"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines.

Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -Mark Twain

The BVIs

>> Monday, February 7, 2011

After a day of orientation to the vessel and the shipboard routine at sea, our new student crew weighed anchor and set sail for the first of countless times over the next 4 months, bound east for the British Virgin Islands. Standing watch throughout the night, both the wonders and pitfalls of a sailing ship at sea greeted our students; shooting stars, squalls, seasickness, and the breaking of dawn illuminating the green islands just a few miles distant.




Once cleared into Road Town, Tortola, our students came ashore to learn about West Indian culture. But we didn't bring any books ashore, only our appetites. We walked the short distance from the quay to the Roti Palace, where Jean, its proprietor, cooked up her world famous roti, a distinctively Caribbean dish with roots in Trinidad and India. A roti "skin," or flatbread, infused with crushed roasted peas and spices, wraps around a curry of goat, chicken, beef, conch or vegetables, with her homemade mango chutney, cuchela (a spicy chutney of the scoth bonnet pepper) and pepper spice hot sauce. Indian cuisine was brought to the Caribbean in the mid 19th century, when Indian laborers were brought to the region to work in the fields after slavery was abolished. Over time they have infused a unique West Indian flavor into traditional Indian dishes, utilizing local ingredients and produce. Our visit with Jean is just the first of many culinary adventures.

A quick sail across the Sir Francis Drake channel brought us to Norman Island, where we explored its reefs and hiked the goat paths along the ridge line as rainbows followed us to the peak of Spyglass Hill.

All aboard are well and well fed thanks to our fantastic cook Lizzie Loomis, and will enjoy some delicious cake as we will celebrate Ben Huyard's 15th Birthday today!

JP

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From the Captain: The Portent of Dolphins

>> Friday, February 4, 2011


Well now it all starts again. Harvey Gamage is as ready as we are able to make her. The crew is prepared and excited.
                  Students arrive on another lovely day in "America's Paradise," St Thomas USVI. Just how does a crew get a ship ready for this kind of thing? Well, provisioning starts with Lizzie Loomis (the cook) ordering a huge amount of staple foods from a local restaurant supplier; peanut butter, pasta, vinegar, bacon, flour, 30 Dozen eggs, coffee, chicken, dish soap, cereal, oats, broccoli… imagine you have to put out 3 meals for 30 crew every day! You get the idea.
                  Meanwhile the ship’s crew paints, cleans, studies the curriculum, repairs, tries to purchase all the things the ship may need down island.  The 1st mate (Mr. Burke) and I walk around deck with lists and wonder what we have forgotten and will have to make do without later on. No problem, that is a Schooner sailor’s job.
                  The Educators J. Pettrillo, E. Southworth, and J.Allen, run around the island getting supplies of their own. They refine their curriculum, brief the ship’s crew on the students and on top of their own work they help get the ship ready.
                  I did say, Dolphins. At our anchorage under the lee of Hassle Island there were 2 dolphins swimming around the ship as we up anchor and make our way to the rendezvous with our students—they follow us, which seems a little strange but I like it. Then they stay around the ship, swimming lazy circles and never straying far. The students arrive in groups and singles over hours, yet still there are the dolphins. Now let me say that I have never seen dolphins stay around Lindberg bay for any great length of time.
                  After we get the new crew (students) settled we normally have a first swim call off the ship to get them salty and refresh them after a long day of travel.
                  The Dolphins stay around.
In fact they are within feet of us as we swim and share the bay with them. We get underway and move back to our anchorage, and they go with us. They stay through supper and cleanup and evening introductions slapping the water as if to say “hey we’re still here.”
                  This morning I haven’t seen them but I get the point. There are many sailors legends about dolphins; that they carry the souls of passed sailors, or rescue shipwrecked seamen, or point they way home…
                  You can think what you want. I see them as a very good omen for our voyage.
Fair winds, Captain Flansburg

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Embarkation Day!

>> Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Over the next day our students will be trickling into St. Thomas and aboard the Harvey Gamage

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Meet the Professional Crew!

>> Saturday, January 29, 2011

Captain Christopher Flansburg

Appleton, ME
Captain Flansburg holds a USCG 500 ton Oceans Master's license, and has been sailing with OCF for over a decade. This will be his third spring in a row as captain of the Discovery program, his favorite OCF trip. He has sailed professionally all over the globe, and before his sailing career jumped out of planes in the Army. In the few months he is not at sea, Captain Flansburg can be found in his Maine cottage baking bread and out in his forge manipulating metal into gorgeous and functional pieces of art.



Mr. Bill Burke, Chief Mate 
New Hampshire
Mr. Burke attended both Notre Dame University and M.I.T. and holds a USCG 1600 ton Master's and Unlimited Chief Mate license, and has been a math and science teacher for over 10 years. He's an on-call firefighter and EMT, and likes hiking, climbing, and whitewater paddling. This will be his second trip as chief mate on the spring Discovery semester with Ocean Classroom.

Ms. Whitney Ciancetta, 2nd Mate
York, Maine
An Ocean Classroom alumna, Whitney holds a 100 ton Master's license and earned her BA in History from Union College. Whitney has been sailing professionally for OCF for the past two years, and is ecstatic to be sailing on the spring Discovery trip.

Mr. Dave Kelly, 3rd Mate
Marshfield, MA
Dave has been working for OCF for the past three years as a deckhand, engineer, and mate. After sailing on last year's Discovery trip, he's sailed with the Pride of Baltimore and Virginia before spending a few weeks at home during the holidays. He's driven whale watching boats in Plymouth, MA, and attended Mass Maritime Academy as a cadet before setting sail as a professional sailor. His major goal for this trip is induction into the Nathaniel Bowditch Society.

Lizzie Loomis, cook
Jerseyville, Illinois
Lizzie graduated from Principia College with a theater degree, and was inspired to work at sea after reading Tania Aebi's Maiden Voyage. She loves when dolphins play in the bow wave, the colors green and blue, and has elicited numerous marriage proposals over her biscuits and gravy. She also makes stupendous 7-layer bars and crusty bread. She learned to cook at summer camp and loves visiting the island of Nevis. Her favorite meal too cook: sticky buns.

Tom Klodenski, deckhand / engineer
Tom hails from Newburyport, MA and attended Northeastern University. He's a former recording engineer for the Boston Symphony, and plays some wicked bluegrass on guitar, upright bass, piano, drums, spoons, harmonica, bones, guiro, saw, donkey jawbone, kazoo, slide trombone, and dulcimer. He's been working with OCF since last spring, and is hoping to pick up the banjo.

Angela McIntyre, deckhand / medical officer
Born and raised in Ohio, Angela earned a degree from Antioch College in video & film production and is Wilderness First Aid trained. She's been working on boats for three years as cook, educator, and now deckhand. She plays the flute and is learning the ukulele and concertina. She's most excited to live with new shipmates and share adventures with them over the next four months. She is especially excited to learn, teach, and travel, and feels extremely lucky to be on such a sweet trip. Angela has previously worked as a vegetable farmer, can drive enormous tractors, and loves when potato plants blossom.

Anna Nellis Bacon Smith, deckhand
Washington, ME
Nell, also an OCF alumna, has been sailing professionally on and off with OCF since her days as a student. When not aboard, she is a student at Prescott College in Arizona. Nell has grown up on Gamage as her father, longtime OCF captain JB Smith, is the vessel's longest serving master. Nell is an accomplished equestrian, talented musician, patient teacher, and intuitive sailor.

John Petrillo, head educator & history teacher
Toms River, NJ
John has been sailing as an educator with OCF for over 8 years in their high school and college semester programs. He's earned a BS in Social History from Carnegie Mellon University and a MA in American Civilization from Brown University, and holds a 100 ton Near Coastal license. He collects various editions of Melville's Moby Dick, vintage surfboard fins, and camera lenses.

Eve Southworth, literature teacher
Framingham, MA
Eve has been working for OCF as an educator for three years, and most recently lead the OCF high school trip last fall. She earned her degree in Social History from Connecticut College and studied in the Williams Mystic Maritime Studies Program at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. She enjoys yoga and drawing, and has previously worked on the topsail schooner Amistad and aboard private yachts.

Jenn Allen, science teacher
In Spring of 2005, Jenn came to Ocean Classroom Foundation as a college semester student with SEAmester.  She has since completed her degree in Marine Biology from SUNY Stonybrook and has worked for Ocean Classroom as a deckhand for a total of nearly two years since then.  Now living in Santa Cruz, CA, she loves to surf, paint, and drink good coffee.

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Pre-Boarding Assignments

>> Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Homework... Already?! We realize you still have just over a month before boarding Harvey Gamage, but your future educators have some short but extremely useful assignments for you to complete before boarding. Follow the links below:
Maritime Literature
Maritime and Caribbean History
Marine Science

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Happy Holidays!

Hello all past and future Ocean Classroom students--we hope your holiday season is going well... For those of you getting ready for the spring trip, we'll be posting some useful information, like the packing list, and other morsels on this blog over the next month so check back every once in a while.

Have a fantastic new year!

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