Slow tours

A very slow day of tours, starboard watch was on tours and very lazy work party. Brooke, Mitch and Laura sanded the fore lower mast, it was fun to watch them as the rest of us baked in the sun at our different stations. I started at the great cabin but ended up scraping paint off the main mast and talking to Katie as she did merchandise and cleaned out the merch cupboard.

While I was suppose to be at capstan station I ended up oiling a bunch of the grates by the helm and aft. When I was suppose to move to the great cabin and go to scrapping hell I continued to oil instead because it’s far more fun.

Old poster found

Gift shop

Train station

Old power plant

Yonkers

This morning while hauling up the anchor I noticed it was purple. Mitch painted it with corraseal yesterday and that’s what the salt water did to it. Before we left our anchorage we tided up a few of our furls and got dock lines and things ready. Getting onto the dock was pretty easy; we even had a tug boat raft up to us for awhile. Later on we had some problems with our brows and had to move them around and then the boat and play with the dock lines.

Walked around the city a bit… but honestly there is nothing around. Yonkers is a strange place.

Tug boat rafting up to us.

Yonkers

Dana's car

To Yonkers

Got underway in the morning with our small crew plus four more, two passengers, Rob and Tim, Carolyn, the old crewmember and her friend Colleen who might work with us over the summer. We sailed off the dock and worked the braces for a long time, I ended up making lunch and dinner so I was not on deck very much.

It was a great day, sailed off the dock and sailed onto the hook where we anchored for the night.

Anchored

Anchor ball and light.

Freezers

Got stuck in the galley all day with Brooke. First we were figuring out where Cookie put everything and what we had then we ended up painting the freezers. The rust on them was so thick, it was horrible, now they are bright white, like brand new.

Grant flaked 18 shots of chain today. First he did the port and then decided to re flake starboard because it was so horrible.

Fuel up.

Duck

Brooke painting the freezers.

Chain locker

Another cloudy rainy day so we worked inside ish. Scottie and I cleaned out the starboard chain locker, it was filled with mud and rust flacks. We then had to flake it back into the locker, it was really hard, 8 shots, we took turns, we were trying to make it really flat and take up as much room as possible, but didn’t quite happen. We then payed out the port side and did the same thing, in the chain lockers we found a glove, a sock and a mag light.

Day off

Sad, cloudy day, but there is amazing fog coming off the hills by the river. Ended up not doing a whole lot, went to the Laundromat with Zach, a friend of him, old crewmate, Carolyn drove us.

Too many tourists

A really long day of nothing but tours, we put about three thousand people through and sold a lot of merchandise.

While posted at the capstan you get asked a lot about what the capstan is. By the great cabin you constantly have to close doors and ask people not to open them. What is the fascination of what’s behind the doors? A lot of kids also ask their parents what the barrel is for that sits on top of the laz, no one ever really asks you. Finally got someone to ask me and I said, “It’s just a barrel.”

Newburgh

We opened for tours today, but were late because the Coast Guard was late to come and inspect us. Robin eventually went around taking pictures of fire extinguishers and what not, we got approved by email, the Coast Guard did eventually come by though.

I spent all day sanding and oiling, the forward hatch and the great cabin hatch, then the forward pin rails. Brooke and I really wanted to take the nasty stuff that was on the deck that was on the stanchions off, we did it. Other people came by to help when we rotated people for tours and they thought we were crazy, but by the end of the day the stanchions looked amazing and they all loved it.

Dana also came by and brought us a lot of donuts and coffee. Caleb and Rebecca also stayed the night, it was nice to see them.

Before.

After.

Belay pins.

Hudson River

All the anchor watches have been making me get a lot more sleep so I got up at 8 when Jesse got up and had breakfast. I spent some time cleaning up my bunk, but then Grant told me I should go on deck because it’s really beautiful. It is, the Hudson River really is amazing, rocky cliffs, lots of trees and huge houses. We even went by West Point and fired a gun at them, there was a huge echo off the buildings.

On deck on duty, so I ended up helping C watch furl the headsails for their work party.

We got to Newburgh right after lunch, so most of us didn’t get to eat till we had docked. Docking was really easy this time around.

Zach preparing dock lines.

Airplane.

Brooke preparing dock lines.

Jesse adding a back strap of seine twin to his sandals.

Brooke and Zach looking over the Hudson river.

West Point.

Brenerman's Castle.

Anchoring

We anchored last night but half way through our morning watch we left, Laura ended up flaking chain and it wasn’t too bad, about four shots. Scottie said her first time flaking she had nine shots and it was not explained very well to her how to flake.

Afternoon work party consisted of me sewing some bolt rope on the forestaysail and putting some patches on the foretopsail. The patches were a lot harder to do because sail was furled I couldn’t get my hand under the fabric to guide the needle, just had to sew on the surface.

Again watch was cut short because we anchored, after watch most of us did hang out in the galley instead of going to bed. Brooke and I made a huge batch of oatmeal cookies.

New York, Hudson River.

Mystic Whaler.

Double work party

Left Greenport this morning, all hands. A watch now has the 4 to 8, my favorite, but unfortunately we didn’t get to nap, we had double work party. In the morning I worked on a bit of baggy wrinkle and then helped Brooke take down the fore course brace to service the blocks. In the afternoon Katie and I played with the bit of whale board that we had cut off.

Watch was really nice because now that we have four people to go through the rotation we have an idle position.

Sysco Order

Greenport is a really small town and closes down in the winter, so not only were there not a lot of shops up and running, but Monday seems to be their Sunday, most everything was closed.

We also received our sysco order.

Sysco

Robin and the mast.

Nautical junk store.

Tours

Starboard watch was on and I had duty, turn to wasn’t until 0930 so those who woke early had some time to hang in the galley. Two great things happened, we realized that the five people who were up were from the west coast plus Katie, so we made fun of her. And then Jesse’s egg exploded after he took his plate out of the microwave right in his face as he started to eat it.

We did tours all day, ended up talking to someone who helped build the Unicorn and a lady who worked on the A.J. Merwald.

Day sail

Turn to wasn’t until 10, it was great to sleep in. The morning consisted of more cleaning and getting the boat looking pretty for Bob. We had a day sail with Bob and his friends. The weather turned out great, cold but really nice.

At the end of the day there was a cocktail party on the boat, it’s kind of strange to always have strangers in your house.

Also got a returning crew member, Robyn, also known as Scottie because you can’t have two Robyn’s. She’s from Scotland.

New Crew

We also got a free breakfast next to the place where we had free dinner last night. Once again lots more cleaning before the coast guard came. Brooke and I ended up in the engine room, then playing with the jib stay and then oiling the deck. We were open for tours but didn’t get many people because it was really cold.

Our new 2^nd mate arrived as well, Darren, but we’ve been calling him Dudley and apparently he goes by John. But he’s cool with us calling him Dudley, he worked on the bark Eagle, the Coast Guard’s tall ship.

New 2nd Mate

We also got a free breakfast next to the place where we had free dinner last night. Once again lots more cleaning before the coast guard came. Brooke and I ended up in the engine room, then playing with the jib stay and then oiling the deck. We were open for tours but didn’t get many people because it was really cold.

Our new 2^nd mate arrived as well, Darren, but we’ve been calling him Dudley and apparently he goes by John. But he’s cool with us calling him Dudley, he worked on the bark Eagle, the Coast Guard’s tall ship.

Bosuns and Free Dinner

Spent the whole day cleaning up the boat, we are going to have a coast guard inspection tomorrow. A watch was in bosuns, C watch on the tweens and B watch on the deck.

Bosuns was not a complete mess, just needed to tidy things up and make sure all the flammable things were in the flammable locker. The tweens needed to be organized and the weather deck a super wash. I spent far too long in bosuns though, ended up sorting screws and organizing all the hardware, was starting to go nuts after awhile.

For dinner we got invited by a local shop to eat dinner at their café. It was amazing; it was a vegan market that also had food. We got celery salad, pasta and garlic bread. It was nice to all eat together somewhere other than the galley with free food. Ended up also getting hot chocolate and spent the night watching movies.

Greenport

Had a good watch, easy calm water, land on both sides of us. For work party I tarred the main topgallant backstay, hung in my harness the whole time, I feel bruises coming.

We also arrived in Greenport after dinner, pretty easy docking, no one was around. Katie jumped on the dock to handle our dock lines.

New York!

It was absolutely freezing this morning, after awhile you’d think it would have warmed up, but no. Watch was good, felt like it was never going to end though, especially when you’re frozen on forward look out.

Work party was again more tensioning of shrouds; Jesse and I were on the fore crosstrees. It had started to sprinkle before we went aloft so we all put on our foulies and then trudged up. I also kept having the come alongs stab me in the head.

The view from aloft was the most amazing thing ever as we were headed towards the East River that flows along Manhattan. After we were stood down from work party at 4 I grabbed my camera and headed aloft again to take pictures. C watch had a lot of company on their watch because most of us stayed on deck and had our dinner up there as well. We motored passed the Statue of Liberty, under Brooklyn Bridge and saw a lot of the famous buildings of New York. At the end of it all we anchored, go anchor watch.

Grant.

Dinner.

Statue of Liberty.

South Street Seaport.

Katie and John.

Jesse and Grant.

Zach and Brooke going through Hell's Gate.