Captain Jay Amster directs student Carina Spiro at the helm as we leave the dock!

Boats are meant to move and the crew with them. Alongside the dock, there is an anxiousness that ripples through the crew; the pull of land and loved ones and the internet are strong, but the sea, she calls us. Last night the students arrived and all of us, sailing interns included, began intense training. We followed that into the night and again this morning with our first round-the-clock watches, drills, safety training, cleaning duties, practicing striking the sail, running the science hydro-winch and the J-frame.

I can feel the nerves, excitement, trepidation, the intent, the rambunctiousness and reserve amongst the students, and they can probably feel it in us too if they took a second to check in. At 1400, we began to ready the boat for seas. Stowing and lashing anything that could roll or fly off of a surface once the Robert C. Seamans casts off the lines. We all had different jobs: loosening chafe gear, hauling and stowing the gangway, lowering the rescue boat that would shove us off the dock.

At 1500, hearts racing, adrenaline pumping, smiles a mile-wide, we manned our stations, as Captain Jay directed student Carina Spiro, at the helm and we eased her out of the harbor. It's official: we are off, for many of us like myself it's the journey of a lifetime. Let the adventure begin!!!!

I would like to close out my post with a portion of one of my favorite poems by Pablo Neruda because for those of you at home, it captures some of the "why's" we have all arrived here:

I need the sea because it teaches me,
I don't know if I learn music or awareness,
If it's a single wave or its vast existence,
Or only its harsh voice or its shining suggestion of fish and ships.
The fact is that until I fall asleep,
In some magnetic way I move in the university of the waves..

- Diane