Today we woke up early and sailed into Mystic Seaport on the Mystic River in Connecticut. The seaport is home to one of largest maritime museums in our country, with its shoreline set up as it would have been in the mid-1800s, back when Mystic was an important seafaring village full of big trade boats and skilled craftsmen.
Unbeknownst to us, we were sailing in on a very important day for Mystic – the birthday of Herman Melville, who wrote the American classic Moby Dick. Therefore, there were multiple celebrations going on around Mystic, including a 24-hour reading of Moby Dick which we were lucky enough to walk into during the climactic last chapter.
The cadets spent the day exploring the museum, one of the highlights of which included the Charles W. Morgan, the last wooden whaling ship in the world. The ship is under renovation, but visitors are still allowed to walk inside for a closer look at how and where the crew would have worked and lived. The cadets are now familiar with different parts of a ship, but this was definitely the more massive and impressive version we’ve seen so far. We learned a lot about the process of whaling and the dangers that sailors used to face as they attempted to find and kill whales. Even after the hunt was over, the whalers would have to drag the whale back to the ship using a small boat, often rowing for hours due to the weight of the whale, and then start the long process of cutting off the blubber, hoisting it onto the ship, and cooking it down into oil, often in a race against the sharks that would circle the whale and eat away at its blubber. We all agreed that we’d pass on a position as a whaler were it offered to us.
The rest of the museum was made up of other ships, various exhibits (a favorite being the exhibit on the history of tattoos), and old buildings set up as 19th century businesses, including a bank, a publishing house, a grocery, a chemist, a ship supply shop, a blacksmith, and many others. A scavenger hunt encouraged the cadets to interact with the different staff members who were posing as craftsmen, and they learned a lot about how a seafaring village would have been run. We also joined a small audience to watch an interactive play called “Tale of a Whaler”, during which we learned more about life on a whaling ship (and reaffirmed our conviction that we wouldn’t want to be a “greenhand”, or an inexperienced sailor, on a whaling ship).
In the afternoon, we were treated to a lesson in sea shanties, or songs sung on deck to help in the hoisting of sails, the heaving in of anchors, and other jobs that involved rhythmic work. We were told that a shanty has been said to be equivalent to ten extra men on the line. Music was a big part of life for sailors, and the sea shanties had influences from all over the world due to the diversity of the whaling ship crews. There was also often a designated “shanty man” who would be responsible for leading the shanties. After our lesson, we went back inside the Morgan to witness a “dog-watch”, which is a two-hour shift on deck during which the men were allowed to socialize and, often, play music. Here, we heard more songs of the sea, this time mostly ballads, played on multiple instruments that the crew would have had on the ship, including a pair of “rhythm bones” made from real bone.
After a long day, we headed back to the Lady Maryland and settled in for a night at the dock. Thunder storms were rolling in all around us, but somehow avoided the area where we were docked, so that we had a great view of the storm without getting wet. Before bed, the crew had a surprise for us. Below deck, we got to watch a movie called Around Cape Horn about a man named Irving Johnson who sailed around Cape Horn aboard a shipping vessel in 1929 – and filmed it. The storms the crew encountered near the Cape were incredibly violent and dangerous, and the footage, some of it shot from the highest rigging, was extraordinary. Though we all went to sleep feeling a little less intense about our own adventures, I think it’s safe to say we all feel a little smitten with the sea.
Tomorrow morning, we head back towards Bristol!
Preparing to dock at Mystic.
Cadets ready to ease our docking with a few roving fenders.
A demonstration on the different positions of the crew during a whaling kill.
A small model of the Charles W. Morgan, the last remaining wooden whaling ship in the world.
(Almost) the whole gang of the Lady Maryland at Mystic Seaport!
Watching the storm settle over Mystic River.
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