Chestertown, Maryland

Hey...sorry that I don't post that often. Normally I don't have a lot of time to, or I can't find Internet, or I'm doing something other then spacing out. It's amazing how easily one find they can live without a computer when they have to. =P

I'm in Chestertown, Maryland, as my title implies. I have the afternoon off. Normally we get full days off, but we're kind of tight right now. It's all right, though. It's all part of the job.

In case anyone hasn't heard, the boat is going to end up in St. Augustine, Florida for the winter. I'm kind of excited I get to be there for the first part of winter instead of northern Michigan, honestly. I'm not a fan of the cold.

I don't know what is like back at home, but we've been traveling through the Chesapeake Bay, and the colors are amazing. Everything here is so beautiful. The buildings are also very neat too. There are quite a few that date from the 18th century. It's not something you see where I'm from, so I have to gawk at times.

My boat took part in the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race, and we took 3rd for our class. That was pretty amazing, considering it was her first time in it. Running the boat through the night during it was pretty intense. There was a lot of sail handling, and running them up, and taking them down. It was worth it, though. We hit over 13 knots, which equals almost 15 mph, under only sail power. It was one of the fastest the Lynx has ever gone, and definitely the fastest I've ever gone on a boat. It was cool to be a part of that.

In case if you didn't hear, I've been a deckhand for almost the past month. They had a new cook come on around the 5th of October. It wasn't because I was a horrible cook (at least, I don't think so...=P). They were planning on having Matt come on in Chicago, but he wasn't able to, which is why they grabbed me. I knew it was probably going to happen. I miss being cook, but I think what I'm doing now is a lot less stressful. And Matt is an AMAZING cook. He's really laid back, and not much phases him, and all of his meals have been great. It's a good thing being a deckhand is hard work and burns calories, cause I come close to overeating at most suppers. I haven't had anything I don't like.

Being a deckhand was quite a shift from being cook. As cook, you pretty much know your schedule, and what is going to happen for you. As a deckhand, you have no clue. You totally have to listen to the captain and first mate, and know where they want you and when. I'm still learning all the lines for raising sails. I'm starting to get them down a lot better, though. The first part as deckhand was hard....there are so many lines, and you have to know what each one does, and where it goes. I was so tired at the end of each day, just because I didn't always know where to be or what to do. Luckily for me, I had a really good teacher (Katie Walker, who is, unfortunately, not on the boat anymore. Her contract ran out.). I'm understanding everything a lot better now, though. I still don't know everything, but kind of knowing what I'm doing makes it all a lot more fun.

Since Erie, where I last posted, we went to Montreal, Canada, then out the Saint Lawrence Seaway, down to Boothsbay, Maine where we did some repair, then to Baltimore and the start of the race, over to Portsmouth, Virginia, and then to Cambridge, Maryland, and now to here, Chestertown. That doesn't seem like a lot of places to me in that time frame, now that I'm looking at it, but we had other stops in between, and going out the St. Lawrence took 10 or 11 days. Longest I've ever gone without a shower is 8 days, on that stretch. You get used to it, but you don't like it.

I have pictures of some stuff I'll post. I went aloft yesterday and took some of the area. There was a gorgeous sunset. I wouldn't mind living around here. It reminds me of Michigan in terms of looks.

That's all I can think of for right now. If anyone had any questions or anything, ask my mom for my email, and I'll try to answer them when I can. I'm much better about checking that when I can, than getting on here. =)