Sententiae Draconis

The HMS Bounty has sunk off Cape Hatteras in North Carolina during Hurricane Sandy. Fourteen of the crew have been rescued, but apparently two are still missing, including Captain Robin and a woman I don't know.

I sailed on the Bounty for about a month the summer after I graduated from high school. She wasn't exactly a good ship - she was leaky and poorly organized - but she was my home for that time and I have fond memories (even while shaking my head in retrospect). As far as I can tell most of the people from my time - except Robin - weren't on board anymore and are safe. I'm not sure if I knew anyone else who was there, though because in general I've been terrible at keeping in touch. But being on the Bounty was an important time in my life. It's (indirectly) the reason I know denisia since her friend R was a shipmate of mine and we stayed at her place in New York after I got off the boat. And I learned a lot while I was there.

My brother called me this morning at 7am to let me know what had happened. And I'm glad I heard it from him first, since he was the one who got me on board in the first place, and we could reminisce together. But after that I got emails and texts from all sorts of people, which is cool. Obviously people actually listen to my crazy sailor stories.

When I was on board we sailed from Jacksonville, FL up to Long Island. When we went by Cape Hatteras on the way into Beaufort, North Carolina it was calm, which is very unusual. Cape Hatteras is known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic for good reason. Cape Hatteras is bordered by a series of (I think) three sets of shoals, which is why it's so dangerous. The Frying Pan Shoals are the best named of the lot. I remember getting off watch at 4 in the morning as we were passing and Matt, our first mate, making a terrible joke about the Frying Pan Shoals. Actually he didn't get the chance to make the joke, he just started it and then we all groaned and left to go to bed.

I'll probably write a little more about the Bounty later and my sailing experiences, but for now I think that's what I've got.

Robin, I hope you're okay, but what the fuck were you thinking trying to go around Cape Hatteras (of all places) in a Hurricane?

And Mail!

Pictures in the Mail!

I just got home after procrastinating in the Wardroom and found mail for me! I almost never get paper mail, and that's a shame, but it makes me really happy when I do get stuff! This was completely unexpected too! It's a CD of pictures from Appledore this summer and it's great! There're a few really good pictures of me, and some choice ones of the boat and the guys I sailed with.

I'll probably post a few of them sometime later when I'm procrastinating from papers and exams.

Yay Pictures!!!!!!

Summer's coming around again, so of course I'm starting to get itchy, wanting to get back out on the water. I want to go saaaaaaaaaailing! I misses it!

They've started putting ads up on Tee Vee for the Tall Ships festival that's being held in July down on the water-front. I checked the web-site, because of course I want to go and see all the pretty boats and get some contacts because I really want to go saaaaaaaailing next summer. Of course it costs $15 a day to go in and see all the ships and I don't want to spend that much. So I signed up to volunteer at the festival! This may, or may not be a good idea, but so far I like it and I'm sure that I can fudge it so that I can get the time off work. Anyway it's one of those things where you have to apply to volunteer, so I might not even get to, but I think that my summers of experience on tall ships might do me some good in this area.

In unrelated news we completely cleaned out the fridge today. I'm vaguely amazed by the gross and the three virtually empty pesto jars that I'm certain were left in there by A. But now it's all shiny and clean (!!!).