Some photos eh!?

The main deck in the middle of a work day. Tools and bits of the boat strewn everywhere 

Boats towing boats. Happens all the time here.

The salon in disarray. All of the tables are getting sanded and revarnished

The galley mid-project. We're getting new counteracts and a new floor!

Sanding the side of the boat, prepping it for painting 

Grinding ALL OF THE RUST AWAY!!!

Every morning is beautiful

Our first sunrise after arriving in Bahamian waters

Mending a tear in the mainsail

We used this clever hand held sewing machine device. 

The moon setting at sunrise 

Yard

For the next three weeks we will rip this boat apart. We will grind and sand and paint and fix and demolish and rip up and down rig and rebuild and stain and clean and repair.  She's going to be SO shiny when we're finally done.
The galley (kitchen) is getting new counter tops and a new floor.
Three heads (bathrooms) are being rebuilt.
The salon tables are getting re-varnished
Every bit of painted steel is getting sanded or ground down and repainted (there's alot of painted steel on a steel boat, inside AND out)
All of the blocks (pulleys) are getting downrigged, maintenced and repainted
Every day when I take a shower, the water runs dirty for minutes before I'm finally clean.

My job:
Take an inexperienced girl. Give her a dangerous power tool for grinding away the rust on the outside of the ship. Put her on a small floating dock attached to the side of the ship. Make the floating dock rock and roll with the tide/waves. Pray she doesn't die.
I'm not dead yet! And I still have all of my fingers and toes! And they're mostly still in good shape. :) I only nicked a small bit of one finger. 

Welcome to the Bahamas! !

We crossed deep waters.
We crossed the Gulf Stream.
We caught a fish!
We sailed ahead of a tropical storm.
We tore the main sail and ripped the main quarter lift and lazy jacks from the boom.
The main halyard went overboard and was trailing behind us (thank goodness it didn't get caught in the propeller!!)
It was a wild night.
The water lept over the bow, illuminated by the running lights, red on the left, green on the right.
The water lept over the sides, soaking one and all.
The water is warm.
We have left the North behind.
We have arrived in Nassau.
We pulled in around 1am.
Atlantis glowing on Paradise Island.
Palm trees.
Loud Carribean music blasting from the dock.
A slight tropical breeze.
2,000 nautical miles.
No one fell overboard.
Champange for everyone!
Toasts all around!
Huzzah!

A few todays of the past week

Today the boat was floating 5 miles off shore, the weather was calm, the wind and waves were almost none existant. Perfect weather for swimming!! We've all been waiting all week for this opportunity. I don't think there was a single person aboard who didn't jump into the water. It was a delight! I've never swam in the ocean so far off shore before.

Today we were supposed to have hamburgers for dinner. Cooked on the grill. Our ordered course had other ideas. The waves were coming at us at an angle, which makes the boat roll and pitch like a mechanical bull. Not ideal for trying to grill. So instead, we made Sloppy Joe`s, a dish that neither Mitch nor I had ever cooked before! There have been a lot of "I`ve never cooked this meal before and now I'm doing it for the first time on a boat" moments. It's been an interesting learning experience

Today I woke up, came up from below decks and saw only ocean, for as far as my eye could see. No land anywhere. We were trully off shore! It helped that we were going around Cape Hatteras and there are very shallow shoals for as far as 20 miles out. The Clipper is a shallow boat, drafting only 8 feet with the centerboard up, but some of the shoals are shallower even than that, and so we were forced way off shore.  Sailling at night was amazing. The light pollution was drastically reduced and the moon was new so the stars were just phenomenal!! Even the Milky Way made an appearence.

Today we played the best game in the world. The past few days had been rainy and chilly so there was a round of cabin fever going around. The sun finally returned and everyone came up on deck to soak up some rays, A few of my crewmates decided the main deck was the perfect place to lay out. Well, the boat is rocking and rolling at this point, so if something isn't lashed down and is capable of rolling, it will roll, prone bodies on the deck are no exception. And so we rolled! Back and forth across the main deck. Into the port side hatches, and then over to the starboard side. Back to port side, and then over to starboard side.  There were three of us rolling back and forth. If you got your momentum up you could roll over the person next to you! We rolled back and forth and backk and forth. Sky, mast, deck, crewmates, deck, mast sky; all rolling by. It was cause for myuch hilarity. A fellow crewmate came up on deck to investigte the source of so much giggling. He looked askance at us, skeptical of our activity. We told him he really just had to try it. He did. And was giggling with the rest of us in less than a minute. :D

Today we spotted a Sea Llama!! There are a few of these structures left off the coast of Hatteras. Back in the days before the coast guard and GPS these rescue stations were built to try and give assistance to boats that ran aground on the shoals. When the llama keepers spotted a grounded ship they would use a cannon to shoot a harpoon at the boat. Once the harpoon was secured, the rescue team would send a large metal water tight canister down the line. A few sailors would scramble inside and the canister would be hauled back to the rescue station. In extreme weather instances, when it wasn't possible to shoot a harpoon at the sinking boat, the rescue team would send llamas attached to a saftey line to swim out to the boat.  Many a sailor stranded on the shoals of Hatteras were saved by these brave llamas. And today we passed one of the structures from which these llamas were dispatched.

I have a wonderful apron. A crewmate gifted it to me for my birrthday. It has crabs and anchors on it. And it has a pocket. I love it. I normally wear it just for galley work. But periodically there's a call for "All hands to...." and I dash out on deck to help with sailing things. And then I'm an apron wearing sailor. :) And a few time that pocket has come in handy while doing sailing things. To hold bolts and twine and tools and bobbles and such.  Once, when the call was "Hands to raise the fore," the apron was flapping around and getting in the way, so I turned it around and wore it as a cape.  Much better!

Notes on Provisioning:

Mitch and I have had some rather adventerous provisioning trips. 
In Baltimore, the Safeway was just down the street from the dock.  When we were finished shopping we called our crew mates and they came to the store, totting marina trollies to carry all of the food stuffs. 'Don't mind us as we tote carts of food down the sidewalk. This is completely normal.'
In Portsmouth, VA the Race committee assigend us a very lovely and very eager provisioning helper who drove us around and bore with us as we talked through the menu and how much of what we thought we needed and do we need this item and 'oh my goodness we've already filled four carts of groceris' and 'do you think this will all fit in your car??'
In Charleston, SC we ended up at Wal-Mart and as it's our last stop in the US we decided we should stock up on items that will be more expensive or harder to acquire in the Bahamas. As a result, we had SIX carts of groceries. Whoooeee. We had the first 2 or 3 stashed near the registers and when we came to stash the next one the first ones were gone! We had a minor heart attack before we realized that the wonderful cashiers had started to ring everything up for us, anticipating that we'd have more items and getting a head start on the process.  And then we had to get everything back to the boat, via Uber. The look on the Uber drivers face as he drove up and saw us with our 6 carts was priceless. :D
Like buying kitchenwares with someone else's money, buying groceries can be fun. 'Do we need this?' 'Sure, why not, I'm sure we'll eat it eventually.' 20# of ground beef? 15# of chicken? The largest bottle of hot sauce we can find? Little Debbies oatmeal cream pies and nutter bars? Definitely!

Tomorrow we sail for the Bahamas! Tonight is my last night in the US. Here goes! :D

*Perhaps not everything in this post is exactly true....... ;)

Notes From a Schooner Race

The definition of sailing, according to the ship's engineer: "Pull on the squiggily bits until the flapping bits stop flapping."

Notes from a Schooner Race

But first, How to be Indentified as a Schooner Bum:
Decide that you want pizza delivered to the boat while you're docked at the marina in Baltimore
Fail at trying to either call a piza place or use their online ordering system
Decide to walk to Safeway and get frozen pizzas instead(It helps if it's 9:30pm and you're already slightly inebriated because this is the first time you've been able to drink since leaving Boston a week and a half ago and there's alot of steam that needs blowing off) 
Arrive at the gate to the marina carrying three boxes of frozen pizza and laughing and giggling at the smallest thing. 
Realize you don't have a key to get through the gate. 
Laugh some more.
A man walks up to the gate (probably a seasoned tall ship sailor from one of the other schooners also docked up at this marina) takes one look at you and says, "You must be schooner bums."
:)

So then we raced!! 
First there was a parade of sail around Baltimore Harbour. There were a lot of schooners in a very small space. Perfect conditions for setting off our cannon! So we have a cannon aboard. It's a wee thing, just a few inches long. But it lets off a mighty satisfying KABOOM!! And we get to run around and shout things like: ""PREPARE FOR BATTLE! FIRE IN THE HOLE!! SHE'S COMING AROUND AGAIN! PREPARE FOR A SECOND SHOT!" There's lots of yelling and huzzahs and excited frenzy. 
So schooner racing. Who thought that would be a good idea? Let's take one of the slowest forms of transportation and race them! It doesn't make for a very fast paced race in itself, but we had a blast! The weather was perfect, we kept a steady 6-8 knots almost the entire time. And in the wee hours of the morning we overtook our nemesis boat! Huzzah! 
As we sailed down the Chesapeake Bay that evening the night was dark, no moon, no stars, very little light pollution, and very few boats around. It was so dark! Rather eerie, sailing into the void. 

Side note: It's been fun listening to the accents on the radio change as we sail south. From Boston to New York to Baltimore. There have been some strong, salty, gruff cargo ship captians. 

We crossed the finnish line around 08:00. 125 nautical miles in 18.5 hours. And then we sailed into Portmouth/Nofolk VA and I felt like we were entering a real life Battleship game. Detroyers and friggates and aircraft carriers and amphibious vessels abounded! It gave me the chills. To counter that effect, there were DOLPHINS! There was a huge pod of dolphins that followed us for awhile. I didn't know there were dolphins this far north. They were really amazing to watch. I hope there's more of that as we leave today. 

We've been docked here in Portsmouth for 2 and a half days now adnd it's essentially just one long party of drinking and eating and shanties. There was a moment of excitment the other night during my watch when the boat tied up along side of us started to billow smoke out of their engine room! Nothing exploded though, so that's good. :) The other excitment was going shopping at a kitchen store on someone else's budget! Mitch and I have had a time setting up the galley on the boat. There's a plethora of straw baskets but no plastic spatula/flipper. There's a GIGANTIC soup/stock pot, but no useful sized frying pans of good quality. There are ALL of the metal serving spoons, but no useful serving tongs.  We bought all of the things. :)

Today we board a school group of high school girls and sail for Charleston, SC. Wish us luck as we sailor round Cape Hatteras. It's gonna be a tricky one!

Note: if you want to mail me something, you can send it to Charleston City Marina in Charleston, SC. 
Jewel Leuba 
Liberty Clipper 
c/o Charleston City Marina
 17 Lockwood Drive 
Charleston, SC 
29401
 We'll be there Saturday the 21st and leave on the 22nd. 

I'm on a BOAT!

oh goodness!! So much has changed in the past two weeks I've barely had time to catch my breath.  It still continues to amaze me that I'm on a tall ship, sailing down the Eastern seaboard, to the Bahamas. This is my life. And I'm loving every minute of it.
A few hightlights since we left Boston on Sept. 30th.

Sailing into NYC. We approacehed the city from Long Island Sound. It was dusk, the sky was a pallete of colours, leading from a golden piinkish sunset in the west to the darkening in the east. Though not was all dark; as the sun set in front of us, the moon, one night from being full, rose behind us, luminous and silvery.  Scattered across the eastern sky were what appeared to be large fireflies hovering over the city. Fireflies waiting to land at JFK and La Guardia. It was a beautiful night. And to round it off, there was music playing over the ships sound system and me and a few crewmates waltzed and jammed on the main deck. Dancing on a tall ship as it sails into the sunset and the lights of NYC while the moon rose behind us. It was phenomenal. And the LIGHTS! There are SO MANY LIGHTS IN NYC!! So much humanity!

Another highlight was sailing down the East River, between Manhatten and Brooklyn, myself steering the ship, on my birthday. :D No better present than that. Under the Brooklyn Bridge, out to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty, the panorama of NYC and Jersey City spread before us, what a delightful way to see the city.

Today, we did some proper sailing.....through a gale. No big deal. It was amazing! The boat was rocking this way and that way, waves are splasing up over the railings, the wind is drving the rain straight into our faces.  At one point we were going 7-8 knots, purely on sail power. At one point we were chilling out near the helm when one of the passengers came over and joined us and said "This is our life bitches." It is. THIS is my life! Sailing through a gale was a really powerful experience. And no one fell overboard! Huzzah!

Along the way we've docked in Martha's Vinyard, Newport, RI, Oyster Bay (where we traded a bucket of beer for a barrel of fresh oysters), Mystic, CT, the smallest town in Maryland and downtown Manhatten, only a few blocks from the Freedom Tower.  There have been beautiful sunsets and rises, moonsets and rises.  There have been rough seas and water that looked like glass.  I've jumped off the boat to go swimming, reefed in sails, steered the ship, mopped the decks, washed dishes in the galley (kitchen) while trying to keep my balance, watched meteors streak across a star filled sky, and fully embraced life aboard a tall ship. :)

For those of you interested in tracking the ship, you can do so here:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=01sYonMRXvm3CfvmMetOTmXOOyXNoqSNj

As long as the ship is in motion, you'll be able to see where we are :)

And to end this post, I'd like to share a post that my friend Shane Clark shared on FB a few weeks ago. It was only a few days after I had agreed to this job and my brain was still reeling from all of the things when I happened upon this. I love it and I think it applies perfectly to my life right now.  :) Thank you to Shane for these words.

I just looked up synonyms for "float" and the result is a beautiful poem:
"Drift, glide, hang, hover. Ride, sail. Slide, swim.
Waft, wash, bob, poise. Swim.
Be buoyant.
Move gently, rest on water.
Slip along. Smooth along.
Stay afloat."

Here's a few photos of the trip so far
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10159517774075442.1073741838.636050441&type=1&l=d42e8fbc1e

The Twelve Days of Trekking

Ok, here goes! 

I returned from my trek almost two weeks ago, but it's been such a crazy busy few weeks that it's only now that I've finally been able to sit down and write this post. :P 

Trekking was AMAZING!!!! The mountains were beautiful, the air was clear, the people were welcoming, fellow trekkers were plentiful and the hiking wasn't too strenuous. :)  As I was hiking (and thinking about how it's the Christmas season back home and I was trekking for twelve days), I thought I'd make my own 'Twelve Days of Trekking.'  Enjoy :) 

'For the First Day of Trekking, a nine hour bus to Sehpru

And I'm going to the Langtang Himalayas'

That's our bus.  I was riding on the roof and we had to get off and walk though this town because there was an army checkpoint.  Riding on the roof is technically illegal, but everyone does it anyway.  You just have to get off when the bus passes through one of the many army checkpoints.

'On the Second Day of Trekking, we hiked to Didi's village

Oh how quaint!'

My guide is from the Langtang area.  On the second day we hiked to her village and I spent the night at her families homestay.  It was wonderful :) 

Millet drying in the sun.  There was a festival coming up and the village was getting ready by making huge quantities of the local alcohol, raksi :)

Helping Didi and her family prepare the evening dal baht

Didi's home 

'On the Third Day of Trekking, we met a wild yak!

Some monkeys and a wild pig'

The picture doesn't do justice to the size of the yak.  He was HUGE!!!! And very beautiful.  We followed him for 40 mins or so before he finally wandered off up the hill and left the trail. :P

One of the many suspension bridges we crossed. 

'On the Fourth Day of Trekking, we reached Langtang Village,

Apple pie and yak cheese'

Langtang Valley.  The further up the valley we went, the more beautiful the views became

3,475 meters! Woot Woot! 

A very funny looking yak!

APPLE PIE!!! It was DELICIOUS! 

These old houses where not made for Jewel-sized people!

'On the Fifth Day of Trekking, the clouds came rolling in!

OH LET IT SNOW!'

Looking down the valley

My guide and I taking a walk around Kyanjin Gumba

'On the Sixth Day of Trekking we descended 2,000 meters

Knees are a'aching'  

Sunrise over the Himalayas

We hiked to a 'small' viewpoint above the village, only 4,773 meters! From there we walked down to 2,410 meters.  It was a long day. 

I love the prayer flags everywhere, they add so much colour to the scene

'On the Seventh Day of Trekking, we celebrated Tihar

Everyone eats kopsi'

One of the Didi's in my guest house, making kopsi, a type of fried bread

Our lunch spot was a Swiss doppelgänger. So pretty!  

'On the Eighth Day of Trekking, I washed my dusty clothes

Water is a'chilly'

(I don't have a photo for this day) 

'On the Ninth Day of Trekking, there's a panorama view

The mountains are a'mazing'  

The sky was the most amazing colour of blue!

Gosainkund Lakes - 4100 meters

Penguin had to take a rest, it's been a long trek :)

I sat here for more than an hour, just enjoying the view and contemplating life the universe and everything

Me and my guide! Mero sano didi (My small sister) :) 

My guide and her father (who was my porter)

Sunset

'On the Tenth Day of Trekking, 'twas just a two hour trek

Legs are a'resting'

Sing Gumba

The Gumba (monastery) in Sing Gumba 

'On the Eleventh Day of Trekking, we left the mountains behind

Back to the city'

'On the Twelfth Day of Trekking......'

We were meant to be gone for twelve days, hence my brilliant idea to do the 'Twelve Days of Trekking,' but we ended up coming out of the mountains and back to Kathamandu on the same day, instead of spending one night in Dunche. So only eleven days. :(