My vacation this year included; an earthquake, a pirate voyage, a hurricane (and forced evacuation from a barrier island), pipefish, sandburrs, wild horses, spaceships and cowboys, and a lot of duct tape.

Each year (or more often if I can make it) I make a sort of pilgrimage to a set of barrier islands off the coast of Maryland and Virginia. Assateague is a long, low dragon shape, stretched across the MD/VA border. Chincoteague lies like a tiny egg inside the curve of Assateague's "tail" (The Hook). Assateague is home to wild horses, waterfowl, and sea life. Chincoteague is home to watermen, saltwater cowboys, art galleries and nifty shops, and the only wild horse roundup on the east coast.

First, the pirate ship. Lewes DE lies on the edge of DelMarVa. Occasionally, during the summer, it is the home port of a "pirate ship", the Kalmar Nyckel, a glorious big blue wedding cake of a vessel, carved and decorated and square rigged and cannoned, with a leaping lion on the bow and merrows on the stern and fighting tops aloft (so the crew can go, literally, "over the top"). A reproduction of the 1638 ship that brought the first settlers to Wilmington DE (New Sweden then), she does "pirate sails" out of Lewes, out into the open waters of the Delaware Bay. The guests are invited to help haul on lines, to sing sea shanties, to perch on windlass or cannon, to take ridiculously cool pictures of themselves with a set of 1630's rigging or deck carvings as the set. The crew is in period garb. They climb picturesquely aloft... with a purpose; to set the 17th century windmachine that will haul us out into the High Seas without fossil fuels (mostly, they do have backup engines). One young man tells a fun tale  of a kid who becomes a pirate for a day. Another talks about the real history (and misconceptions) of the Golden Age of Piracy. We learn Captain Lauren's last name is Morgan... we think she's a lot cooler than the guy on the rum bottle. We form a line and help set a tops'l. It's a lot harder than jumping in the car and turning a key. The Helmsman steers from a cubbyhole about the size of Harry Potter's closet. There is a huge stick (the whipstaff) attached to a tiller below the deck he's standing on, (the tiller attaches to the rudder, the whipstaff gives some mechanical advantage to the mere human attempting to heave the 100 foot ship on a new course). From HP's closet, the helmsman can see masts, yards, deck stuff, tourists, more tourists, rigging, and a tiny bit of water to port and another tiny bit to starboard. He mostly listens to the orders coming from the Captain, above. We set only the tops'ls (the big square bits above the bigger square bits on the masts... masts = levers that the wind pushes on... a light wind pushing on sails higher up... topsails... is more efficient)  as the wind is very light, and the deck is very full (of tourists). We also set the sprit tops'l.

The wha??? you say. Pay attention, this is significant. The boat has a big pointy thing in front: the bowsprit. It helps hold the whole thing together (standing rigging runs through the bowsprit and the masts, like a big string puzzle). The bowsprit on a 17th century Dutch vessel of this type has a sprits'l (a square sail slung low on the bowsprit like a baby's bib) and a sprit topsail, hung a bit higher. Kalmar is the only ship in the western hemisphere to have a sprit tops'l, and she doesn't usually set it. There's a guy from some museum ( in, I believe it was Sweden) who is sailing the next day to study how this works (they have an original vessel of this time period, raised from where it sank in a harbor on its maiden voyage; it was preserved by freshwater in the port... and the sewage... all of which created an anaerobic environment which preserved the ship). 

Not quite as ordinary as boarding a comuter flight to Miami.

Somewhere in the midst of the voyage, over the ship's radio, comes the earthquake report.

Back in PA, my uncle is sitting in the car, in a parking lot, waiting for my aunt. He feels someone "shaking the car"...turns around to see no-one.

Kalmar sails back to port with no rumbles felt, no tsunamis seen. We get some pirate booty (T-shirt, a cool line drawing of Kalmar) and I head south by land.

Chincoteague VA, island of the wild ponies, made famous by a 1940s book, Misty of Chincoteague (and 60s film) by Marguerite Henry. I saw it first in 1972, the last year Misty (the pony in the story) was alive. I toured her stable, saw her snoozing in the back corner of her stall (she was old, and her palomino gold color was faded to sand), and didn't take a picture (the flash would have disturbed her). She died a few months later. I never got the picture.

I park, find my buddies, we eat dinner, and someone produces a set of DVDs of a short run TV series called Firefly. It's a sort of post-apocalyptic sci-fi/western with a crew of pirate-smuggler-privateer types flying under the radar of the Evil Totalitarian Government that controls the galaxy. Sort of the opposite of Star Trek. The last image in the opening credits pretty much sums it up: a herd of thundering horses with a spaceship (firefly class, the ship of the title) zooming overhead. Over the next few nights, I find the need to stay up way too late, have too many beers (two, which leads to a headache, and a need to drink lots of water and find the porta-bucket in the middle of the night), and absorb the entire series at once.

I get up early for the Marine Explorers program done by the Park Service, we launch a couple of kayaks into Chincoteague Bay, I test the underwater housing from the Dark Ages given to me by a buddy (anybody remember the old Jaques Cousteau specials? Yeah, it's like that stuff), I use the giant sized kitchen strainer to sift out eelgrass, algae, sea-lettuce and a pipefush from the grass beds in the Bay,  climb the lighthouse in winds that led the lighthouse interpretive guide to suggest I batten down my hat, I try leaping the waves like I did when I first came to Assateague...

My knees reminded me that leaping like a dolphin is for 20 year olds.

Chris finds the first sandburr. I am aware of this by the sudden shrieks reminiscent of a torture scene in Firefly when the Captain is kidnapped by a psychopathic mobster. I find sandburrs (for the record, Teva sandals, the hiking/river/kayaking sort, are immune...the flipflops are like wearing marshmallows where sandburrs are concerned), Heather's bare feet find more sanburrs. She, always barefoot, resorts to the dreaded Shoe. I find more: on the edges of my longish shorts, stuck to the webbing of my sandals, under my toes...

The islands are full of vampires: several kinds of bloodsucking flies, several dozen kinds of bloodsucking mosquitoes, 3 kinds of ticks, and sandburrs. Perhaps if the Twilight series had been written here, it would actually be scary.

Then we got wind of the weather...

To quote the guy at the beginning of The Little Mermaid..."hurricane a'comin'!!!"

The skies remained sunny, the wind too brisk now for kayaks. The birds went about their business as usual; egrets and blue herons, tricolored herons and sandpipers fishing the shallows, beaks pumping like sewing machines in the sand at the sea's edge. Pelicans soared over the waves like pteradactyls. A mysterious fin surfaced near my kayak (maybe a dolphin).

Oh, we'll just have some rain the last two days of my vacation...I'll drive home Monday, as planned.

Went to the museum that used to be called The Oyster Museum. It's grown in scope from its days as an ode to the local industry. There are exhibits on local culture, waterfowl, the oyster industry, history, the fire company, watermen, the pony roundup...and Misty.

Really, Misty herself, in all her stuffed, taxidermied glory (along with her daughter, Stormy, who I once sketched alive). Taxidermy done by a well-meaning local craftsman with a rather random knowledge of horse anatomy. I take pictures, mostly video, anyway, an experiment in filmaking (shooting around the bad bits, trying to make the stuffed horses look more... unstuffed).

I burn some memory card, abosorb Vast Knowledge until my brain is full, and my eyes glassy.

The guys at the front desk are packing their bags, their boxes...the entire museum, in fact, is being battened down. Back on the beach, the Park Service is using some interesting large Tonka toys to move the changing rooms and porta-pottis off the beach. The girl at the Kite Koop advises me to leave Thursday night, before the causeway (the only way on and off the island that doesn't require a boat) is closed, and we are actually stranded on a desert island. And before the traffic to the north becomes a dreaded crawl through gale force winds and closed bridges and torrential rain.

At the rental house we hover around the weather channel, watching the worst storm since 1962 (the nor'easter that inspired Stormy; Misty's Foal) form and advance toward the Outer Banks. We learn the beach will close at ten tonight, and not reopen until the storm has passed.

We opt for food, beer, and more episodes of Firefly. But first, three of us pile into Janet's car and head for one last look at the beach. The sky sputters. Pours. We drive in the dark out the causeway to Assateague, headlights of other cars occasionally shining through the downpour. Water pools on the road; rain? or rising seas??  Heather rumbles from the backseat as if she is driving a dogsled; "...gee, gee, no haw...stay out of the lagoon!" I remember my dive instructor said to never drive through standing water.... I can't remember how much it takes to sweep you off the road and into the lagoon.

The road becomes packed sand with beach parking lot signs. 

The rain peters out into a fine drizzle.

We step out, headlamp shining on rolling surf. I turn the light out. Dim light, the continual roar of surf on sloping sand. The flash of the distant lighthouse on the white breakers; blink-blink....blink-blink....

Friday am, we aquire tarps, plastic, plywood, and copious amounts of duct tape, battening down our buddy Heather's houses, and treasured old books. Chincoteague issues an evacuation notice, rental houses are called; non-residents must be off-island by 6pm... residents by the next day.

We pack, reluctantly, under skies that morph from rain to sun to cloud to sun to drizzle to sun.

Vultures perch on the roof of the condo. The lighthouse is visible across the marsh, sentinel from the Civil War, on the highest piece of ground for miles around, double walled brick tower still flashing its light through the rain Thursday night.

I drive north Friday under sunny skies, calm hot windless skies. The mighty landship Fearaf (my 1983 Ford Econoline van) is loaded with gas, food, water, blankets. I only fear getting out too late and sinking the van.

And the Traffic Jams of Doom.

Chincoteague's Main street is being boarded up (the bay is only a few yards away, and most of Chincoteague is actually below sea level). I take some last pictures, throw good wishes at some guys boarding up a store front. They grin, keep working. They've been through it all before. No big deal.

One of them says; "Everybody gets all excited when God starts rearranging the furniture..."

The Traffic of Doom does not materialize, only some Friday evening rush hour traffic in Dover and Smyrna. Gale force winds do not materialize. The kayaks remain lashed to the roof of the van. Neither I or they blow to Oz. Torrential rains do not materialize. Nor do bridge closings (I still have to get off DelMarVa, which was a penninsula, and now, due to the C&D Canal, is actually a rather large island). I drive north in weather that can't decide what outfit to wear; rain, sun, cloud, rain, drizzle, sun, setting sun.

Somewhere in the middle of the rain, my driver side windshield wiper goes "kraat!" and lurches hard aport.

"That doesn't look right..."

I pull over and inspect this small, and ridiculously important piece of technology I just had replaced a month ago. There's a greebly that turns and a thingie that pops and something that holds it all on the windshield washer arm thingie...

I twist it and poke it and sort of get it back together.

It pops loose.

"@%$&^%$!!!!!?!!!"

I delve into the Mighty Landship Fearaf, laden with Hurricane Survival Gear, searching for....

Duct tape, the Force that holds the universe together.

I drive north through rain, the wipers slapping a happy, and slightly offbeat rhythm...






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National Public Radio has a feature they call Weekend Soundtrack. They invite us, the listeners, to send in our inspiring soundtracks. This was mine...
　

It varies, depending on the expedition brainfart of the week, but, right now... yeah, it's Pirates. The Soundtrack, you know, from those Disney flicks. Ok, before you send me by the boards to be marooned forever in some mosquito infested salt marsh (one of my favorite environments, by the way), let me explain.

I grew up on horseback, a total landlubber in Pennsylvania Dutch Country.The Susquehanna flows down through our farm hills into that great inland sea called the Chesapeake Bay, and then into the sea. I remained blissfully unaware of it through my childhood and youth, though I grew up on the likes of Sea Hunt and Flipper and Cousteau specials. I eventually learned to swim, and even SCUBA dive: but floatin' boats were to get you to the sunken one, and the floatin' ones were usually stinky noisy diesel affairs. I did living history from the Viking age to the Renaissance, mostly bopping big guys upside the head with broadswords and galloping picturesquely about on my horse. Sometimes I would join my friends in The Longship Company on one of their Viking longships. I was certainly no sailor; mostly we rowed around the marina and creeks at Solomon's Island, MD, once in awhile, we'd put up the big square thingie and blow downwind for awhile.

Then came a year when tall ships sailed the silver screen; Peter Pan, Master and Commander, and the first Pirates film brought us adventure on the high seas, and it looked awesome. Still, it was a film fantasy, something I knew a bit about as an artist and writer specializing in the young adult fantasy genre.

Then a friend took me to a tall ship festival in Baltimore. I rounded the corner in the water taxi and fell in love.

She lay there, sleek cutlass blade hull hugging the water, her two masts raked as if she was going warp eleven, even at the dock.

Which is how I found myself on a pirate ship on Halloween. Ok, not technically a "pirate" ship, a privateer. The Chesapeake Bay, and Baltimore in particular, were famed for their swift, agile "sharp-built schooners", used in both the American Revolution and the War of 1812. They were privateering vessels with government issued letters of marque and reprisal; "Flyers" who would run blockades and carry goods, and carry off any enemy merchants who happened to get in their way; "Sea Wolves" who would prey on enemy merchants, capturing "prizes" for a struggling young nation (and themselves, in the bargain). The Pride of Baltimore II is a recreation of the famed Baltimore Clippers of 1812, and for a wee bit of gold (or your Gold Card) she'll let you sign on as Guest Crew for a few days before the mast, no experience required.

Some sailor once compared the experience to riding a wild black mare through the wild woods in the dark of night. I understand the Black Mare imagery: I had my own wild black mare; a mustang adopted through the Bureau of Land Management's Adopt-A-Horse program. Not the Lone Ranger White Knight, not the Roy Rogers Golden Hero. Batman, Bagheera, Arnold's black-leather Harley-riding Terminator, the night-black steed of Zorro, dangerous power, the one riding the thin line between light and dark, good and evil.

The Chesapeake Bay privateers made their mark on history, and faded from it as the great Bay grew crowded, silted, full of phosphorus and nitrogen and algae blooms and dead zones, deficient in shad and crab and oyster and striper and skipjack.

Roaring on a reach, under slatey skies in early November, with a full press of canvas over my head, I caught a glimpse of the Bay that was.

That might yet be. I catch more glimpses, later, as I paddle my sea kayak on parts of the Captain John Smith Water Trail. As I feel the shape of waves reflecting off the marshes' mudwalls, as I watch an eagle sail out of the woods to snatch a fish from a fleeing osprey.

I want others to see this too. To feel it. To experience it.

Pride is not the only ship that still sails that vast inland sea. There are others; a small fleet made of the things of Earth; wood and canvas and line, others who creak and sing and gallop over the waves, flying on the wind; schooners, colonial ships, skipjacks and others. The 1769 era topsail schooner Sultana carries more than 4,600 students each year on educational adventures. I met one of those kids, on Chincoteague Island; his mom said he hadn't stopped talking about it for weeks. I manned her helm (tiller and steering tackle, not a wheel) in a cold May rain for forty minutes (and wished for more) while she balooshed cheerfully through the Bay chop from Annapolis to St. Michaels. Upon our arrival (under slightly sunnier skies than we had set out) a group of kids on the lighthouse yelled "Arrrr, hey pirates! Yo! Pirate ship!" The original Sultana was a pre-Revolution revenue cutter for the British Navy, we didn't bother to correct them.

Wouldn't you want to sail on a pirate ship?

The Chesapeake Bay Program (a multigovernmental interstate partnership along with the Environmental Protection Agency) has as one of its goals to give 100 percent of students a meangingful watershed educational experience by their high school graduation.

An experience: not a list of facts and names and dates which will sail in one ear and out the other.

An experience: spending even a few hours unplugged from the I-pod and the Game Boy, in a world where you pay attention to the direction of the wind and tide, to the shape of the swells rolling under your feet, to the color of the clouds on the far horizon, where a mysterious fin flashes out of the depths and then vanishes, where travel means hauling on a line with six other people, standing out in the rain, or the sun, where air conditioning is your hat, and central heating is a wool sweater... an experience of connecting to the real world, and maybe caring enough about it to make sure the Bay will have oyster reefs and grass beds and clear water for the next generation.

If it starts with a cheesy Hollywood image, or a book, or a soundtrack, arrrr, so be it! Captain Jack, and Captain John, would be grinning.







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Changing Tack 08/12/2009
 
2009.05.27
I wrote this in May, after a long-awaited voyage got blown out, and half a dozen of us had to figure out what we were going to do with a Saturday off. Sometimes, you change course, and strange things happen...　

I like tall ships for the same reasons I like sled dogs and wild horses; they are inextricably tied to the rhythms of the natural world.

Round eared dogs, like Golden Retrievers, will wait at your feet with great eager brown eyes, "give me a command, come on, what do you want me to do?" Northern dogs will take a message and get back to you. Maybe.

If you point the nose of a normal domestic horse in any direction, he goes there without complaint. Wild horses must be whispered to, connected with. And they'll tell you when they think your human knowledge is too narrow and limited.

Most of our technology is 'push a button and go there'. Hop in the car, turn a key and point its nose north.

Tall ships are more like living things; they creak and groan, moving according to the shape of the water under them, spreading thousands of square feet of wings on the wind. And if the wind is blowing the wrong way, or not at all, you wait. If you run aground, you wait for high tide. If it's already high tide, you wait for a spring tide. The wind shapes the evolution of their wings, the way it does the wings of birds. Water shapes their hulls, the way it shapes fish or dolphin or whale. Their very nature is to migrate, to follow the wind. They take us out of our clock time world and into another one, a world of the rhythms of sun and tide and the clouds taking shape on the far edge of the world.

Last year, about this time, (May 10) two friends and I spent a day crossing the Chesapeake Bay in style: 18th century style. Rain, sog and ripping good wind, the 1768 Schooner Sultana balooshing through the waves like a sturdy Shetland pony on a rocky trail, sailing from Annapolis to St. Michael’s.

We decided to recreate the adventure this year, on the run from Annapolis to Chestertown.

With a few more crew. I rounded up Connie (a cousin) who had sailed last year, another cousin, Josh, one of the Longship Company guys (a captain on longship Sae Hrafn), my buddy Rainey, paddling buddy Sandy. I juggled packing lists, a campsite, who was driving what where (no return transport is provided, except the cars you shuttle yourself). I have a certain amount of trip anxiety, I guess, fretting over what goes in which pack and did I get enough stuff at Giant and is the food box too full or not enough and do I really need two bags of marshmallows, and where did I put the tie-down straps for stuff like packs and bedrolls (I swear they were in the kayak gear box), and will the van break down and what do we do if it does (AAA is my friend).

The week before the trip sucked. Insanity at work (stress and coupons, I hate you Corporate Subway Boys in the Ivory Tower). A horse that suddenly founders, with us floundering to find a new vet because the other one has apparently developed a case of insanity or overwhelming ego.

Then the well-trained sled dogs, who always wait when I open the gate, give me a heart attack. Legolas blows past me out the gate, runs to the kennel to inspect the food bucket, which is out of his reach, blows on by, runs around the back forty, finds a dessicated dead thing, blasts into the front yard and toward the Davidsburd Deathway (I grew up with a large population of flat cats). Screaming "target, target" (his signal to come and press his nose to my hand for a bikkie) I struggle after him. I can’t run (knees, arthritic feet, winter flab). Gasping I get to the front yard to see him trotting off with the big dead thing in his mouth. "TARGET!" I shriek, waving the food bowl. Somehow he decides the familiar (boring) shiny metal thing is more interesting than properly aged rabbit corpse. I grab him, stuff his nose in the food dish, and haul him back to the kennel.

The horse also survives, so far, with an admonition from the vet that she’s too bloody fat (I knew that, you wire her teeth shut or something).

I’m totally stressed and need a vacation.

And the weather sucks.

The weather report continues to suck. I find my Frogg Toggs, they worked fine last year in the drizzle. And the sun eventually came out.

Friday, May 15, Drew McMullen from Sultana Projects calls and says the weather is looking very iffy: 70/30 in favor of not going. The problem is not only random thunderstorms, or potential rain (the Bay is known for its sudden and fierce squalls), but the north wind blowing from the direction we are going to.

We are used to clock time. To pushing a button and getting light, heat, ground coffee. To jumping in a car and turning a key, pointing our bow north and going there.

Sultana hails from a time when your world was sixty feet of deck. And the whole limitless horizon. When you studied the clouds and knew their language. When where the wind was coming from was important. Sultana runs on the rhythms of wind and tide and weather. She has a backup engine, a fairly strong one, but her hull is designed to sail, her bluff bow designed to ride the waves, and her canvas wings designed to catch the wind from abaft the beam.

If you point her nose into the wind and turn on her alien engine, she bucks and snorts like a recalcitrant pony, or just stands there.

The last time they tried to sail in those conditions, the guest crew were cowering on the quarterdeck, three of them barfing the whole way across the Bay.

Saturday morning, Drew calls to tell us we’ve been blown out. The crew will likely wait till Monday to sail the ship north to Chestertown.

Damn.

Sultana’s crew is professional, experienced. They know sailing, the Bay, their ship, what to expect from certain weather patterns. I know, from years messing with the Longship Company, with kayaks, horses camping and sled dogs, that there are parts of the world that yet run on the rhythms of wind and tide and weather. Things that don’t work because you push a button.

There are two more sails in September and October.

I’m still disappointed.

Now what? I’ve pried two days off, on a weekend, and I want to do something other than sit at home. I call everybody, we look like those vultures in the old Disney "Jungle Book" film: "so...whadday wanna do? I dunno, whadda YOU wanna do? I dunno..."

Connie bails till Sunday. Fred is in Bowie and probably goes to the longship work session. I can’t raise him on the cell. I get Josh and Sandy and Rainey. Josh shows early (9:30) and pokes around on his Blackberry.

Wait, there’s a tall ship in Wilmington I’d like to sail on, "Try the Kalmar Nyckel site." I suggest.

Kalmar sails between 10 and 3, and it’s already nearly noon. We’d never get there in time.

Plan C.

Baltimore. Close, and we can still get in a few hours at the aquarium.

We load up in Josh’s car and head down 83. Josh navigates Baltimore more easuily than York. Thank the gods of travel; I loathe interstates, I detest going over 55, I really really hate 695, the insanity loop around Baltimore. We’ve pared our Sultana daypacks down to simpler packs for a shorter mission. I’ve got granola bars, V8, Frogg Toggs, water bottles, two cameras and a shipload of batteries. I pause in the parking garage, reading the manual on my new camera, to figure out how to tell it that it has now devoured lithium batteries not alkaline.

We walk toward the aquarium.

Masts loom on the waterfront; the Constellation, most of it the original ship from before the Civil War (1854). In between her three stately masts rise two other masts, raked hard, as if she is going warp eleven.

Pride’s here!

The Pride of Baltimore II is the first tall ship I fell in love with. A few years ago, on the heels of the first Pirates movie, some friends and I went to Inner Harbor for a tall ship festival. We rounded the corner in the water taxi and there she was, cutlass blade hull hugging the water and those warp eleven masts. She's a "schooner, pilot boat-built" as they said in the old days. Now they call them Baltimore Clippers; the jet fighters of 1812. Fliers and sea-wolves with government issued letters of marque and reprisal; they ran blockades (fliers), like Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon, or took enemy ships as "prizes".

I sailed on Pride II a few times since; on the Chester River at Downrigging weekend, on a two day guest crew passage from Baltimore to Chestertown. I walked on her decks every time I saw her open for tourists. Sent pictures to the Pride office (one appears on their Privateer Society brochure). She is, with Sultana and Kalmar and Sae Hrafn, one of my favorite ships.

I’m not sure why I didn’t think of checking her site that Saturday morning. I guess I assumed she was busy. Or on her way to ports more exotic. Out of reach. I forgot that she too, does simpler things like two hour tours and groups of school kids.

"Hey, let’s go over and take a look." I drag the other three after me, past Constellation’s looming stern.

There’s life aboard, a crew. And a gangway to the waterfront walkway. Tourists are wandering aboard, eyeing the new varnish and the antique technology that was the cutting edge of its time.

"Let’s go aboard." I wander up, camera in hand, as full of wonder as when I first saw her. Form follows function, and her form is beautiful. "Like a fine Arabian steed", one British observer in the War of 1812 years wrote. "Like a wild black mare galloping through the woods at night," observed several sailors of the first Pride. Even sitting still, her canvas wings folded she is full of rich details: the perfectly straight lines of standing rigging, the sweeping curves of running rigging, the sculpture formed by carefully belayed and coiled line, the textures of varnished cabin trunks and rails, of weathered deck, of layered mast hoops and sail edges like the feathers of a giant bird.

She’s leaving tomorrow on her summer tour which will take her to the Caribbean, up the coast to the Canadian Maritimes, Baltimore’s icon doesn’t stay in Baltimore much of the year.

They’re doing a public sail at 3. One last public sail till fall.

It doesn’t take much convincing to ditch the aquarium in favor of a sail on Pride.

Her mighty engines (bright yellow, about the size of refrigerators, and one, in 2007, was guarded by a foot tall pink plastic Jesus) fire up. Over the side I can see the murky harbor water churn under Pride's screws. We chug backwards, through the green and purple dragon boats peddalled by tourists, past the docked sailboats.

Then Pride begins to spread her wings. The foresail, fore-staysail, and the square topsail. There are too many people on deck (though the original Baltimore Clippers had crews of more than a hundred), and the space between Fort McHenry and the Francis Scott Key Bridge is too small for her 10,000 square feet of full canvas. We tack back and forth, often with the wind nearly in front of us (on a tack, you change course across the eye of the wind, so it is in front of us as we change course). I try to watch the frantic coordinated dance of lines loosed and belayed somewhere else, of the vast wing of the foresail (which reaches past the mainmast) slipped past lines and mainmast, of half a dozen hearty sailors (including several strong young women) hauling on a line to crank the topsail around to catch the wind.

I shoot hundreds of pictures, and remember why horsemen and sailors have calluses.

We pass Fort McHenry, and one of the four remaining screwpile lighthouses in the Bay (Seven Foot Knoll, a round red one at Inner Harbor). The Lasy Maryland, the only pungy schooner reproduction, is docked at the foot of the lighthouse.

Pride flies on the wind, demanding effort and attention to detail from the crew handling her lines. Finally she fold her wings and drifts back past Seven Foot Knoll, the dragon boats, the aquarium. We hold cannon fire until we’re past the aquarium, then let loose with a shout that echoes off the skyscrapers.

Pride is here, carrying the memories of her ancestors.

The wind changes. The carefully coordinated adventure takes a left turn. The spontaneous action produces a startling result, and a new, unexpected adventure.

I always thought someone should do a movie about the privateers. A woman aboard is writing a screenplay about privateers in her family. I have her card. She has some good books to recommend on privateers. Maybe there’s a story in here for me as well.
We pass a street performer, Unicycle Lady (she has a website under that name). She’s in slightly cheesy pirate garb, doing a wonderful performance, part of which is done to the old Styx song, "Come Sail Away", one of my favorite songs of all time (I sang along with a live performance of it once, ten feet from the lead guitarist, Tommy Shaw). Unicycle Lady reminds me of the Motley Folk, the travelling entertainers, in the Inkheart trilogy, which I just read, nay, devoured. An excellent example of YA fantasy, an example to emulate.

Privateers, firedancers, fliers and sea wolves. There’s a story to be told. Many of them. And sometimes, you have to take a different tack to find them.

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