Food, Glorious Food

                                               

            If there’s one thing we salty student sailors talk about most, it’s food. On bow watch, between sightings, we muse about perfect dinners. In bed, before sleep, we fill our minds with images of sweets like ice cream and brownies. On watch, we often share our cravings with our shipmates (whether they’d like us to or not), and for days before we make landfall, we meticulously plan the snacks we’re going to stock up on once we get to shore.

            It’s an obsession.

            Days are marked by meals. We wake each other up by sharing what might be for breakfast that day. Snacks are not merely snacks-they are a ship’s economy.

“I’ll trade you some string for a piece of chocolate,” and, “How many back massages is that drink mix worth?” are all things you may hear in the main saloon by the snack bin on any given day.

            Once we get anchored or tie up to a dock, our first venture into civilization after days at sea is not to telephones, or to the post office, or even to a normal bathroom. It’s to the nearest ice cream or froyo (frozen yogurt) shop.

            It’s a curious thing. We are fed pretty well on the SSV Harvey Gamage. Our cook, Pierre makes delicious breads and never cooks a bad fried chicken. For the most part, the food we get is enough.

            So why are we always so hungry? After many-crazed ice cream runs all over cities both foreign and domestic, I’ve come to a realization that I am not hungry for food, I’m hungry for control. I’m hungry for choices. The food on the ship may be good, but I have no choice in what is made, how it is made or when. I get three meals a day, and that is quite different from my preferred grazing throughout the day. Gone are the days of good cheese, and regular yogurt and milk. If I don’t like spicy food, that’s too bad when we have chili. Sometimes our educators and crewmembers are puzzled by our infinite need for sugar on shore. But it’s not about sugar. It’s about decisions. When we go get froyo, no one else is choosing what toppings I use, how much I eat or when I choose to eat it. Every other decision on board (for the most part) is made for us… When we wake up, what we’ll read, when we sleep and of course what we eat.

            Food is the obvious out. For me, it’s an expression of emotion. When I crave chocolate, it means I am tired and depressed. If I want ice cream, I’m really hot. If I want soup, it’s because I feel cold and homesick. If I want cookies, it means I miss my mom. Many of us have extensive food craving lists that continue growing as we have longer passages.

            When finally onshore, a lot of us are subject to binging. We lose our own control and just eat everything we can get our hands on. Before I came on this trip, I knew food was important to every culture. But I had no idea it would become so incredibly important to me (and all of my friends) on the Harvey Gamage.

Sarah Holdner

Read more...

The Fearsome Capes

                                

            Cape Lookout is the most challenging place we’ve sailed near so far this journey. The 9-12 foot swells threatening to swallow us up, the wind with its constant shifts both in direction and in speed, and the rain! The rain is constant. There’s no point in wearing anything but foulies up on deck because it will just get soaked anyway. We aren’t in the tropics anymore, where pouring rain was a welcome chance to take a shower. Now that we’re further north, it’s not about wearing clothes that will dry quickly like it was in the Caribbean.  It is just about not getting wet. If we get soaked here, our clothes don’t dry quickly. Despite that, this is still awesome. The high seas are exciting, and the winds constantly challenge us by tearing the seams in our sails. The overall experience is awe-inspiring.

Cameron White

Read more...

Hands to Colors

                                                 

            Raising flags every morning is one of those important shipboard tasks that never crosses the mind of an average lands woman like me. I don’t remember the first time I hauled a flag up by its halyard as eight bells were struck before breakfast. I don’t recall the first time I watched the sun with anticipation waiting to strike the New England flag in tandem with my classmate tending the other flags at the moment the sun dipped below the horizon. I don’t recall the day or time, but I remember how abstract the idea of setting and striking flags was when a crewmember told me of its importance. I accepted the idea without realizing until later what doing such a seemingly minor and simple job means on a ship. After living aboard the Harvey Gamage for just shy of three months, a day doesn’t go by in which we don’t discuss and work on our flag handling procedure. Flags are symbols for nations, states, vessels, information and symbols of the care we take of our ship. No one but us will see our sole (floor) and its state of cleanliness; no one knows how the galley is stowed save those aboard Gamage. But each morning and evening as we raise and lower our flags, we have the opportunity to demonstrate to the world that we care about our ship and her dignity, her crew and the world outside.

Mira Watkins Brown

Read more...

The Charleston Aquarium

                                                

            Stepping into the fish exhibit at the Charleston Aquarium was like entering another world. The only light in the dim carpeted room was glowing from the aquariums that lined the walls, giving off a serene blue that made it seem like the depths of the ocean. Shimmering silver fish flicked back and forth, their wide eyes rimmed with copper and gold, staring through thick glass.

            Another tank stretched from the ceiling to the floor and then extended to the story below. Fish as long as our arm spans drifted by with bemused looks on their bulbous faces. Beside them, small sharks glided behind the rocks. Their leathery skin, white underside and quivering gills seemed magnified through the glass.

            The next tanks were tucked away in an alcove, and as we approached I was excited to find not fish, but ghostly white and transparent jellyfish. We pressed our noses to the glass and watched their soft bodies undulate calmly through the water, their wispy white tentacles following their bodies like streamers. Some had lines of sparkling lights running down their sides. The lights shimmered and changed places with each other, the metallic bright greens, yellows, reds, purples, and blues following one another down the line like lights at a carnival.

            Then we turned to the sea horses. They moved back and forth, wrapping their coiled black tails around the sea plants. Their shape and knobby head made them look like they were the inspiration for sea monsters. Our true seahorse experience didn’t begin until we had left the aquariums and were wandering around the Madagascar exhibition. There Julie met us, a young volunteer who offered to take us discreetly into the back room to show us the five and seven week old seahorses that had hatched at the aquarium. We were lead through double doors into a room filled with aquariums and terrariums. In two of the aquariums swam hundreds of little black sea horses, propelling themselves along with shivering fins on their backs.

            “We’ll swap them with other aquariums for animals we want,” Julie said. “We are lucky to have so many of them.”

            As we left, I couldn’t stop feeling as though by entering the Aquarium we had been privy to something special. It is something not everyone is lucky enough to get to see: the hypnotic world under the surface of the ocean.

Hila Shooter

Read more...

Dance, Dance, Dance

                                

            After busking on the streets of Charleston for a few hours with two guitars, two fiddles, a harmonica, a melodica and a group of enthusiastic dancers, we went to listen to Mr. K play his banjo with a band at the Kickin’ Chicken Restaurant. We threw our bags down and jumped up on the dance floor. My summery dress swung freely and my bare feet tapped lightly on the ground. The music started up with Mr. K leading the band. I had no idea what I was doing, but Ben grabbed me and we invented our own dance. When the song ended, another one started and I grabbed someone else and danced all over again. It was hot and stuffy and the music was fast paced. I spun around and around, my short hair getting in my eyes. By the end of the night, I had danced with everyone and even managed to drag Andrew up for a few songs. My feet hurt and I could barely keep my eyes open when we finally got back to the boat sometime after midnight. Thank you Mr. K for an awesome night!!

Anna Spring

Read more...