The Ship's Log

January 18: Roseway Says Goodbye to Luther College

Logged on Wednesday January 18, 2012

At 5 am on this dark and stormy morning, the 2012 Luther College Tales of the Sea program aboard Roseway officially came to a close as we said goodbye to an outstanding group of students.  12 days sailing Roseway roughly 160 miles between 6 islands, with various hikes, snorkeling excursions and explorations; hundreds of pages of literature and poetry read, discussed and even performed; routine deckwashes, sole scrubbing, and head cleanings; countless dishes washed, knots tied, and lines coiled, it was undoubtably a remarkable program.  While unique in it’s theme and itinerary, it was clear the mission to inspire and challenge aboard Roseway remained true for this group of midwestern college students.  When asked about their most significant lessons learned, they reported the following:

- “The importance of looking past any differences that you might have with someone in order to get things done.”

- “Get out of your comfort zone!”

-” The importance of community!”

- “The relationships I have formed and the complexity of the sea and her mysteries.”

-”A lot about being comfortable with myself as well as living simply.”

-”Stepping out of my comfort zone.  Doing things I don’t normally do with people I don’t really know.  Trying and enjoying new things and experiences.”

- “How important it is to know people, because they will often surprise you.”

- “How to live closely with others. We all live separate lives that are very egocentric, and it is great to have that stripped away to be more group centralized.”

-”Teamwork!”

-”I am more confident then when put in a situation that is completely new, with the help of others I can succeed.”

-”I’m a happier person when I open myself up to meeting new people and have much more fun when I don’t care what others think about me.”

-” The spirit of the crew: I really admire the whole crew who are so brave and passionate about their job and dreams – this spirit encourages me to fight for my dreams.”

- “Just do it! Don’t think that there is anything you can’t do and let that stop you from trying something new or different.”

-”Try everything at least once and don’t be afraid to push your comfort zone.”

- “How to better socialize and communicate, becoming friends with complete strangers.”

While our Luther College crew is on the way back to Iowa, we are now switching gears in anticipation to Rock the Dock Saturday night.

 

 

January 17: Watch A Reports in from St. Croix

Logged on Tuesday January 17, 2012

January 17, 2012
Watch A: Ingrid B., Kelsey, Allie, Xueli, Zak, and Matt

Sadly, today was our last day onboard the Roseway.  We woke up at the usual time, had breakfast, and did our chores.  After battling with an unusual rain storm for a couple hours we prepared for the Deckhand Olympics.  Each watch group has worked hard over the last ten days preparing for the games.  The groups competed in knot tying, rope coiling, and identifying all of the rigging and lines on the ship.  Watch group A was victorious.  After the Olympics we got ready for the last adventure of our trip.  We got into groups of four and hopped into off-road Jeeps.  We embarked on a 3 hour trip across the entire island of St. Croix.  The journey included stops at beaches, the jungle, and mountain tops.  We had quite the experience as the Jeeps flew along unpaved roads, through large pools of water, and along steep cliffs.  After finishing our ride we had a couple hours to explore the St. Croix boardwalk and check out the town’s shops, bars, and restaurants.  Once back on the Roseway we had our last meal as a group and were surprised with ice cream by the crew.  After tonight’s closing ceremonies we will pack up our bags in preparation for our long journey back to Decorah tomorrow!

January 16: Watch C Reports in from St. Croix

Logged on Monday January 16, 2012

Watch C: Mary, Aubrey, Caitlin, Jordan, and Jeff
January 16, 2012.

This morning we woke up at 7:30 and had bacon and egg sandwiches for breakfast.  As always they were delicious.  After taking a group picture/video of us on the Roseway we set sail for St. Croix and our final destination of our trip.  The sail took about 5 hours and we spent most of our time practicing for the deck hand olypmics that are taking place tomorrow.  When we arrived in St. Croix we had the afternoon to work on some more seamanship skills and also climb the rigging (thats what holds the masts up).  It was an amazing view!  After that we had some free time to go snorkeling and swimming or just chill on the boat.  While snorkeling a group saw some spotted eagle rays, sting rays, blow fish, lion fish, a baby baracuda, and a washing machine fish (also known as a washing machine on the bottom of the ocean).  We then had a delicious dinner of pot roast and like every other night enjoyed doing our evening chores.  Tonight we will be performing “The Tempest” for the crew and the rest of the class when they aren’t on stage.  Later tonight we will be enjoying an anchor watch free night, which will hopefully lead to an undisturbed night’s sleep.  We are looking forward to seeing everyone in a couple of days but we will all be sad to leave.  Good night from the Roseway.

January 15: Watch B Reports in from Norman Island

Logged on Monday January 16, 2012

January 15, 2012
Watch B: Ingrid F., Lydia, Erika, Evan, and Willie

We had a glorious day in the sunshine and ocean. Early this morning, we awoke to find two ginormous cruise ships across the Road Harbor in Tortola. Then we had breakfast and bonded with our fellow dudes and dudettes. Our class discussion consisted of talking about The Tempest by William Shakespeare. We broke up into small groups to disect the meaning of various passages in the first two acts. We are performing select scenes from The Tempest, starting tomorrow night. The cast list will be posted tonight during night watch, which we are so excited for!! After class we set sail for Norman Island, the inspiration for Robert Lewis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. There was a major downpour for approximately five minutes while we were sailing, which made us feel like real sailors! When we finally arrived at Norman Island, we set up for the best lunch ever!! Our lovely chef had made salad and baked potatoes with all of the fixings you could ever want. Lunch time is a glorious time for us here on the Roseway because it gives us a time to talk to everyone and just chillax. Then we got our swimsuits on and set out to snorkel in the surrounding caves. Thankfully we got started before two boats full of tourists came to invade our area. We snorkeled around in small groups and got to see colourful fish and sea life. The list of things that we saw is as follows: sea slugs, crabs, cuttle fish, needle fish, baracudas, nemo fish, dory fish, and fish that we don’t know the names of. We all got tired after about two hours so then we came back to swim and “shower” in the ocean. We then got dressed up all snazzy and took pictures (well as snazzy as you can look on The Roseway). Tonight we went out to dinner on the Willy-T, which is a boat/restaurant in a bay of Norman Island.Dinner was delicious and we had a marvelous time with the whole crew!! It finally felt like we were living the island life since we got to dance and eat with so many different people who were sailing in the Caribbean.Overall, this was probably the best day ever!!! :)

January 14: Watch A Reports in from Tortola

Logged on Monday January 16, 2012

January 14
Watch A: Ingrid B., Kelsey, Allie, Xueli, Zak, Matt

As usual, we awoke at sunrise and hauled the sails for our journey from Virgin Gorda to Tortola.  We ate another delicious breakfast in preparation for an exciting day of discovering the joys of small boat sailing, which tied in brilliantly with our class reading for the day, “The Joys of Small Boat Sailing” by Jack London.  When we reached port we piled into the dinghys and headed for shore where we met with a few instructors who showed us how to maneuver our small boats.  And “small” isn’t an exaggeration–the boats could only hold up to two people, were no longer than ten feet in length, with the boom no higher than eye level for most.  This caused a few problems while tacking and some of us have the battle wounds to prove it.  At first figuring out how to sail our own individual boats was difficult, and everyone had their turn in the water regardless of their prior experience, but by the end of the day we could all easily navigate our way around the harbor, weaving in and out of the other ships anchored there.  As a thank you to the owners of the compay who owned the small boats, KATS (Kids and The Sea), we took a few students from the island on a sunset sail to show them what we could do.  Although the kids knew quite a bit already about sailing, we were able to teach them some of our own newfound knowledge.  It was another great day on the Roseway!

January 13: Watch C Reports in from Virgin Gorda

Logged on Monday January 16, 2012

January 13, 2012
C Watch: Jordan, Jeff, Caitlin, Mary, Aubrey

Today was an early day.  We woke up at 7 to raise anchor and set sail for Virgin Gorda.  While sailing we spent our time reading and reflecting, learning and practicing seamanship, going out to the bowsprit (for those that don’t know the bowsprit is the beam that goes out the front of the boat), getting a chance to steer at the helm, boat checks, bow watch, and relaxing.  We sailed up the Sir Francis Drake Channel with the wind due on our nose so our voyage was full of tacking. The sail was about six hours.  We sailed by the island that treasure island is based off of and also Dead Chest Island (Thirteen men on a dead man’s chest, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum).  When we arrived at our destination we layed anchor and dinghied over to The Baths and bailed out into water that was over our heads and rode the waves into the beach.  Then we began exploring the area.  Some of our brave souls hiked all around the giant rocks that made up The Baths and came away with many little cuts and bruises.  There’s no need to worry though, no one got seriously injured.  We saw some great views as well while climbing around the rocks.  The other people who didn’t go exploring and hiking relaxed on the beach and found some cool caves where the sun reflected around the cave and lit it up.  The weather was amazing and all of us got very “tan.”  After getting back from our excursion we moved the ship over to a different area where the swells were a little more calm and then we partook in an amazingly delicious meat loaf dinner.  Afterwards we enjoyed doing our evening chores and reading puns that we wrote on our anchor watch the night before.  Then it was lights out at 21

January 12: Watch B Reports In from Jost Van Dyke

Logged on Monday January 16, 2012

Watch B: Ingrid F, Lydia, Erika, Evan, and Willie
January 12, 2012

After waking up this morning on the cost of St. John, we performed our ‘nautical raps’ that we wrote during anchor watch last night. Every rap was hilarious, from nautical terms, to costumes made out of sailing line. Right after morning chores, we set sail for a short trip to over the first BVI (British Virgin Islands) island of our trip, Jost Van Dike. After going through costumes with success, we then headed over to the Bubbly Pool. This is a place on Jost Van Dike, not to far from Foxy’s Taboo, one of the island’s restruants, that is a small pool of sea water that comes through the rock. About the size of a small pool, the waves come crashing in through and fill the pool each time. A very beautiful and peacful spot. Unfortuantely the tide was quite low today ands so we had to go exploring in the areas to try and find some better spots to experiance the natural jets that the Bubbly Pools created. Part of our time in the Bubbly Pools involved finding a small sea urchin and a chiton (a small mollusk). These we passed around and got to feel both try and grab onto our hands, much to the horror and excitement of us. Our final event was going to Foxy’s Taboo for some cocktails and then a quick swim off of the Roseway followed by a delicous BBQ Chicken dinner. Tomorrow we plan to sail to Virgin Gorda.This day was utterly fabulous!!! Thanks to the best group and crew ever! :)

January 11: Watch A Reports In

Logged on Wednesday January 11, 2012

Watch A: Ingrid B., Kelsey, Allie, Xueli, Zak, and Matt
Caneel Bay, St. John, U.S.V.I.

After waking up for another delicious breakfast of blueberry pancakes and fruit, we recited the poems that we wrote during our late night anchor watches for the group.  For class we discussed “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and then went into St. John for a three mile hike in the Virgin Islands National Park.  To get to the start of the trail at the top of one of the mountains, we packed ourselves into an open-air taxi which held all 23 of us,  On the hike we saw mango trees, wild pineapple plants, lime trees, bay rum trees, and west Indian locust trees.  The wildlife we came across included deer, mongooses, orb weavers (spiders), quail doves, and some migrating birds from Canada.  We stopped for lunch at a waterfall sight with petroglyphs from around 900-1500 a.d.  After, we came across ruins of a sugar mill from the 18th century.  The trail took us to a beautiful beach where another boat picked us up and took a scenic route back to the Roseway where we went for a swim and showered in the ocean.  When we were all clean we had some time to relax, journal about our day, read our assignment for class, and play music.  There was another beautiful sunset tonight in Caneel bay that I’m sure you will see pictures of when we get back!

* We are heading to Jost Van Dyke in the morning and may not be in range for posting our ships log for a couple day, but will update as we can, at the very latest we will update on the 16th.

January 10: Watch C Reports from Caneel Bay

Logged on Tuesday January 10, 2012

Watch C: Mary, Aubrey,Caitlin, Jordan, and Jeffrey
Caneel Bay, St. John

After hour-long anchor watches throughout the night where each group wrote a stanza of a poem, we awoke to a wonderful breakfast of egg and bacon sandwiches.  We discussed “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” during class, and then we set sail for Cruz Bay.

A lunch of broccoli cheese soup was eaten underway, and when we reached our destination, we disembarked on the dinghies for the mainland of St. John.  We spent the afternoon exploring the town and partaking of the various luxuries of civilization, including indoor plumbing and air-conditioning.  A wise smoothie man imparted to us some life advice–”The man who digs the hole is a respectable idiot.  The man who knows why he is digging the hole is the boss.  Always know why you are doing what you are doing.”

After some shopping for souveniers, we enjoyed lounging around on dry land and watching the free-roaming chickens.  We headed back to the boat for some swimming and free time, ate a fabulous dinner of baked penne and fresh bread, finished up our evening chores, and headed to bed.

 

January 9: Watch B Reports In from St. John

Logged on Monday January 9, 2012

Watch B: Ingrid F., Lydia, Erika, Evan, and Willie
Maho Bay, St. John

Our first morning after night watch began at 7:30 AM. Overall the opinions of night-watch were positive, and as we mustered at midship Nick read to us a story that we had created through the shifts of night-watch. Though it began with a journey of a ship and whales, it ended with marauders stealing treasure from the supposed Buckingham Palace and the reunion of a man and his narwhal son. Amidst laughter and confusion, breakfast was set up and consumed, which was followed by morning ship chores as every morning will entail. Chores were completed without complications, and with ten minutes of free time we set out in various directions to do course charting, knot tying, other random activities. Class commenced with the reading and discussion of “Sea Fever,” a poem by John Masefield. Though there are many interpretations of the meanings in “Sea Fever,” but we focused on the meter of this poem, and we concluded that its organized but chaotic measure was a parallel to the sea and its chaos. We next covered “Ulysses,” by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Here we focused on how Ulysses, or Odysseus, was being nostalgic for his life of adventure and the sea. He seemed to have a mentality of meritocracy, or never give up, strive for the best. Finally, we looked at “The Maldive Shark,” by Herman Melville. The shark is portrayed as a dark and ominous being while the pilot fish that live in a symbiotic relationship with this shark, were light and freeing. With class completed we moved on to some free time of writing, reflection, and reading.

It was then lunch time, which was delicious according to everyone. We do believe that our appetites have slightly increased do our new found days in the wind, heat, and sun. After lunch, we all prepared for our first island and snorkeling adventures on St. John. Arriving in shifts from the dinghies, we set out as a group to climb the mountain of the island (it doesn’t look like a mountain to the naked eye, but remember they touch bottom of the sea, sometimes 15,000 feet in trenches). With some adventurous spirit we took a wrong path that led us to another oulet on the same beach we had left from. Oops. Oh well, what are adventures for, if not for wrong turns and sight-seeing along the path. Once we got ourselves navigated correctly and followed the road, we reached Annaberg ruins in no time.

 

Traveling through the ruins we saw some impressive views of the sea, but were also made aware of the juxtaposition of the slaves’ living quarters being among such beauty when they were the exact opposite. Leaving the ruins behind, we set off on an old Danish road for the beach near the coral reef. As we prepared for the watery part of our adventure, we lathered ourselves in sunblock which made it difficult to properly put on goggles and flippers. Once completely ready, we set out for the reef, and we probably looked the very stark white creatures to all the underwater life. Time to get the suntan on, or more likely sunburn. We saw everything from our lovely (not) friends the sea urchins, to a nurse shark, a giant sea-star. Our trip back to the beach where we originally started our adventure was uneventful aside from being eaten almost alive by noseeums. We got back to the ship all in one piece and group, to have a dinner prepared by our one and only Captain Tom. After dinner, we did our evening ship chores, and are now writing this post to complete our day before setting sail with the full moon. We will be adventuring to Caneel Bay, which is another location off of St. John. Tune in tomorrow, to see what adventures and shenanigans we run into.