Ship Dreams
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by Randy Cromwell
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The past couple of weeks have been very much like being on vacation for us, except for the part that has been very much like being out of work. No worries, though. The coming year is rapidly getting filled with work commitments, so, for once, we are finally starting to feel like we might be able to survive in this world.
So, even though we
might be slightly becalmed in the sea of work
at the moment, we can sense strong winds
coming, and we know that we will be running
full and by before another turn of the moon.
This being the case, we ended up going down to Navy Pier and indulged ourselves in the delights of the Tall Ships Festival. For those of you who joined us there, you know what a great time we had. For those of you who could not make it, all we can do is recommend that you make time for it next summer. There are stories and enjoyments there that are not to be missed.
As you may
remember from a previous e-mail, Morgan and I
biked over to the lake the day before the
ships were scheduled to come into town. We
had no idea that there might be ships already
arriving, but that was, in fact, the case. We
were not certain of it at the time, but we
spotted at least three of the tall ships that
we would see in port, two days later. The
first one we saw was most probably the Europa,
a massive, sleek three-masted barque from The
Netherlands.
The second ship we saw was a either a three-masted or a top-sail schooner; probably The Pride of Baltimore, the Denis Sullivan or True North of Toronto. (We've just got to get a telescope!)
The third ship we saw was most
definitely the Ni–a, which is a reconstruction
of the actual ship that Christopher Columbus
sailed to the New World in 1492. She is a
gorgeous little caravel, and was a treat to
the eye, even when we saw her from a distance,
heading south along the Lake Michigan
shoreline.
The Ni–a
Having thus whetted our appetites, we hied
ourselves to Navy Pier Thursday afternoon.
Bruce, one of Morgan's dads, came down from
Wisconsin, and spent the day with us. We
walked and rode the trains into the city, and
got there just in time to send off Morgan's
other dad, Don and her mom, Cheri. They took
the entertaining and enjoyable expedient of
Chicago's Water Taxis to get back and forth
from their trains for the day. Unfortunately,
they had a gig Thursday night, so we didn't
get to spend any time with them. They had
managed to board the Amistad and the Europa,
and said that they were both worth the
unavoidable wait. All reports, including our
own, showed that the waiting in line was much
less than was expected.
After waving our bon
voyage's to Don and Cheri, we set off to see
some ships of our own.
Our first boarding was
Mist of Avalon. Rebuilt as a gaff schooner in
1992, Mist actually began her life as a
motorized cod fisher in Nova Scotia. It was
on this vessel that we finally learned the
meaning of the term "gunwale."
Next, we
boarded the ship Larinda.Ê Larinda is a
beautiful schooner out of Cape Cod,
Massachusetts. She has a collection of
burgundy red sails, and a white-and-green
hull. One of the most amazing things we saw
that day was actually in the head (bathroom)
of this charming vessel. All around the walls
of the head was ceramic tile with a beautiful
mural actually glazed into the tile. There was
also a raised tub that was nicer than many
people have in their homes. I'd sign on that
ship just so I could soak in that tub and look
at the story-pictures of little frog-people
and gnomes. Someone, or maybe everyone on
board the Larinda seems to be very fond of
frogs. In addition to finding them baked into
the tiles of the head, we also found them
sculpted into the ship in various places,
including the figurehead. If you look closely
at the photo below, just under the bowsprit,
you will see Oliver Southwood.
Larinda
Oliver Southwood (figurehead of the
Larinda)
The following is from the Larinda's
website:
"This brings [us] up to 2000, when a
visitor to the schooner Larinda can get a
taste of history by viewing Oliver Southwood,
a fine frog figurehead.
Oliver was carved from
one-hundred-year-old cypress by Susan R.
White. It took her about two months, working
six hours a day, five days a week, using hand
tools, in the old tradition. Once Oliver was
roughed out, the fine work was done with
delicate chisels and gouges. Final sanding was
followed with a heavy coat of epoxy to seal
all the wood and end grain.
Once the epoxy had cured, the figurehead
was again sanded in preparation for final
painting and coloring.
Oliver is wearing the dress uniform of
John Paul Jones - fitting attire for a frog of
Oliver's stature. In keeping with the general
scheme of Larinda, a modified version of a
1767 colonial coastal schooner, period colors
were selected for Oliver Southwood's uniform.
During the thirty years of building
Larinda there was never any doubt the
figurehead would be a frog. You see, my wife
Marlene collects frogs. What could be more
appropriate?
Larinda's transom is decorated with carved
killer whales and a large scallop shell. These
carvings are done in old hard pine and
fastened to cypress planking.
Susan has also carved two dolphin heads on
top of the forward knightheads. Below, dolphin
armrests grace two of the settees, while aft
in the great cabin two mermaids hold a shell
over the centrally located loveseat."
For more info on this charming vessel,
check out: http://www.larinda.com/
Randy aboard the Larinda (I'm smiling,
believe it or not.)
Morgan exiting Larinda's wheelhouse
Morgan's favorite parts of the Larinda were
the frogs and the woodwork. Mine, too, plus
the sails.
We didn't actually apply for crew
positions aboard the Larinda, but we sure
thought about it!
Now that this file must be huge, with all
these pictures, I will close and send it.
Expect at least two more large e-mails from us
in the next day or two. This has been an
amazing couple of weeks for us, and we wish to
share these great adventures with all of you.
Fair winds and full sails, Randy and
Morgan
After we toured the Larinda, Morgan, Bruce
and I wandered back over to DuSable Harbor,
and viewed the three ships, Fame, Serenity,
and Madeline. It was getting pretty late in
the day by then, so we did not board any of
those that day, but just appreciated them from
the dock. Then it was time to go see "Red
Tides" at the Amara Zee. This show lived up to
its press, and absolutely astounded us with
its inventiveness and its technical prowess.
There was aerial rope- and silk-work, there
was dancing all over the ship and shore, there
was angelic singing, there was poetry both
beautiful and dreadful, and the story itself
was completely mind-bending. Even the
lightning flashes in the sky seemed to hit on
cue. After the show, we gave our
congratulations to the company, and then
offered to help strike, in view of the coming
storm. The captain thanked us but passed on
our offer. He did, however, invite us to
return Sunday for an even better performance.
(The borrowed microphones caused some
technical difficulties in the sound.) We
thanked him and promised to return, and then
made our way back to Evanston for a Friday
morning call. We sent Bruce back to the wilds
of Wisconsin Friday morning, and then Morgan
and I spent the next two days working on the
Miss Teen International Pageant, and that's
all I want to say about that. Then, Sunday
morning, Morgan worked the church gig, and
there's not much to say about that, either.
Sunday afternoon, we went back to Navy Pier,
and met up with Ben Johnson, his friend Diana,
and the boys, Joshua and Jeremy. The boys
seemed pleased enough to board the ships, but
I think the most fun they had was rolling
around in the wet grass and stomping in the
puddles ashore. That was some of the most fun
I had that day, too. We also had the good
fortune to run into Jay Stoughtenborough, who
was working the festival. We didn't get as
much time to chat with him as we would have
liked, but it was fun to see him in a
different venue. He was delivering electrical
generators to the ships, so that they could
charge their batteries before heading out the
next day. (Most of the ships seem to depend
upon their motors at least as much as their
sails. We found that little fact to be
slightly disappointing, although very
understandable. When you have a deadline to
be at another port for that town's festival,
counting on the winds can be a little
uncertain.) After we found Ben and company, we
found the Niña, which Morgan and I had seen
sailing into town a week earlier. As I
mentioned in the previous e-mail, the Ni–a is
a caravel, which was a very popular ship
design in the 15th and 16th centuries. One of
Columbus' other ships, the Pinta, was also a
caravel. Caravels tend to be fairly small
ships with broad bows, high, narrow poop decks
and lateen (triangular) sails. Morgan
especially wanted to board the Niña because
this was the style of ship that Grania
O'Malley, the Irish pirate of the 16th century
used most often as her flagship. It was kind
of amazing to see how small a caravel was. It
seemed large enough, until we thought about
the fact that so many people lived, ate,
worked, and slept on the deck. The hold was
filled with cargo and animals for the entire
journey, and so was not available for human
use. Crossing the open Atlantic in 1492, being
constantly exposed to the vagaries of that
ocean's weather was no pleasant summer jaunt
for those folks. It's no wonder Columbus had
to forestall a mutiny on his two and-a-half
month voyage across unknown seas. I think it
was while we were aboard the Niña that Morgan
and I decided that we would one day have a
caravel of our own. Please don't hold me to
that, because ships aren't cheap and I'm not
sure if that's something we could scavenge
from a show, but also don't be surprised if we
make it happen. We were pretty damned
impressed with that ship, and we could live as
we pleased aboard a caravel like that
(providing, of course, that the way we like to
live includes being cold, wet, hungry and
lost). Yep, don't be surprised. After we
spent a goodly bit of time aboard the Niña,
the six of us explored the Bounty, which was
specifically built for the 1962 MGM movie,
"Mutiny on the Bounty." She has since been
used in other movies, and is also used as a
sail training vessel. This was one of the few
ships that actually allows visitors below, and
we were very surprised at the size of the
cabins and bunks. It seemed to us that it
would be actually a very comfortable mode of
travel. I could say a lot more about the
Bounty, too, but it seems like I'm saying a
lot about everything, so I'll move on. We also
toured the Madeline. Also a lovely craft, and
this one had an exceptionally friendly and
knowledgeable crew. We learned quite a few
more tidbits about sailing from those folks.
By then, it was getting close to time for the
Amara Zee show, but it was also threatening to
rain more, as it had already done quite a bit
that day. We found Captain Kirby again, and
discovered that he had decided to cancel the
show for the night, to avoid risking his cast
and crew dancing and doing acrobatics on a
slick, soaked deck. Another disappointment,
but again, perfectly understandable. While we
were discussing the weather and the show with
Captain Kirby, he happened to mention that the
Amara Zee's next port of call was Kenosha,
Wisconsin, for that town's Tall Ship Festival.
This festival was slated to be much smaller,
but it had the advantage of being reasonably
close. Morgan and I mentioned our willingness
to come up to Kenosha to see the show, so he
invited us to come to dinner, as well. We
felt very pleased and honored by this
invitation, and indicated our commitment to
join them the following Thursday. After this,
we said our "goodnights" to Ben, Diana, Joshua
and Jeremy, and began our own trek back home.
We walked along the docks to get another look
at some of our favorites: the Larinda, the
Mist of Avalon, the Amistad and the Europa.
We would have loved another glimpse of the
Ni–a, but she was docked on the Chicago River,
and would have been a fair bit out of our way
back to the El. Unbeknownst to us, we were to
see her yet again. Tall Ships Side Trip
Just in case I haven't made it obvious
enough so far, I should probably mention that
Morgan and I are among that large number of
people who are rather fascinated with just
about any aspect of sailing. We come by it
fairly honestly, with each of us having
sailors in our families, and having just a
little bit of sailing experience in our
younger years. We loved living just a few
blocks from the Fox River, and, now that we
have moved to Evanston, are loving even more
being just a quick walk or bike ride from Lake
Michigan. Our bookshelves have numerous
volumes of sailing adventures, and we have
been yearning to be back on the water for
years. The Tall Ships Festival was a great
pleasure for us, but only served to make the
desire to sail even keener. This is where Don
and Cheri, Morgan's dad and mom, came to our
rescue. Last year, Don chose to honor his
recently departed father, also a sailor, by
using part of his inheritance to purchase a
lovely sailing vessel, a 30-foot Catalina. He
also honored his mother by re-naming the boat
"Margaret Elizabeth." With so much talk of
sailing and histories these days, Don and
Cheri reminded us of their invitation to join
them on the boat. Since we were still
somewhat footloose-and-fancyfree, we finally
took them up on their offer, and joined them
Monday, the 4th of August. We left late (a
lot of work, and a lot of walking in the
previous week had taken their toll) and joined
them at a restaurant near the harbor in
Racine, Wisconsin. After a marvelous meal, we
all headed out to the boat, and Morgan and I
got started on our lessons of learning how to
sail. By the time we got ourselves and our
gear on board, it was already getting dark,
with an ominous mist settling on the lake.
Not to be deterred from our adventure, Don got
the GPS system homed in, and we cast off, and
motored through the harbor and out onto the
lake. For those of you who haven't been lucky
enough yet to visit the shores of Lake
Michigan, I will mention that this body of
water feels, at least to a novice like myself,
very much like an ocean. It is immense,
whether you are standing on shore, or aboard a
small sailing vessel, and believe me, as big
as a 30-foot boat is, it feels pretty damned
tiny when it's surrounded by miles of open
water. This is even more true when full dark
arrives, with a thick, wet mist on its back.
Still, we were out there for the adventure of
it, and that was what this was, so onward we
went. I remember standing in the prow, and
climbing up on the bow railings, one hand
firmly grasping the furled jib, and trying to
retrain my sea-eyes to see through fog and
darkness. I can navigate pretty comfortably
in a dark backstage, but Lake Michigan at
night is a different theatre altogether. It
was an exhilarating feeling, to stand on the
bow of the Margaret Elizabeth, and feel that
cool mist collecting on my skin, and rock with
every dip and rise as we moved through
barely-seen swells in the water. I felt like
almost anything could come up out of that
terrifying, magical world of deep water and
darkness. If not for keeping the boat safe, I
would have liked to keep going into it just to
see what we might see. I called to Don that it
was getting pretty thick in front of us, but,
of course, he had already seen that and was
already in the process of coming around to
take her back in. It is a strange combination
of satisfaction and disappointment when you
know the trip is over. You know that it has
been good, and worthwhile, and an excellent
adventure, but at the same time, you want it
to just continue forever, or at least until
you discover something that no one has seen
before. (We all know how unlikely that is,
these days, but it is easy to imagine any
number of new things, out there on the waves.)
We never got very far from shore that night, I
think. I can't be certain, because I spent
most of the voyage out standing in the bow.
On the trip back, mostly I just watched over
the port rail, and tried to find the
lighthouse, and the buoys, and the other
boats, and the sea monsters that I just knew
were lurking out there in the mist. I did not
spend much time looking at the shore. Still,
we ended up approaching the harbor so soon
that I know we couldn't have gone out very
far. It was plenty far for us, though, after
being so many years off the water. After
docking, we spent some time looking at sea
charts (or lake charts, I suppose), and the
GPS system, and Cheri and Don taught us how to
play Mexican Train Dominoes, and Cheri taught
Morgan some knotwork. We then bedded down for
the night, and they gave us the amazingly
comfortable "v-berth" in the underdecks of the
bow. We spent a lovely night, with the hatch
open to the stars and the lake air. We rose,
not too early, the next day, and enjoyed
coffee and donuts that Cheri had gotten before
we awoke. After that, we started making
preparations to get underway again. The
daytime sailing was just as wonderful, in a
very different way. For one thing, this time,
we were able to put up full sail, and Morgan
and I learned a little bit about manning the
helm and keeping the wind in the sails. It's
not as easy as one might think. The wind is a
fickle mistress - fulfilling your desires one
moment, and ignoring you the next. She doesn't
care at all where you want to go. If your
direction happens to coincide with hers, she's
happy to push and pull you along, but if you
want to go somewhere that she's not going,
you're on your own. True, over the centuries,
we've learned how to rig our sails so that we
can keep moving in something approaching the
course we wish, but it takes a lot of skill to
even move forward, and moving forward in the
right direction requires even more.
Fortunately for us, Don and Cheri have spent a
lot of time on the water, so we were never
stranded, and never really becalmed, even
though I often turned the rudder just enough
to dump all my wind. I found that I was much
more effective at standing off the port bow
looking for pirates. Morgan was a much surer
hand at the helm that day. Another time or
two out, though, and I feel sure that I'll
remember how to keep my sails "full and by."
I had to do it often enough while tacking
around the little Fox River that I think that
it will come back to me before too long.
Again, the trip was greatly satisfying and far
too brief, but we had appointments back in
Chicago that afternoon, so we came back in
before any of us were really ready. Still,
there are no regrets; we got to sail. Don and
Cheri: thank you from the bottom of our
hearts!
Next: On to Kenosha!
