenty minutes before it opened. The museum is a testament to the town's illustrious past, as "the city that lit the world". Before petroleum, whale oil was the way to keep your home or business lit, burning without smoke and, if you were willing to shell out for sperm whale oil, with no odor. The boom of the industry provided the inspiration for Herman Melville's Moby Dick, allowed the town to become a hotbed of abolitionism, and made it one of the richest cities in America. The kids got to explore a half-sized replica of a whaling ship (built first, then the museum was built around it), see forty to sixty foot whale skeletons (one of a blue whale that was still dripping oil), and see a collection of scrimshaw that filled two rooms, to name just a few of the attractions.
After watching a movie about the history of whaling and New Bedford, we walked back to the Lady Maryland and set sail before sitting down to lunch. As we sailed up the Narragansett Bay, the weather took a slight turn for the worse. For a while we got to sail directly downwind, swinging the mainsail out to starboard and the foresail out to port, essentially turning the Lady into a square-rigger, but when the time came for more maneuvering, the captain turned on the engines and motored us up to a more sheltered anchorage. The cook prepared for us an ideal cold and rainy weather meal, cornbread muffins, rice, hot beans and okra, and spirits were soaring by the end of the meal.
Today we spent the morning in a "field day". Sounds like fun, right? Well I think it was, even though it was the crew's euphemism for cleaning the entire ship, bow to stern. Of course there was grumbling, but by the time we were polishing brass until it shined, the sun was shining, the kids were singing and everyone was pleased to be walking around a clean ship. Following some evaluations in the early afternoon, we had "Schooner Olympics", a competition of line identification, knot-tying, other kinds of quizzing and finally a buoyancy contest, were groups of two had four popsicle sticks, a rectangle of tin foil, and a foot or so of duct tape to create a vessel that would support the greatest number of small lead weights.
After a taco salad dinner, the lesson-reinforcement is continuing with a game of whales, estuaries, and nautical mechanics jeopardy. Everyone is looking forward to getting back to campus tomorrow, but at least one piped up during dinner, "this is sad it's our last meal on the boat". Expect to see some tanned and hardened but joyful and invigorated youths when you pick them up in two days. There should be a few more pictures up before then, when we're closer to land. Until then!
Polishing brass until we could see our reflections in it, and singing all the while.
