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We need yet another cook! And we are back in Cleveland to host receptions for Maryland businesses that could not use the ship during the Tall Ships event that occurred here a month ago. For this visit we are not open to the public and the crew is able to have some time off and do some maintenance while I look for another cook.

The continuing cook saga reasserted itself back in Alpena when Ray Dries walked off the job without a word except for a note expressing his regret that he was "not the type of cook the crew needed." He also left some accounting records behind. I can think of only one other time in the last 13 years that Pride of Baltimore II has sailed to ports far and near that a person just walked away from their job aboard without a word to the captain or anyone else. That is not to say we have not had three or four individuals give short notice, say 24 hours, that they must leave!

Crewing for a traditional sailing vessel in these modern times is not for the unadventurous, or the inflexible, or the unaccepting. Traditional sailing has many aspects that are different from the old days except for one basic reality. Life aboard involves working in a world scheduled by others while living in close quarters with those one would not necessarily choose to have as friends. I fear Ray is another victim of an abundance of self determination who ultimately ran afoul of his own unrealistic assessment of what he could live with that was not within his control. The crew liked Ray. For me, he was a person who made an effort to provide what was needed based on the parameters of the job description. He frequently expressed his admiration for the "young" crew. To him they were hard working, cheerful, and polite. In the end, Ray's problem with seasickness may have taken its toll. Whatever the reason for Ray's departure, the crew and I are saddened that he chose to leave the way he did. Even if he would have given us no other reason than he had made up his mind that he needed to leave, that would have been better than his sudden and unexplained departure.

In the meantime, the crew has rallied around the problem. We sailed away from Alpena with five-guest crew aboard in addition to the full time crew, and all hands shared the cooking. So far the crew have been cheerful about the extra responsibility. Everyone hopes the vacancy will be filled sooner rather than later. Captain Parrott and I are working on it as fast as we can. But a job on a vessel for 3-4 months is not a job that can easily be filled in short order. Interviews are necessary and references need to be spoken to. Meanwhile with the ship underway and Captain Parrott attending a course on Automatic Radar Plotting Aids all week, coordinating phone calls across several time zones and through numerous cell phone coverage areas is time consuming. But I think we are on track to locating a good candidate. Hopefully the position will be filled by mid to late next week. We should fill it by then for the sake of the crew and the cook. Time will be needed to let the new cook acclimate to the equipment aboard, the style of the ship's operation, and have still have time to stock the ship for the non-stop, three-week transit through the Seaway and down the East Coast. Our last stop in the Great Lakes is Port Huron, MI, for the Labor Day Weekend. Our next scheduled stop is not until New London, Connecticut, arriving September 21. So we need to get a cook aboard and the ship stocked well before then.

Our sail into Alpena last Friday turned into a good one. The wait at anchor Thursday afternoon and evening just west of Mackinaw City accomplished what I wanted and we later found smoother seas in Lake Huron than we probably would have found had we kept moving. Favorable northwest winds arrived as predicted soon after we passed the Straits of Mackinac near midnight last Thursday. Pride II arrived at Alpena on schedule Friday afternoon after a good sail with the fresh cold front from the northwest under reduced canvas of foresail, square fortopsail, and forestaysail. Tacking upwind into Thunder Bay was a good exercise for the crew, too.

The Alpena Tall Ships Event was a celebration and fund raising effort marking the recent establishment of the Thunder Bay Underwater National Sanctuary. This is the 13^th underwater park to be established since the first National Underwater Park was set up in the early 1970's. We joined Tecumseth from Canada to present a mini Tall Ship event for Michiganders living near Alpena. Over 2,000 folks visited Pride II on Saturday. But Sunday was mostly rained out. We saw just over 800 visitors. But everyone was happy that there was rain to blunt the drought that has been plaguing Michigan this summer.

Monday we sailed off with our guest crew and headed south toward Port Huron at the bottom of Lake Huron. With wind out of the north, the crew set all sail including the kits – topgallant and studdingsail.

To accommodate the lack of a cook while the ship is underway, the ship's watch schedule was changed from the more commonly used four-hour rotation between three groups to what is known as the modified Swedish watch rotation. This means there are two six-hour watches during the day followed by three four-hour watches during the night rather than the our usual pattern of every watch period being four hours long. With three watch groups rotating through the Swedish system, every watch group has a different part of the day for each day of a three-day period. Then it repeats. In the old four-hour watch system every day is the same for each watch group. Changing to the modified Swedish watch system provided an equitable rotation for all watch groups as regards the need to cook and clean up at the three watch changes that occur at meal times. The change seems to have been accepted for what it was meant to accomplish. Crew morale continues high and I have witnessed some friendly verbal jousting regarding how adventurous meal plans are going to be. While the ship is underway, the whole watch makes all meals. That means there are 3 to 5 persons in the galley at the same time which make for some funny bumping in that tight space.

We arrived at the bottom of Lake Huron at 0700 on Tuesday after a good night of fast sailing. With all sails taken in and engines started, Pride II headed down river making an extra 2 knots over the bottom due to the current moving from Lake Huron toward Lake Erie. Once in the river, we participated in the Vessel Traffic System over the radio. In this system, we gave updates of our progress and heard about other vessels in the river and what they were doing. As luck would have it, Pride II was making her way down the St. Clair River from Port Huron at the that same time the Brig Niagara was making her way up and against the river current toward Port Huron. I was amused by the oddity of the passing. Who could have predicted these two vessels would meet as they did since neither was aware of the other's itinerary. Plus, isn't it interesting that both vessels represent the 1812 War? In that war, they would never have met since Niagara is from Lake Erie and Pride II is from the Chesapeake Bay. Back then, the St. Lawrence Seaway did not exist nor was the Erie Canal system or the Chicago River Canal developed enough to pass vessels of our size.

By Tuesday evening, Pride II was sailing again in Lake Erie under full sail headed toward Cleveland. The light to moderate south to southwest breeze provided for a very pleasant sail. Cleveland was visible for many hours in all it's tall well-lit glory.

Being back in Cleveland with no other tall ships to crowdd us and attract lots of public attention has been commented on by a number of the crew. Certainly being by ourselves has offered the chance to give the crew some time off and get some maintenance done. Arriving here has also helped with communications in the search for another cook.

This search for a cook has taken on the characteristics of a saga. Last Sunday crewmember Abigail Crain opined that her brother Michael might be a good candidate in spite of not having cooked on a boat before. This may seem to some a strange recommendation considering one of the reasons our last cook left was because of seasickness. But I have found that crewmembers do not recommend others lightly. So I spoke with Michael. He made no claims that this would be easy for him. In fact he was worried about the idea of cooking on a boat for crew for whom he was solely responsible. But his sister had been suggesting that he would make a good boat cook for the last couple of years and maybe now, considering his level of dissatisfaction with his current cooking job, this may now be a good idea after all. I was suitably impressed with Michael's candor and we left the conversation with a pledge to think more about the possibility. Then Monday I got word that a gentleman had called the office saying he was available to cook. The call came out of the blue and was not specifically a response to word that had gone out that Pride II was now unexpectedly cookless. I had a long interview on the cell phone with Daniel that morning while at the same time Pride II was moving down Thunder Bay from Alpena and the crew were getting sail on. I discovered that Daniel had already done a phone interview the week before with my partner Captain Parrott planning for next year. At the time, Daniel's plans were to go to Europe this winter to cook. But those plans had fallen through unexpectedly and he was wondering about opportunities now. I described our unexpected circumstances and said that Captain Parrott and I would need to confer before making a decision. We left it that Dan would check on his transportation plans (he was on the East Coast but had to go back to the West Coast before joining Pride II) and get back to me while I discussed things with Captain Parrott and we checked Daniel's references.

Meanwhile Pride II would probably be sailing out of cell phone range later in the day. But even with the hurry up nature of this concern, it would still take time to process all that needed processing. Just before the cell phone connection became a problem, I was able to leave messages for my partner who was not available during the day due to taking an all day class. Surprisingly and fortunately Captain Parrott and I were able to speak later that evening, even though Pride II was some distance out in Lake Huron.

With a fast passage down Lake Huron during the night, Captain Parrott and I were able to speak again the next morning before his class started and together we decided Daniel was a good choice. I made the job offer to Daniel later in the morning after leaving a message on his cell phone because he was also in transit from his summer job and was heading back West. Daniel accepted the position and would firm up his transportation. But that became a problem late Tuesday afternoon as Pride II was sailing in Lake Erie. It seems transportation costs for Daniel were high and he was concerned that it was going to cost him more than it was worth to have the job. We left it that he needed more time to consider the job offer. Just before cell phone coverage was lost again in Lake Erie, I was able to appraise Captain Parrott of the sudden developments and we decided he would try to talk with Daniel and would also interview Michael Crain, Abigail's brother.

Early Wednesday morning, Pride II sailed into Cleveland. With dependable cell phone coverage again Captain Parrott and I was able to speak before he went to his Wednesday class. I learned that he and Daniel had spoken Tuesday evening and in the end he felt Daniel might not accept the job offer. But that his interview with Michael Crain was very positive and maybe we should pursue him. I confessed to feeling a bit disenchanted with Daniel but that I would see how he felt myself and get back to Captain Parrott before a final decision was made. I got a call from Daniel Wednesday morning before I had a chance to call him and he asserted that he had decided he still wanted the job. After his conversation with Captain Parrott the evening before and after much calculating and finding less expensive transportation, he felt he was in a better position to join the ship. Plus with the stipend Pride, Inc. would provide in transportation, he was now just as strongly interested in the job as he had ever been. He had even called Captain Parrott that morning to leave a message to this affect. I swallowed my disenchantment and quizzed Daniel further on his "enthusiasm" considering how strongly he had expressed himself on his transportation concerns. Daniel responded by reasserting his motivations to be recognized monetarily for his past efforts and successes at being a qualified and experienced cooking professional. Yet now that he had recalculated things he was now comfortable with coming aboard. I pointed out Captain Parrott and I would need to consult again before we made the final confirmation. We left it that I would call him again when he was on the West Coast later Wednesday afternoon Pacific Daylight Time. Captain Parrott and I spoke again Wednesday evening and we decided that in spite of the messing about with Daniel's air fare concerns and the positive nature of our separate dialogues with Michael, we would go ahead with Daniel. So I immediately left a message for Daniel confirming his job acceptance. This morning I called again to be sure he got the message. This time he answered and said he was still interested but that there was a new set of problems not of our making and that he needed a couple of hours to get back to me. I said OK. Within the hour Daniel called back and withdrew his acceptance due to unforeseen problems. I immediately called Michael and searched him out for his interest. He confirmed he was still interested so I offered him the job. He requested some time to consider things but promised to get back to me before the day was out. It is now the end of the day Thursday and Michael has accepted the job. Abigail is ecstatic and the whole company is relieved. Michael will join the ship Sunday night in Detroit. Whew!

Cheers,

Captain Miles