Life at Sea Part 3: The Routine
This most recent leg of the voyage took us from Plymouth, England, to Porto, Portugal, with an unexpected stopover in A Coruña, Spain. Porto is a gem among many Western European cities I have visited with its iconic tiled facades, alleys lined with brightly colored buildings, delectable pastel de natas, and tranquil monastic structures. It deserves its own post in the future.
Life on the ship begins to blur. Wake up, eat, sleep, teach, eat, teach, watch, eat, teach, sleep. It sounds dull when laid out, but there is fun in a routine. We look forward to every port where we are sure to find incredible food and cultural experiences, but while at sea, we find joy in literally learning the ropes. Each line we haul brings us closer as a community and improves our German, making the next command a tad easier to understand. We are also trained in the physics of the maneuvers. Which lines need to move and in what order to change our course? The answer is most of them.
Many of our regular 2-hour watches can be uneventfully spent touring the lines and discussing hypothetical changes we would make. Still, others are two full hours of scampering about the deck, up and down the rigging, moving yards, pulling sheets, and a bunch of other things I only know the German for but have never seen written. For my last full watch, I lost count, but I think we set 7 sails, adjusted the yard angles thrice, took away two sails (pulling them up, which I thought was the same as furling, but I have been told that is the act of rolling the sails up on the yards, which we do in every port), and used almost every rope on the fore and main decks for something. It was exhausting work, and the watch after us was not very happy looking at how many ropes needed to be coiled. I think the wind died on their watch, too, which meant they had to undo everything we did.
We have the occasional surprise, such as the stop in A Coruña. We had quite an amazing day in a bay near Vigo, Spain; code name: engine trouble. We set ourselves adrift and spent a few hours jumping from the bow to the sea, swimming about, and flying about on our ship’s two zodiac boats. This might have been seminal in and of itself, but it was compounded when a pod of whales (fin whales?) passed under and around us, breaching and diving in an apparent search for food. As the sun crept lower, dolphins joined the fun, almost performing for us with great leaps and twirls. It was a pure day and really put into perspective the weight of what these students are experiencing. Sure, they have classes, but there is nothing like taking a few hours off to know the world as it lives and breaths with you.
We have traveled approximately 1700 nautical miles this journey (roughly 2000 miles). I would quickly lose track of the days and dates if I weren’t tied to my class schedule. I see how freeing this could be. Everything falls away in our wake. It’s a good life, and I hope to keep that in perspective the next time I get seasick. The highs are high, and the lows are low, but every so often, I find my mind in the moment and glimpse peace. Morocco, here we come.
