CTY Whales Trip #2

Hello friends and family of CTY! We are posting this blog on a beautiful night aboard the Lady Maryland. All of our students have already had some fantastic adventures, so to start our blog we wanted to have a few of them share their experiences with you. We will continue with this trend throughout our time at sea, so look forward to hearing directly from your student on future posts. If you don't see your student's name on tonight's post there is no need to worry, we'll have plenty of photos on each installment that will hopefully feature your cadet at sea. Thanks and be sure to stay posted! 

Cadet Allison: 

          This morning started out much earlier than needed for several crew mates embarked on Lady Maryland. 

          Some peers handled the midnight shifts well, but others didn't take it lightly. What we first had to do was to get asssistance from the crew staff in order to know how to properly check the ship while others were sleeping. 

          We first needed to walk around and check the anchors on both sides (Starboard and Port) to know where exactly the boat traveled under the currents of both water and wind. 

          The next job that we needed to do was to look over the compass near the wheel and check what direction the ship is heading and also include what direction the wind was blowing.

          Next step is to check the temperature and allow the crew staff to go down and gather the information on how much Volts the ship is using at the moment. 

          Then the last and most exciting job (in my opinion) is holding up the compass to measure the degree to see how far we have shifted from our regular position, also known as checking the bearings around the port we settled at. 

          After all checks, (which takes around 5-10 minutes) it is a great time to settle down and answer the final question of the day. Overall, watches may allow everybody to be sleep deprived, but it is a great exercise to allow all to experience the authentic ocean life. 

Cadets Savannah + Morgan:

Yesterday, when we arrived at the boat we found out about our bunks and our watches. Half of us went to Port Watch and the other to Starboard Watch. Port was assigned Navagating while Starboard was assigned class time. When we began sailing, we saw a Finback Whale off to the starboard side and two seals, one on each side. We made flags for our watches. Jasper, the cook, has made the best meals. We had curry cauliflower and burritos. And then first anchor watches started at 10. Savannah's watch was at 2300 to 0000. Morgan's was from 0130 to 0240. 

Cadet Michael: 

Whales. Big, wet, mammals. Today, we went on a whale watch. We left the Lady Maryland at 1200, and got on this boat bigger than us called the Dolphin VIII. At 1330, or one thirty, we left for the Stellwagen bank, which is like a feeding ground. There we waited until we saw a humpback. Sources, (Emily, our Whales instructor) told us her name, and her friends name, because a second one had shown up. Their names were echo and venom. Echo was noticeable by her fluke patterns, while venom was identified by a chunk of her fluke being torn off by a fishing net. We were surprised by echo and venom, because at one point, they were less than 10 feet away from the boat! Then, we saw fin whales in the distance. Fin whales are the second biggest animal in the WORLD. To contradict that, we saw minke whales, one of the smaller whales in the ocean. Minke is pronounced mink-e. Hi Mom and/or Dad!