We are now sailing on the longest leg since late July when PRIDE made her transit from Marquette to Boyne City. We departed Monday from Port Washington and are not scheduled to arrive Amherstburg till Saturday. It will be the longest time frame of non-public, in-port busy-ness in the last four weeks. Yesterday, Monday, felt like a typical shore-based lifestyle Saturday with the crew doing maintenance like everyone else does chores. Today, Tuesday, feels like Sunday with no chores…just enjoying the sailing and the sleeping between being on watch. Weather is favorable, making the sailing easy as we again slide by Sleeping Bear Dune near Traverse Bay, Michigan…at least for now. Overall it seems we are enjoying a “weekend” like experience…only that it is actually being experienced on a Monday and a Tuesday.

Meanwhile we partner captains of PRIDE, Jamie Trost and myself, are up to our eyebrows in crew selection. By the time PRIDE departs Boston in early October all of this year’s crew are likely to have changed save for maybe two…the Chief Mate and a Deckhand. The rotation started earlier in August. We have Hannah Mahan aboard now…she replaces Paul Wiley and came aboard August 11. The next change will be next week as Joe O’Hara gets off. Then over the Labor Day Weekend four more positions will change as 2nd Mate Carolyn Seavey, Bosun Rebecca Pskowski, Engineer Andrew Kaiser and Deckhand Arwyn Rogers all depart the ship. In Boston we will loose the cook and two more deckhands. All these vacancies need to be filled and the process to do so started back in July…and won’t end till we identify all the replacements…only about half are identified at this time. Coordinating the interview process so that both captains can assess each candidate is quite time consuming and must take place as one of us sails PRIDE and the other of us take’s personal time during time off of the ship.

Cheers,
Jan C. Miles,  Captain aboard Pride of Baltimore II