News
From Boot Watch, to Buff Watch, to Best Watch…
Megan Deevy, B Watch
Ship’s Log
Present Location
41° 25.5’N 070° 47.2’W
Ship’s Heading, Speed and Sail plan
Anchored in Menemsha Bight, getting underway to the Cape Cod Canal at 02:30 tonight, 10/20/2020
Weather
Sunshine, light breeze, blue skies and shorts weather
Life on the Corwith Cramer is unlike a life I have ever lived before. It is an adventure every day, with something new being thrown at us hour by hour, and we have only been here for 10 days. A big part of being on this boat is the watch rotations, because that is what our lives revolve around. B watch’s first full watch was dawn watch (01:00-0:700). On this watch, we had cold weather, big swells, and rocky seas, and as you can imagine from these conditions, almost everyone in our watch was over the rails getting sea sick at some point throughout the night. Because of this, our watch got the name of ‘Boot watch.’
Harrison, Aidan, Becca, Megan, and Nora on the bow sprit getting ready to jump off during swim call.
Our next dawn watch was drastically different, we were south of Long Island, the conditions were calm, and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. The stars during this watch were something I have never seen before, and possibly something I will never see again. I saw a total of 42 shooting stars throughout the night, 3 planets and could see the Milky Way perfectly. I was so grateful to be there in that moment, and it shows how much things can change so quickly on this journey. On one of our morning watches soon after, we had a perfect day to set the main sail, and we were the first watch to do so.
This is the biggest sail on the ship and it takes a lot of people power to haul it up. Because of this, our watch name quickly got changed to ‘buff watch,’ and has stuck since then. This first day of intense sailing handling showed me how amazing the rest of the sailing is going to be, especially as we get far from shore.
Lucia on lookout during sunset
To fast forward to the past few days, I have had a change of pace in the watch rotation. Throughout the trip, everyone in the watches rotates through lab, deck, engineer, galley (dishes), and assistant steward. When you are assistant steward, you are out of the watch rotation for a day and get to cook with Katey and Adam. My steward day was yesterday and was so much fun because Katey and Adam are awesome, and we sang songs all day while cooking.
I also get to choose what we make for all the meals that day. For breakfast, we made breakfast burritos, for first snack we made a tofu dip with veggies, for lunch we made fried rice and Asian slaw salad, for second snack we made fruit sushi and homemade bread pudding boa buns with pears and homemade caramel on top, and for dinner we made spring rolls and Asian noodles. We also sailed through a windmill farm and jibed in-between the windmills which
was so cool because I love windmills (Block Island Wind Farm).
Block Island Wind Farm at sunset.
Today started out as a stressful day because we had our pin rail chase. We have been learning all the lines to the sails throughout the trip so far in order to be able to be able to know the sails without the help of the mates. The race was a relay race with our watches and we all got super hyped beforehand. C watch won, but Buff watch was a close second, but still the best watch of course. After the race, Captain said our two favorite words, “SWIM CALL!” Almost all of us got in today, the sun was shining, and it was a perfect day for jumping off the bow sprit with all of our friends and crew aboard. After jumping and swimming off the boat, we were brought some fresh fish, lobster, and squid from a local fishing boat, and had fresh lobster and squid ceviche for dinner.
We have gotten some great sunrises and sunsets throughout the trip, and got another great one today as we watched it set below Menemsha Bight where we are currently anchored. I have been having an amazing time aboard the Cramer, and have learned so much already. I can’t wait for what is come for sailing, science, and all the memories! Stay tuned to hear more!
– Megan Deevy, incoming freshman at University of California Santa Cruz
PS: Hi Mom, Dad, Patrick and Kelby! I miss you all, thank you for this experience! Hi Will! I miss and love you so much; I can’t wait to see your big smile when I get home, see you soon. Happy early birthday Haley! I can’t wait to celebrate you when I get back. Hi Lydia this is your shout out, I miss you and everyone back home.