On the main! lay aloft and loose all sail!

This past Sunday was the first day of Sail Training. Muster was at 7:30, on the docks, for sign in and such, which meant that I'd have to leave my house at 6:15 to get there on time. I was all set. I had both my alarms set and all my stuff ready. That morning, the first alarm went off, and I turned it off, waiting for the second to go off 30 minutes later at 5:45. I woke myself up a couple of times, and then wondered why it was getting light out. I looked at my clock, and it said 6:30. CRAP! I was out of bed in an instant, and within 10 minutes I was dressed, teeth brushed and out the door. I made it to San Diego at 7:45. I won't say how fast I was driving. I got there just in time to stand in a line for 20 minutes. *sigh*

After that, things got better. There were about 130+ people there, so we were divided up into groups. Each group had a station to be at, to learn new things for a certain period of time, then the groups would rotate. We learned to tie some of the very important and common knots on board ship, we learned history, we learned terminology, we learned safety and we had a physical test. There are three jobs for crew members. There is the Deck Crew, who work the lines and capstans and such on deck. There is the Top Crew, which go up the shrouds to the yards and take care of the sails, all the way up to the top of the masts. And there is the Jib Crew. They go out on the jib boom, which sticks out of the very front of the ship, to tend the four sails that anchor to that boom. To qualify for deck crew, I had to be able to haul a 75 lb bag of rocks about 15 ft in the air vertically, and from a horizontal rope (the rope came down from the pulley, through a block anchored to the floor and over to me). To qualify for Top crew, I had to climb a 15 rope and be able to do 2 pull ups. And to qualify for Jib crew, I had to be able to hang from each arm for 5 seconds. I passed for deck crew only. I can't do the other things...yet. But I don't ever want to go up top anyway. The Star of India's mainmast rises 148 feet off the deck....I ain't goin' up there. Ever.

So anyway. The classes went well. I can now tie a bowline knot, and do a clove hitch or two half hitches, make a stopper knot and do a figure 8 knot. I also know the names of all the sails, the anatomy of the ship and a few other things. But I think that the most important thing about this entire experience is that I've been making friends. The people who teach us, the maintenance crew and the new trainees are all volunteers. They are there because they love the ships. And most of them are really really nice. That's important to me. Making friends, learning new stuff, and most importantly, getting to know better and spend time on these marvelous creations that up until a hundred years ago, were the way to travel the world.

Ta!