Greetings from sunny Massachusetts!  As always, things are swell on the Lady Maryland...and I do mean swell!  The students and crew sailed through the afternoon yesterday hitting a few swells here and there, while the students ate up every minute of the adventure, and the responsibility of keeping the Lady M safe.  Yesterday afternoon and most of the day today were filled with sailing in order to get to our current location, where we are preparing to go on our professional whale watching tomorrow.  Until then, the students are working furiously on research for their project, a newspaper about what they have learned on their voyage about whales and estuaries.  The educators and crew are hard at work keeping them focused and enthusiastic, even though the brisk breeze and mild rain showers try to dampen the student's "undampenable" spirits!  What troopers!  The crew comments over and over on the students's maturity, sense of responsibility, and genuine seriousness when it comes to completing their tasks and completing it well. The students were introduced to a few new "boaty bits" over the past day.  For example, the crew put reefs in the sails (decreased the canvas area using ties called reefs) and were pleasantly surprised when many of the students noticed and asked about it. They also learned how to calculate the ship's speed using only a bit of wood on a line, a stop watch, and an equation.  Many of them are amazed at the traditional way that things like position and speed were determined before radar and other technology, and it is the crew's delight to introduce it to them. 
The students classes have been going just as splendidly as their ship duties!  Yesterday's lesson included observing plankton with the microscopes, and learning about the small animals, while today's lesson focused on how whales use baleen to feed.  And, as is the Lady Maryland's way, the students learned it all by doing.  They are all happy and healthy and ready for another amazing day on board their living classroom.