Programs Blog

Monday 11 May, 2026.

Noon Position: (Lat and Long): 39 degrees 43.2’ N, 071 degrees 14.7’ W

Log (nm): 2919 nm

Weather / Wind / Sail Plan (from 1300 Watch Change): Sailing west on a beam reach under the four lowers and the JT. Cloudy. Wind is a force 4 from the northeast. Brrrrrr. Air temperature is 50ºF and falling.

Description of location: North Atlantic Ocean, latitude of New Jersey.

A rogue Jersey accent (probably the spirit of some mob boss) has infected A Watch and crippled our ability to say anything other than, “Boss is gonna love this” or “guys, I’m worried about boss.” Silly antics continue to rise as we get closer to the end of our voyage. While silly antics are on the rise, air and sea temperatures are most definitely falling. Tonight, I write to you while ship’s heat (excess heat from the generator piped to radiators below decks) warms my back. I am also wearing my thickest wool socks, boots, long underwear, and a sweater and am sipping tea to keep awake. I am quite cozy.

Every story has a beginning, middle, and end. Our voyage has taken us all over the place, including St. Croix (in the beginning), the South Sargasso Sea (middle), Bermuda (also middle), and the North Sargasso Sea (still middle, wow this story is long). As we approach Massachusetts (where the story of Cramer voyage No. 326 ends) every occurrence gains extra significance, every color looks more vivid, and every moment is more special to me. After crawling out from clouds of freezing rain, we enjoyed a spectacular sunset tonight. Dolphins played in the wake from Cramer’s bow, and we spotted hundreds of tiny sharks swimming around us. Maybe they were shark-like fish. I need to ask Aiden, the fish TA.

I spent the afternoon in the lab (avoiding the freezing rain) working with Aiden as one of his disciples (Fishciples) learning to identify myctophid species. Oh my god there are so many myctophids from the morning neuston tow. And frankly, identifying them is hard. It’s possible that forcing myself to stay focused on photophores (lenses on the side of the fish body that make them difficult to see in water) under a microscope is the hardest part of identifying myctophids. Learning to use the taxonomic key was difficult too. Aiden’s myctophid bible uses a lot of acronyms. Anyways, good luck with the rest of the 39 fish, Aiden!

The ocean smells different on this side of the gulf stream. The water is now navy blue, no longer the infinitely deep cobalt blue of the Sargasso Sea. Each day we get closer to land the water gains a shade of green and a new bird from shore comes to rest in our rigging. Chirp (our science-grade depth finder) is reading 250m of depth, which is shocking because I’ve become used to five-digit depth readings. I joke with Aiden about feeling claustrophobic in only 250m of water, but every passing hour brings new signs of the certainty of land.

It was A Watch’s last day working with Shel (mate) and Ali (Marine Tech) and I am hyperaware as each “last” time ticks by on this voyage. I only have four nights left on this ship and Cramer has never felt more like home. Every noise this ship makes that would ordinarily drive me crazy on any other night (*ahem, Chirp) somehow plays into a comforting symphony of familiar sounds. If homes on land don’t need boat checks, have no sails to set or strike, and can’t be pushed or pulled by currents or the winds, what will I do with the newfound time on my hands? I have some ideas. Believe it or not, I do have a life to return to on land. Whatever land is. I’ve heard rumors that it stays still most of the time and you have to dig to get through it instead of swimming. Why that early fish crawled up on land and evolved into all manner of land animals I have no idea.

Thinking of everyone back home:

Congratulations Wilder, for graduating high school,

Happy Mother’s Day to my mom and grandma,

And thank you to everyone who has supported me shoving off to sea, it’s a dream come true. Sleep deprived and occasionally horribly uncomfortable, but still a very real dream come true.

Tennyson Stinson, A Watch

Class in the main salon avoids the freezing rain on deck. Photo courtesy of Sarah Kingston.

I’m on a mission to get the most accurate star fix possible. It’s Sirius business. <– That’s a star pun if you didn’t catch that. Photo courtesy of Star Frenzy action photographer extraordinaire, Sam Ruemmler.