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Date: Monday, July 22, 2002
UMASS Boston
Day One of Seven

 
During these past few dockside days in New Bedford, we’ve been catching up on some maintenance and preparing the ship for several weeks of programming in Long Island Sound and all the way up to Portland, Maine before the Labor Day schooner races in Gloucester. This morning fetched up hot and humid, so the crew were ready and waiting when our group of 15 students from the University of Massachusetts-Boston came onboard. We mustered around the wheel and, as a way of introducing ourselves, each person said what they were looking forward to learning and accomplishing for the voyage. Our participants are focused on oceanography and coastal zone management issues, and they’re looking forward to what, for many, will be their first extended experience at sea. Several members of the crew also expressed excitement for the opportunity to sail with one group for 8 days, develop a working rhythm and really get to know the participants.

We had a full day of sailing ahead of us—destination: New London, CT for the concurrent conferences of the National Marine Educators and Ships to Save the Waters (see links from Ernestina’s home page for more info). So we got right off the dock, introducing participants initially to basic safety and sail-raising points; and once our four lowers were set, the watches began full orientations to the ship, both below decks and on decks.

The chart image shows Ernestina steaming through Fishers Island Sound on the approach to New London.

One of the group’s programmatic goals is to collect a data set of water characteristics for study in the remainder of their summer course. So after lunch the students learned how to use and care for the refractometer, plankton net and microscopes. From there we proceeded into safety drills as we do on every multi-day voyage. Each watch group played its designated role in vessel operations, emergency management, and personnel control as we simulated a fire scenario in the main hold.

Given the rolling sea and stiff breezes, everyone was hungry by dinnertime. Those not on watch rested after dinner and crew and a few participants were on hand for our late-night docking in New London. It was well after midnight before our dock watches began. A very full first day indeed—and tomorrow morning we join the conferences!

Captain: Sophie Morse
Program Coordinator: MaryHelen Gunn

We would like to thank Lotus and IBM for donation of software, hardware and funding to enable regular electronic updates from the ship.

NOAA Chart is provided courtesy of Maptech using Cruising Navigator 4.3 and grabbing the image using Grabit Pro 6.02.

 
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Copyright 1997-2002
Schooner Ernestina
89 North Water Street, P.O. Box 2010, New Bedford, MA 02741-2010
phone 508.992.4900 -- fax 508.984.7719
www.ernestina.org

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