A Return to Routine

St. Croix, USVI

Ship’s Logs written by AmeriCorps Deckhand Educator Matthew Morawa

February 8, 2024

After the previous week of bad weather and cancelled sails the Denis Sullivan returned to normal programming. On Monday, Hanna and I went to Ricardo Richards. There, I led Captain's Coming (a kind of Simon says game), and we discussed what to bring.

We had Ed sails Tuesday through Friday. We sailed in light wind, which is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, students are less likely to get seasick. On the other, less wind means less sail trimmings, which is shorthand for manipulating a sail's sheets for optimal wind angle.

Highlights from the Ed sails this week were doing bowsprit with Alex and a beautiful Friday morning.

This week we also had the board of directors come and a nice dinner party at the Rosner's Thursday, where I talked to Matt Handy (board member) quite a bit.

Friday saw an evening sail where I gave a history speech and missed a heaving line. While coming into the dock, the bow got blown out, and my heaving line was frankly coiled poorly (happens with the black ones we use), so it didn't go as far as it would have. Resulting in a miss. We did sail wing-on-wing into the channel, which was nice.

Saturday saw an all-staff meeting, which I was apparently dehydrated for. Later that night was the Gala, which I heard was quite successful. I, however, mostly ran around photographing and eating food while talking to people.

A good night, and an informative week overall. Informative as far as the heaving lines go anyways.

-Matthew Morawa