Programs Blog

Thursday June 4, 2026

At anchor, Gloucester Harbor

2045 ET

After a northerly sail across Stellwagen Bank Marine Sanctuary, the ship is at anchor off the famous fishing port of Gloucester, Massachusetts. The Corwith Cramer will be crossing Massachusetts Bay again, southbound, hoping to see more whales, then transiting the Cape Cod Canal and home to Woods Hole this weekend. 

Below is Camryn’s interview with Beatrice Gumbinner conducted after the first day, at the start of the week, while at anchor off Nantucket. It turned out that the stiff northerly wind conditions would not allow the group to take rides in the small boat to go ashore. (Fittingly, a lack of a safe harbor for anchoring deep draft ships was one of the main reasons the majority of the whaling business in the early 1800s moved over to New Bedford.) 

Bridget, Ursula, and Professor Witting in the ship’s lab identifying zooplankton that had been captured during a surface tow then magnified on the screen from a microscope. (Brooke Grasberger)

Here’s the interview:

Who am I here with?

Hi, I’m Bea. I’m from DC, but I go to school in Oberlin, Ohio. I study Geosciences. Right now we’re on the deck of the Corwith Cramer. 

What did your day look like today? 

I’ve had a very full day. I woke up around 0450 to help undock the boat. We got it out from Woods Hole. And we have been sailing all day. We’re anchored near Nantucket, and we’re going to go visit tomorrow. And so, once I was on watch, I did a ton of things. I was at lookout. I was on helm. I helped a little bit with science and just kind of anything they needed on deck. Like, helping with lines and coiling, etc. 

Did you have a favorite task? 

I really liked lookout. It was a little bit stressful just because there were a lot of boats. And it was my first time. I’m kind of still learning everything. But I really liked lookout. I could kind of see everything, and that was really, really cool. I also really liked steering the boat just because, I don’t know, it felt so powerful.

And tonight we had our humanities class in the salon.

Yeah, so for class, we all met up. We had our little group meeting with everyone at first. All the students and crew who wanted to stay stayed for the class. And we talked a little bit about Nantucket since we’re visiting tomorrow. We talked a lot about Nantucket’s history, specifically around whaling and around wealth in Nantucket. And then we read a chapter from Moby-Dick entitled “Nantucket.” It was really interesting kind of seeing what we’re going to see tomorrow and kind of being prepared for that. 

More generally, what’s been on your mind about whaling history and whale conservation? What’s sticking out or what have you learned? 

I mean, I’ve learned SO much. I think I don’t know. I think we’ve been in class a lot, but so it’s been just so much information, and I’m learning so many cool things. I would say in general, because I’m more on the science side of things, I’ve been thinking a lot of how to connect that to science. I think one thing I found really cool was towards the first few days, we talked about whaling logbooks and how we use those to reconstruct oceanographic data for history. And I think that that is really cool and maybe something I could do with my life. 

What are you most excited about for tomorrow?

I’m really excited to go to the museum and to see Nantucket. I’ve never been. I also really love museums, and I like everything that we’re learning. So I’m sure I’ll love it. 

When we were on watch together yesterday, a crew member asked us to reflect on one thing that we want to leave this trip with. Something that we just want to get out of it in general, self-growth-wise or otherwise. What do you want to leave this trip with?

 I would say the main thing I want to leave this trip with is knowledge. I want to learn everything I can. I want to gain all the experiences I can. And I don’t know. That’s what I’m here for. Yeah, I just want to learn.

Bea talking aboard the Corwith Cramer while at anchor, reflecting on a very long first day. (Camryn Hartigan)