Swordwhale Walking: Illustration, stories, photojourneys, videos

My cameras, sketchbooks, and notebooks go everywhere, and this is the result: enough PDFs to sink a very large website (wear your PFD!). Below are the logs of various expeditions, adventures, and opportunities for sunburn, being sucked dry by the vampiric flying hordes of the salt marsh, for fleeing before a storm in a forty foot Viking longship (we made it to the marina bar), for squeegeeing the gunnels of an 1812 privateer, for driving the boat Owen Wilson couldn't (the Woodwind, in the Wedding Crashers), for braving the sog to smash through waves on the Chesapeake (1768 style), for learning to drive a ship from someone who walked the same planks as Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, (just not at the same time). Life is weird, adventure, as they said in "UP", is out there. Go find one. But read these first.

I grew up on Flipper, Sea Hunt and Cousteau specials. I wanted to go underwater, scooting across the surface wasn't all that appealing; even when I went swimming, it was mostly underwater. Then several films featuring tall ships hit the theaters; Master and Commander (based on the Patrick O'Brien books), Peter Pan, and the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" film. Curious about how real tall ships worked (even though I'd technically been sailing on one since the early 80s with the Longship Company) I accompanied "Captain Dave" (it's his fault I ended up on a longship on the Potomac for six days in 1984) and family to Baltimore for a tall ship festival. We toured Capitan Miranda, Bluenose II, and others. Then we boarded the water taxi and...

...I rounded the corner and fell in love. The object of my artistic "whoooooaaaa!" was a lean, water-hugging cutlass bladed hull topped with two masts raked like she was doing warp eleven sitting at the dock. She was the Pride of Baltimore II, a reproduction of the wicked swift and agile privateering vessels with which a young America made its mark in 1812. I would come back later to sail on her, and a few of the other historic vessels of the Chesapeake Bay. Here are a few "random shots over the bow" of ships whose hulls speak the language of the sea, and whose rigging sings in the wind.

In 2007, while most people were dressing as pirates, I spent Halloween on a pirate ship. well, technically privateer. I signed up for a Guest Crew passage (Baltimore to Chestertown) on the Pride of Baltimore II (inexpensive, and no sailing experience necessary). We putt-putted out of Inner Harbor and began throwing canvas into the air. Under full sail, we passed under the Francis Scott Key (rockets red glare...) Bridge, horns honked, small boats came close, cameras deployed. I looked up and said, "Whoa, this is The Picture. The Picture from the books, T-shirts, postcards. I can't take The Picture, because I'm IN IT!" I pulled out my cheesy throwaway camera and took this series of shots from mast tip to deck. Camera parallax (the perspective shifts as you aim higher) made it impossible to join the shots, so I did a montage. I sent some of the best shots to pride.org to share and use. 

Next April we went to Baltimore for Privateer Day. I collected some brochures, had fun went home. It was only a few days later I realized Pride.org had liked this one well enough to use it on their Privateer Society brochure cover!

The mainmast was, technically, just slightly aft of my guest cabin (the Teacher Aboard cabin) on the Pride of Baltimore II. The crew, traditionally, is quartered in the forward part of the ship (Pride's crew is mainly forward of the foremast), and the officers are quartered aft, which makes sense if you consider that's where the ship is steered from. Pride (if you've seen the other photos I have here, or visited her website through my links, you know) is a reproduction of the wicked swift and agile "Baltimore Clippers", the privateering vessels of the War of 1812. She has two mighty backup engines, modern navigational and safety equipment, and cabins the size of officers' quarters in the old days. Above deck though, she is a "schooner, pilot boat built" of the early ninteenth century, and requires the coordination and skill of a dozen crew when she spreads her canvas wings and flies on the wind.

Steering a horse, or a kayak, or a forty foot Viking Longship is one thing, but pointing a hundred foot ship in the right direction (it's heavily affected by wind and current) is another. As Guest Crew, you get to do pretty much everything the regular crew does: squeegee the gunnels (dew messes up the varnish), eat great food, stand watch at midnight, haul on lines, feel the sun and wind and silence of the Bay rushing by under the hull, check the bilges, and at least once, they let you drive the boat. Megan (the tall girl to the left) has crewed on various vessels, including Pride and the Lady Washington (that's the ship Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom steal in the first "Pirates" film; the "Interceptor" played by the Lady Washington). She points out various small blits I should be steering for. Suggests a half turn of the wheel this way or that. I turn the wheel and the great black unicorn horn of the bowsprit, nearly a hundred feet away, swings maddenly in the wrong direction. "Do you feel that?" How the ship turns her head up into the wind when it rises. Your world is reduced to one hundred feet of deck... and to the whole limitless horizon. You pay attention to the shape of the clouds on that horizon. To the slight, distant shape of hull or mast. To the feel of the wind. The ship is more like a living thing than a piece of technology: she creaks and groans, she flies across the water like it isn't there, her rigging sings in the wind. The actual work of catching that wind requires muscle power and coordination of many people, but it's green energy, free for the taking.

(photos of Megan and me at the helm by Pride crew)

"Viking" is both a noun (the occasional Norseman who left his farm and family...) and a verb (...and went a-viking). They were the pirates, or perhaps, privateers, of the 8th to 11th centuries. Their ships were the jet fighters of the time period, and they were the first Europeans to sail out of sight of land. Sae Hrafn is the latest in a line of Viking ships owned by the Longship Company of Solomon's Island, Maryland. She's not quite forty feet long, has one mast and a square rigged sail (making her, technically, a class A "tall ship"(all square rigged vessels and anything over 40m), Here, you can see her steerboard, on the starboard side (steerboard/starboard, yes there's a connection); this was before the age of the rudder. The steerboard is turned by a tiller, the yard (holding the sail) is managed by one crewperson on the braces, and usually one crewperson holds each sheet (the lines to the corners of the sail). Our "backup engine" is a number of 14 ft. oars (there's no way to put an engine in a Viking ship). We also have a small "push boat" (it worked for skipjacks) "Ihor's Chaika" which we are testing for longer voyages up and down the Chesapeake Bay. The Longship Company encourages all and sundry to come out and have a row with us: our brains are stuffed with knowledge of the Viking Age, other bits of history, Monty Python trivia, bawdy sea chanties, and experience gained from "archaeological sailing" (hey, what happens if we do this...?). We do follow modern Coast Guard regulations, and have approved and skillful captains. For a look at our adventures: check these PDFs...and, if you sail with us, bring a PFD, or borrow one of ours. 

Sultana sails out of Chestertown MD on a mission: to reconnect people with the Chesapeake Bay's ecology and history. Mostly, she carries middle grade students on learning adventures of a few hours, or a few days. She's not the largest ship in the fleet (in fact, she's a reproduction of the smallest ship in His Majesty's navy), or the fastest (she dates from a time when strength and volume: translate "tank", were important), but she time travels with us, carrying us to a place where cell phones didn't interrupt the sound of wind singing in the rigging, where you paid attention to the shape of clouds on the far horizon, where the storm clouds of revolution were brewing.