Tents, Holidays, Repair, and Farewell

The crew of the Pride of Baltimore II in early December in front of that darn tent. They are, from left to right, back to front... Brad, Krista, Jamie, Miles, Capt Miles, Maria, Sophie, Rubin, Bhodi, Dave, Alan, Erin, and Martina.

Good day all, from the US of A. Bhodi and I have left the Pride of Baltimore II and returned to my parents home in Tampa Bay, FL to await our next sailing gig. This posting has been long coming between choosing pictures, travel, getting over long aggrevating colds, baggage that ended up in Frankfurt instead of New York, meeting the families, Christmas, New Years, etc. I hope that everyone had a good holiday season. I am unable to report how Pride's was since Bhodi amd I left on the 20th of December, but with Rubin cooking scrumcious (I have no idea how to spell that word) roast duck and the Secret Santa, I'm sure it was wonderful. Before getting on with the update and pictures, a word on leaving Pride. As you can imagine, it was a difficult decision. We had already put so much effort into her and wanted to see it through. But as with any project of this scale, the dates of completement are hazy and there were a few things (namely summer school) that I wanted to be sure to be back in the States for, and if we stayed past our contract end date, then that was it, we were staying for the sail back. Also, the crew are sailors, its what we base our lives around when we get on a boat and its what drives us to take that step out there in the first place. Without sailing, with spending months at dock, especially in a foriegn country, problems in the crew can arise that would not necessarily happen if the boat was working its scheldule and out at sea. Passive understanding could not solve them and there were times my anger and frustration blocked out the reasons I wanted to be there. Taking this into account, I came to a decision that it would be for the best to move on. The ship and her crew are in my thoughts every day and I wish them and fun and safe journey back home. And now, for the pictures...


Sometime in October (dates are fuzzy) , we got ourselves a nice tent (at least we thought it was nice until the zippers started breaking) to hide under and keep the deck dry for caulking. It worked for the most part, but sounded like two dozen squeaky shoes on a basketball court when it was windy. Here Alan holds two beams while Capt Miles offers moral support.








Up it goes. The whole thing was quite heavy. We had to move it around the deck regularly to change the coverage area or when the wind pushed it to one side or the other.










Martina with groceries before we attained a vehicle. Pretty awesome when you think about it. Ferrying food and supplies back and forth 1.5 miles on a bike for 13 people!











Halloween!!! We woke up to this scene on the morning of the 31st. Each of the napkin packages on the table contained candies and toys.
(Not shown here, Josh, depicted in many previous posts, left the Pride in mid October and was replaced by returning crew, Krista, depicted later.)








Me, with vampire gummy teeth. Sorry, I couldn't resist.















Rubin and Dave sorting through pumpkin innards to retrieve seeds for cooking.


















Back to work. Alan working on ... hmmm.. the main dorade box? One of the dorades was damaged by the fallen fore mast so the box was taken apart and the brightwork refinished.











More bunks invaded. Erin in Sophie's rack to access the channel lags. (note: it was always amusing to watch Sophie empty her rack. She would act like a bulldozer and push all of it out on the sole and the pile would almost reach her shoulders in height)








Dave rolls the neverending oakum as the deck project works back past the midships hatch.


















Oakumlocks.... Bhodi models the newly rolled oakum as I steal his camera.

















Hard to reach places were always a challenge for both setting the oakum and pouring the pitch.

















The time for holidays. Thanksgiving at Mike's house. I believe we have mentioned him before, but Mike is a great guy, boatbuilder extraordinaire who would come down to the ship to help out on occassion, always with a big grin on his face like a kid in a candy store. Raised in America, he and his wife and a few other French/American couples would get together to celebrate Thanksgiving every year, and this time extended the inviation to the Pride crew as well.
You can see Captain Miles cutting the Turkey in the background.



The pre-feast party


















Our host, Mike, and one of his very energetic kids. They all got dressed up and ran around the house, dangled off the stairs, and pushed each other around and around on the spinning lazyboy. Entertainment for hours. And speaking of entertainment, out that open door in the background were black sheep. Sophie, Krista, and maybe Maria, and I went out there and chased them for a good 5 minutes. Too bad it was too dark for Bhodi's pictures of it to come out.








Miles and Maria show off their hairstyles.













All partied out. I was told later that just about everyone in the party came up and took pictures of us like this. I had no idea, I was out like a light.













Into December, with carpentry work. Dave, Bhodi, Alan, and Brad.














Sophie on the grinder and looking good too...
















Snow!!! One Saturday evening we walked up on deck to this, our first snow in St. Nazaire.















Alan keeping warm while sanding away at the midships hatch.








Notice the change of clothing. It got cold in the mornings we got up before dawn to start work. Even though the weather was semi clear for the most part, there was only a half an hour right after luch were we felt we could shed layers. Any other time, it was with numb hands and feet that we continued caulking.















The Christmas party at Wall Street English gave a few crew members a reason to dust off those goodwill outfits and represent! I never liked the scarf, so I went with the tie.















"Why yes I speak English, Wall Street English. Do you have any Grey Poupon?"

















Our last day on the Pride. The caulking project just feet from completion.

















And if you didn't see it in the last shot, check out the new transom. The first coat being applied by Capt Miles himself.


















Erin works on serving the new main runner, with Sophie looking on. In the background, the contraption for wire seizing.











Now this is a rare sight. The Captain, First and Second mate in the Lazarette hatch, inspecting the binnacle. Why am I reminded of Whack-A-Mole?










The Pride as she looked on our last day. We left early in the morning on a Tuesday, before most of the crew were awake. As I passed over her rail, I gave the ship thanks for seeing us through the dismasting. Fair winds, Pride of Baltimore 2.5!