Sunday, July 10, 2011

Schooner Cruise

Midcoast Maine is home to a fleet of windjammers which run excursions up and down and around Penobscot Bay for which passengers (mostly from away) pay quite a bit of money.



As we were casting about for something - anything - with which to occupy The Heir this summer, he hit upon the idea of apprenticing aboard one of these vessels and became ridiculously excited at the prospect.


Now, crewing is hard, constant work.   And an apprentice is at the very bottom of the food chain.

We are talking about a boy who is so disinclined to physical exertion that he moans for hours when it's his turn to mow the lawn, and we have a riding lawnmower.



So I was skeptical.



But he's doing it and loving it.  And he's getting some great pics.



The sequence that follows was taken while they were approaching and passing under the Deer Isle Bridge, in the Eggemoggin Reach:




Here's another one of the schooners passing under the same bridge.











Feeding a crowd is always an event, but cranking out three gourmet meals a day for six days for thirty people on a wood-burning stove in a tiny galley is pretty much a round-the-clock activity, and virtually all the proof we need that miracle-wielding saints walk - or float - among us. 

The galley slaves do get a break one evening of each cruise for the customary island lobsterbake. 

It's nice to know the boy ate almost as well as he would have at home.

He's home now for a couple of weeks before he ships out again.


He went off to bed after a long hot shower, six tacos, two chocolate chip cookies and half a gallon of milk.

I'm pretty sure he grew while he was gone. Not just physically.

I'm proud of him.
 

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