The captain and expedition leader had said that we could expect an excellent couple of days of sailing ahead, as we left the caldera of Santorini in a calm but colorful sunset wake. In fact, the captain had the deck crew set the lower and upper topsails and the forecourse for an overnight sail through the Aegean on this gorgeous Saturday night as we feasted on a Greek buffet dinner on the lido deck. But where was the wind? Were they crazy? Some of us insisted that we weren’t even moving, though the captain assured us that we were sailing at 2 knots, or a dazzling 2.3 mph. It was a beautiful Aegean evening under the stars, but many of us let the expedition leader know that we were skeptical about the sailing.
Dawn broke with a moderate breeze that had freshened to 15 knots by the time the sailors hit the rig to add more sail, and by the time the sleepyheads had made it to breakfast we were roaring through the sea at over 8 knots. We had sailed almost 40 miles overnight, and the seas were now continuously building into a force 6 Beaufort scale strong breeze, with whitecaps everywhere and coffee splattering out of our mugs. Sea Cloud was at her finest, majestic under sail and heeling 5 degrees to starboard. Captain Pushkarev had set the higher square sails—the “royals”—and a couple of jibs to help stabilize the bow while we leaned and leaned further to starboard, hauled close to the wind for a square rigger. This was magnificent! Sailing at over 9 knots on a tall ship and heeling over at 10 degrees until the chef called up from the galley and warned that lunch would have to be delayed if the captain didn’t right the ship! Chef Christian apparently carries a little bit of clout on Sea Cloud, and Captain Pushkarev hauled down the jibs and braced the yards square to run southeast with the wind, righting the ship and picking up additional speed. What a sail! What a sea! What a day!
With a lot of youngsters on board for this voyage, we seized the opportunity on a full day power-sailing to get them acquainted with the ship’s crew and the different positions and departments on a square-rigger. The challenges of “Sea Cloud Crew Bingo” had the youngsters scurrying about to initiate conversations with the sailors and service staff, trying to find out the nickname of the sail-maker, the previous position of the ship’s carpenter, which service steward had started in the laundry room, and what time the baker has to wake up to make the fresh bread and pastries. One of the biggest challenges was finding out who had the key to the after-dinner chocolates, and there were different opinions about which sailor has the coolest sunglasses. Most of them had no idea that Sea Cloud carried 60 crew for our 50 passengers.
Prizes were awarded just before a talk on the remarkable history of the legendary Sea Cloud and her many incarnations, and we then explored the original staterooms of the ship with a special champagne reception. Every day is magnificent on this incredible ship, but today in particular was a day that none of us will ever, ever forget.
