As Egan Maritime Institute’s first SEA Scholar, Nantucket High School sophomore Eva Blake received a full scholarship to participate in SEA Expedition, a program of the Woods Hole-based Sea Education Association. Eva, who was also a student mariner aboard the Tall Ship Lynx, recently wrote about her experience last summer in SEA’s immersive offshore program for high schoolers and recent graduates.
Although I grew up on an island, before this expedition, I had never seen a whale. But on the SSV Corwith Cramer, standing on the stern during my seventh night of sailing, I looked a pilot whale in the eye.
Last August I was given an unforgettable opportunity. Thanks to a scholarship from Egan Maritime, I was able to sail aboard the Cramer for 12 days as part of the SEA Expedition program, traveling up the Gulf of Maine and back to Nantucket. The Cramer, a double-masted schooner based in Woods Hole, Mass., is a scientific research vessel designed for teaching purposes. It is always crewed by students and their instructors. On board, we were taught marine science and navigational skills, but what really made it special was the experience of living aboard a sailing vessel, always moving, dependent solely on ourselves and the ocean, living moment to moment and hour to hour.
The first three nights of the trip were dedicated to learning the boat inside and out: its procedures, construction, and traditions. By the time we got underway, I felt so familiar with the Cramer that even stumbling out of my bunk for night watch at two in the morning wasn't disconcerting. I loved the night watch. It was the time when everything was quiet, when all you could hear was the lapping of the waves against the hull and the hushed whispers of watchmates going about their duties. It was the time when jokes were the funniest, and laughter the loudest.
On our fourth day after setting sail for the Gulf of Maine, we saw our first whale. It was night watch and I was standing at the helm when a pilot whale came up beside us. He spent a good amount of time dipping back and forth under the boat, as if taunting us. One of my crewmates earned the nickname of The Whale Man due to his apparently magical whale calls, which we later discovered were very much like female mating calls.
While that was my closest sighting of a whale, we also watched a pod of breaching humpbacks breaking through the glistening surface of the Gulf, dolphins leaping over the waters, and even a shark that breached nearly 10 feet. I may not have grown up on the Cramer, I may not even have spent very much time on it, but I am forever connected to it. Connected to the people I grew to love and still stay in touch with, connected to the peaceful silence of star-filled nights, even to the seasickness I endured for about three days. I am forever grateful to have been given the opportunity to be a part of this — a part of something that will shape the rest of my life.
