Where the warm winds fill the sheets – San Juan – [12/23/2011]

HMS Bounty at anchor in San Juan

Much as I was looking forward to seeing San Juan, I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything about it. I didn’t get past the end of the dock.

I was supposed to have IPM today, so despite a 4 hour break in the afternoon I was resigned to staying on the ship, helping to cover activities and making my electronic Christmas cards to send out to friends and family before I Once again forget that such things need to be done (I really have a terrible memory for things like that). However, in the late hours of the afternoon it turned out that one of my teammates was choosing to remain ship-side, nothing to interest him on shore I suppose. This enabled me to get permission to re-schedule my hours and wander around for a while.

Much as I needed the time off the ship, it turns out more that I needed time on another one.

The HMS Bounty was built – perhaps crafted is a better word – in the 1960s for the famous Marlon Brando movie Mutiny on the Bounty. She’s a full scale replica of the original ship, actually she’s about a third larger than the original because the big Hollywood movie cameras had to be able to fit inside her back then. This results in her being one of the only Tall Ships in the world fleet that’s actually spacious (by comparison) below decks. She’s also huge, her masts reaching against the sky decked with hundreds of different sizes of lines, all with their purpose, all in their place.

I had been aboard her once before, she was part of the fleet that came to the Tall Ships Festival in 2008, but I hadn’t seen her since, and this year’s Victoria Tall Ships was cancelled, so I didn’t think I’d be seeing any of the ladies again any time soon.

I didn’t know she was wintering in Puerto Rico, though usually I try and look things like that up in advance, so it was a pleasant surprise to see her tied up at the end of the dock when I reached the end of the gangway. There went all possibility of exploring San Jaun. Admission fee to the Bounty is supposed to be $10, but they let me in for $7, and I spent the next two hours chatting with the crew members, comparing life on a cruise ship to life on a real ship, (because I love my job, and I love my floating palace of a ‘home’ but in my books she’s still not a true ship). And of course listening to her.

The Bounty is all wood except for the mizzen-mast (at least I think they said it was the mizzen, it might have been the main I can’t remember), which is made of steel so that when they were filming the movie they could pipe the exhaust from the ship-board engine (which does exist still, though they try not to use it unless it’s an emergency) through it depending on the angle of the shot they were taking. Because she’s 99.9% timber, she talks. Tall Ships all talk of course, they each have their own voice, and their own language made up of the creak of the decks and the whistle of the wind through the stays.

At one point there was  kid hanging out below decks with us, I would have pegged him at about 15 or so, obviously a fan of the whole pirate ship idea. The three of us (me, the crew attendant, and him) were in the middle of a conversation about how the ship had been built, when suddenly an above average swell moves in, and the ship gives an all mighty creak and rolls sharply to one side. The attendant and I just adjust our footing and carry on as normal, but the kid looks concerned.

Is that a good sound or a bad one?

The attendant shrugs, and shakes his head, and looks at me, to which I say

Aw, she’s just talking…

You don’t hear that on a cruise ship. You get the occasional creak and rattle, but mostly – honestly – cruise ships are silent except for the whirr of the engines and the occasional clang as a crew elevator bangs against its shaft. Much as I love my ship, she has very little in the way of true personality (er, don’t’ tell her I said that). On a wooden ship though, you get used to the fact that they talk.

Most of you know that I’ve been lusting after a sailing course on the Lady Washington for years now. Always before I’ve had the time but not the money, or vice versa. But one of the attendants yesterday mentioned that the Lady has been very hard up for volunteers lately, to the point where it’s not unheard of for them to adjust their rates. And this summer – if all goes well with sealing up my next contract – I’ll have time and money both. It’s possible that by this time next year, I’ll be able to see a stack of sails on the horizon and say “yeah, I did that”

But in the meantime…despite not getting past the end of the dock, this was a very good day.