We'll be on our first cruise of 2012 in just three weeks:  our annual Rotary foreign student overnight.  We host both foreign students completing a school year in Maine high schools and some Maine students planning a school year overseas.  We've done this trip for about ten years and rain or shine, it's always fun.  It's a good chance to come up with some sailing pictures for the May newsletter!

     As in the picture at the top of this newsletter, half the fun of a cruise is the company of other windjammers; mostly National Historic Landmarks like the American Eagle.  Penobscot Bay and the surrounding coast and islands offer a perfect cruising area for these historic vessels.  You may see a few schooners preserved at maritime museums, but with our fleet you can experience them in a working environment and appreciate how neat and beautiful they are.  Windjamming is an active retirement for working sail vessels and a delight to experience. 

     The first first fleet get together of the season is our Schooner Gam Cruise, a six day boarding Sunday June 10th, $869 per person if you are new to us, $823 for returnees.

    We did it again.  First schooner hauled, inspected and painted; all done this month.  Out of the water and back in in three days. 

This year's yard crew from left to right:    

     John, Matt, Nola, Brad, Logan and Adam. 

     Some of us are finishing getting the schooner ready while Matt and Nola are driving to Prince William Sound for the summer and Logan sails back from Nevis to New England.  

Andy's Food News 

   Besides cooking on the American Eagle for several seasons and returning this season, Andy has sailed almost everywhere as a sea cook on sailing vessels.

    Captain Foss invited me to say a few words for the newsletter, so I thought I'd better correct a misconception from last month's installment.  It was salt I ran out of, not flour.  I boiled down a few gallons of seawater, filled the salt cellars and nobody knew the difference.

     How about a few pictures?  This one's from Concordia, the beautiful barquentine that sank off the coast of Brazil the year after I cooked on her.  Thank God nobody was hurt.  This iceberg was on our way from Argentina to Capetown.  Notice my classic "Alfalfa"-style coiffure.

     And here's the lovely Jamestown Harbor in Saint Helena, where Napoleon lived out his exile.  Great mangoes there.  Waiting to change my money, I struck up a conversation with some folks from Groton, Connecticut, not ten minutes away from my home in Mystic.  we sailors sure do get around.  I can hardly wait to get back to Eggemoggin Reach.

     See you there!

            Andy

Postcards

from Tom and Elfi Bohinj Lake in Slovenia

They will be on in August for the cruise to New Brunswick.

from Bridget Topkapi Palace in Istanbul

       Remember the movie about the jewel heist there?  Now I'm dating myself.  Bridget will be back aboard in September.

Trophy Husband 

      Not exactly, but if you go to enough races often enough you're apt to win once in a while.  It's a team effort and success is often dependent on mistakes the other boats make.  Here's a twenty year old picture the first time the American Eagle won the Esperanto Cup.

Capt. Joe Piscitello, the George Nichols Cup, me, the winning trophy plaque, Gus Piscitello. 

The Piscitellos fished the vessel out of Goucester for two generations.

     And a picture from 2009, the year we beat the schooner Virginia by 28 seconds. 

     me, Joanne Marks with the Esperanto Cup, and Guido Piscitello.

Joanne's and Guido's father and uncles fished the American Eagle until 1983.