A Lesson In History, Part 2

Classes started on the first day at sea. Bruce, the director, explained that there were no days on a boat, so we had class on sunday. Our breaks were in port. Sometimes they were really long, but sometimes the sails were too. Something I realized early on was that people were different at sea than they were in port. When you're sailing, you try to put your personal feelings aside for the good of the whole. And besides, in the beginning everyone still is cheery and everyone's a friend. That changes after a while, though.

Our sail to Poland was uneventful. Classes and watch during the day, watch during the night. Getting used to the schedule took most of my energy, because I was trying to deal with seven courses. That meant 3 to 5 hours of schoolwork everyday, two hours of work during the day, and two hours of my night given for the ship. Daywatch consisted of mostly cleaning and regular maintenance, as well as surveillance and helming. (In the beginning the helmsman stayed on duty for the entire shift, which is one hour, but because some of us newbies were so incredibly terrible at helming, it became a half hour shift.) Nightwatch for Watch 4 was similarly polarized. Cathy and Gabi stood lookout. Cathy mostly on Starboard, Gabbi on Port, while Alice sat and me and the other two guys helmed. When I would get on, I would not get off, simply because I was too shy to yell to them to switch me off, despite the wind, and I was too afraid that the ship would steer off course to turn around. But we were always a good watch, and the one argument we would have over that would be short lived and would solve the matter permanently.