An Unusual Week aboard Denis Sullivan
St. Croix, USVI
Ship’s Logs written by AmeriCorps Deckhand Educator Sarah Margolis
February 12, 2024
Ahoy there from Christiansted Harbor in St. Croix! This week was a little unusual aboard the Denis Sullivan. We had educational programs planned for Tuesday through Friday (Monday was a crew day off), but the weather had other ideas for us. Usually with our day programs, we sail 4 out of the 5 weekdays and have one day at the dock. The day at the dock is where we invite the students to climb aloft. This past week brought a swirl of high winds and some rain.
On Tuesday, a 6th grade class from Ricardo Richards met us at our dock and we did crew/student introductions with a welcome game in the theme of that day’s value: Teamwork. The students then circled around different lessons on the boat. I led “What the Heck is That?”, where we walked around the ship and talked about the functions of different things on board. Out mate also taught us how to splice - basically taking the end of a rope and creating a strong loop by braiding the strands into each other. Splices are useful for a number of things. We were creating sail ties, lines that tie are sails together and hold them put after they’ve been furled.
Wednesday was a very rainy day. School was cancelled for the kids and, as we do when we have the opportunity, the crew broke into maintenance. I cleaned 2 of the strainers in our thru-hulls in the engine room. These are pipes that run seawater through the hull to cool the engines (and perhaps other functions I’m unaware of). The strainers can get full with sea grass and shells from sea creatures (little snails and crabs). After maintenance we all worked together to fix and sew some of our flags in the pilot house. That was relaxing thing to do on a rainy day.
Thursday marked a special occasion. It was the crew’s 100th day aboard the Denis Sullivan. What a ride it’s been! I spent the morning spraying borax around the ship to help with our cockroach problem (yay!) and the students returned in the afternoon. This day was centered around our Trust value. I worked with my crew mate, Jess, to teach about simple machines. Tall Ships operate on simple machines: pulleys, levers, wheels, screws, etc., so it’s a pretty practical lesson.
Friday’s weather was a bit iffy to go sailing. The rained cleared but we had some wind that made us question if we should go out. The students hadn’t gotten the chance to sail this week and we decided to go for it. All but 2 students got terribly sea sick and we were not able to do our lessons. There were a few moments on the sail where I felt a bit nauseas myself, and I was worried about going out that evening for our public sunset sail. The sunset sail ended up going pretty well, with only 2-3 passengers getting sick. I felt pretty ok too - although we were rolling quite a bit.
Hope you enjoyed this week’s log!
Ocean’s Greetings,
Sarah
