Sea time

This year marked my five year anniversary on Pioneer, and I decided it was time to count up my sea time. It also has been the year I was promoted to relief mate, and I did not want to see that advance as the apex of my sailing career; I needed to look forward to what was next. Over two days I poured through the Pioneer logs dating back to 2005, and did some accounting of my time so far. I haven't tallied it up yet, but I'm hoping that by the end of next season, I'll be able to have the 180 days for a mate's license.

As I was looking through the logs, I wanted to tie dates to certain memories that I have on the boat. There is a certain tedium of looking through five years of logs, endless pages of different handwriting, some good, some really atrocious. I had to find some way of entertaining myself.

July 16, 2005: My first training sail. I had found the boat through a co-worker at Rafael Vinoly Architects, Elaine. She had organized a charter for our office at the end of a substantial deadline, and I went along. I don't remember the exact date of the charter, but it was in June. One of the crew members kept talking to Elaine and I, he mostly trying to convince me that I just had to come and volunteer. I had never sailed before, thought I was completely unqualified, but figured I'd give it a try. I was looking for something else to do outside of work; at the time, I felt that work was all I talked about. I guess that's what happens when you're somewhere 10-12 hours a day.

September 17, 2005: the Mayor's Cup. I was not on this sail, but it's become legendary - t-shirts have been made in tribute. The incident report was in the log, and it was interesting to read an account of the collision. Briefly, it goes something like this: "Schooner Adirondack collides into starboard side of vessel abeam race boat. No serious injuries, 2 stantions bent, lifelines parted."

May 27th, 2006: The first time I was on the boat with Barbee and Tom, two people who have become very important to me. In looking back, I remember each of them being on the boat, but my memory doesn't have them together.

August 13, 2006: My first day back on the boat in eight weeks. I had sprained my ankle in June of that year playing soccer, and really screwed it up trying to play tennis the next day. The doctor had told me that I really needed to stay off of it for six weeks, and that turned into eight weeks away from Pioneer. After the sail, a couple of us went to Fresh Salt. It was the first day I'd spent a lot of time on my feet, my ankle was sore, and Tommy, the mate, offered to give me a foot massage. Barbee was also on this sail, and I gave him the impression that I was a cold person. I didn't know him very well, and have always been reserved around people (especially men) that I don't know.

2007 Season: This was the year that I started sailing more regularly, and Barbee became my mentor. Lots of memories, lots of training - too much to list here. This was also the season I became more confident about my skills.

May 24, 2008: During the week before, Magno, the chief mate at the time, called and asked if I could be deckhand for one of the evening sails that week. I told him that I wasn't a deckhand yet, and he told me that something needed to be done about that. On this training sail a couple of days later, Fielding and Captain Glenn Mariano ran me ragged, having me complete almost the entire deckhand checklist in one sail. After the sail, Magno asked how things went, and whether I was interested in the position. It's what I had been working towards, so of course I said yes. I was physically spent, and went to Fresh Salt and had a huge pile of pancakes, completely content.

May 30, 2008: My first sail as a deckhand. Captain Malcolm Martin was at the helm for that sail.

September 12, 2009: There had been a lot of talk of when I was going to be promoted to mate as I was almost done with my checklist. On this sail, Tom was mate, and decided to give me the opportunity to be acting mate for the sail.

August 11, 2010: Captain Richard Dorfman had called me on August 2nd to offer me the promotion to mate, and this was my first sail in that position. My first sail was scheduled to be on Friday the 13th, but the mate on the 11th was sick, so I filled in.

Dreams and nightmares

I know I always dream, but I don't always remember what I was dreaming about when I wake up. This morning was one of those that I did.

MONDAY, JUNE 15TH, 5 OR 6 AM OR SO
It was a summer day on the waterfront, and we were getting Pioneer ready for a day's sails. However, there was snow on the gangway and the float. One of those rare summer snowstorms, I reckon. So the first order of business was to clear the snow. Of course. The volunteers got out of their snow wear and stripped down to shorts and t-shirts since it was summer, and got down to work.

The boat was twice as big in my dream, and one could stand down below. For some reason, the bowsprit was accessed from there, and I had to chase a bunch of volunteers that were dressed as pirates and were just lazing about, as pirates are bound to do.

Since I was so busy corralling some volunteers to clean snow and others to just do something to prepare for the day's voyages, I had no time to do what I would normally be doing before we leave the float, like assign docklines. The captain starts calling for lines to be removed, and I end up doing all four. I then realize that the captain is Aaron - those of you who know the boat know that that just wouldn't happen these days.

We get off the dock, and I start to relax, and then Frank - who was mate - tells me that I better go get a handle on what's going on up on the bow. I look up, and there's about 15 volunteers up at the bow, all but two I don't recognize. I go forward to assess the situation. As I start assigning watches, telling most of them that they're off watch for now, the realization slowly creeps in that none of these people (other than Primoch and Crystal, the only two I knew) had never been on a boat before. No training sails, no drug test, and of course about half of them were crowded forward of the traveler bar, a place where non-trained, non-drug tested volunteers are not to go.

I start to get frustrated with them, telling them that they are basically of no use to me without having been on a training sail. One woman whips out the sail training manual, shaking it at me, and asking me to tell her where that is stated in the manual that two training sails and a drug test are required to work public sails. No telling where she got it since she hadn't been on one, and had not talked to the coordinator.

Then I woke up. It didn't take long to start wondering what in the hell was going on with that dream. Although the indignant volunteers who knew nothing may have been inspired by some of the people that were sitting in front of me during my flight back from California last night.

I rarely have illogical dreams like this, although they are the most fun to think about. When I was younger, probably around 6 or 7 years old, I used to have a reoccuring dream, where Abbot and Costello had taken on the form of Humpty Dumpty, and would just chase me endlessly. Try to explain that one. Although it could have been prompted by this:

Yeah, my sister's and I were big fans of Scooby-Doo.

Typically my bad dreams are more of the garden variety work/family/friend anxiety dreams that have no bearing in real life. Occasionally, these dreams can seem so real. There are also the dreams, usually not bad or good, about people that are no longer in my life. The dream will be more like a film clip of something that happened, sometimes the facts have changed, or things happen in a different order, or sometimes its something i wish had happened or had been said. The worst of these result in waking with a hollow feeling of really missing the guest star.