May 12th

Mother’s Day, a good day to remind our young crew to call home! It’s easy when you are off on a big adventure to become involved in the world around you and forget to water the garden on the home front. In my day as a deckhand, we would line up in the evening behind the Red and White grocery and take our turn at the payphone. We would laugh and fool around while we called partners and parents. It was a bonding experience that is missed now with cell phones and the age of instant communication.

The seasons are slowly changing, at least here on Bluenose II our markers of time passing are being checked off. Our last deckhand arrived this week, fresh from University and fully ready for a different adventure. The addition of new crew during the long hours of a spring refit and uprig is always a happy adventure. First, there is an extra body to share the load and help, secondly, there is an injection of enthusiasm into the folks before the mast. With the addition of the last crew member the external training portion of the spring could begin.