CTY Bristol -- Days 5 + 6

Hello friends and family! Sorry for the brief hiatus!

Yesterday was Day 5 of our voyage at sea, and it was a blast. We spent the morning on Naushon Island, where we had anchored the night before. The kids even went seining and caught a couple jellyfish, some crabs, seaweed, and Rob even caught a piperfish with his own bare hands! The students learned about sailor's traditions of etching in whale teeth, using tagua nuts instead! But more importantly, the students got to go swimming with a bottle of Dawn dish soap. We played a game of splish splish splash (similar to duck duck goose) and soon it was time to go back for lunch.

After lunch, our usual sailing schedule continued with half of the students learning about whales and estuaries and the other half learning more about sailing, navigating, and how to properly run a ship like the Lady Maryland. We sailed into Martha's Vineyard by 5 PM, sailing off the hook and tacking the sails on and off. The captain sat all of the students down after sailing and said it was a day that would go down in the history of the Lady Maryland, and that it was one of his proudest days as a captain. The students truly were working hard all afternoon, asking questions, doing their duties, and having an open mind toward everything thrown at them. The students then, as many of you probably know, got to call home and make sure everyone knows that they were alive and well. It was also... movie night! The students gathered in the main hold with some popcorn prepared by the ship's cook and watched the narrated sailing film "Around Cape Horn" and got to see what living on a real sailboat in the 20s was really like.
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We woke up this morning bright and early, ate some breakfast, and separated into our watches again. Today and yesterday were some of the only days we have had with reasonably rough waters, so the students quickly had to adjust to that obstacle.  Half of the students learned a great deal about plankton while the others spent time doing their necessary ship-life duties. We spent the afternoon sailing, going through the canal to get to Cape Cod, where we are now docked in Provincetown, Mass.

We can't believe tomorrow is already day 7 on our voyage! That's all for now. Check out some of these pictures below!