The Great Lakes United TALL SHIPS CHALLENGE® 2010

It is time to set sail on the Great Lakes and learn about water conservation, sustaining our environment, and how you can help in the fight to protect these precious waters. Here you'll find information about the race across the lakes, the festivals, and what we're doing to protect the Great Lakes. Dive in!

The Race to Save the Lakes Blog

Posts from the Denis Sullivan No. 10: The Last Port

Aug 30 2010 - 8:57am | By:

Last night, 11 pm: the tallest building in Chicago comes into sight as a dim green orb across a calm stretch of Lake Michigan. At first we don’t know what it is, the four of us standing on the quarter deck; we spend several minutes staring through the binoculars before identifying it as the Sears Tower.

I am both counting the number of hours until we dock at Navy Pier and dreading it. Something pulls me to shore, some undertow sucks me down and pushes me back out. I count the number of hours until we port—three—because my arrival to Chicago signals the end of this summer, as it’s our final stop, the narrowing and then closing of this fraction of my life: two months spent on Erie, Huron, Superior, and Michigan, living, working and writing on the Denis Sullivan. “Matchless” is the only word that comes to mind. Arriving in Chicago is a type of graduation, then, because that’s what it’s been for me on this ship: a 24-hour-a-day education. Instruction through immersion: some new frontier I’ve come out of more capable than I was before.

But that’s true of everyone on Sullivan: you can’t board this ship for any good amount of time without it transfiguring you at the pit. It’s both the way the ship is run, watches and meals and chores and lines, and the fact that you’re in a place that humans essentially don’t belong: the water. Because it’s not our territory, really. Think: as the most dominant species on the globe, we can’t survive in over 70% of its available living space. What a bizarre relationship we have with it: our continued existence depending on this element we’ve yet to figure out and aren’t physically equipped to inhabit. Chemically, water is simple: two parts hydrogen, one part oxygen. But the deepest sections of ocean still contain unknowns. When we catch what swims at those depths, they look like they are from other planets. They make us think of outer space, and yet they are here.

When I tell people what I’ve been doing this summer, they generally have one of two reactions: they stare like I’ve got screws loose or remark on what a charmed life I lead. It’s neither of those. It’s not crazy (as there’s a peculiar, glad rhythm to ship life) but it’s not charming either. It’s hard work. Respect the ship and it respects you back. But the Lake? It owes you nothing.

Still I can’t help but sense that Lake Michigan knows that this is our last sail. Quiet with 1-2 foot waves and the Eastern winds favorable for Sullivan’s transit south from Milwaukee. Dawn’s cracked the sky and through fog I can make out the Northern segment of Chicago’s skyline. We bring down the sails in order: fore, main, mizzen.

What’s waiting for me there? “Windy City”. “Chitown”. “City of the big shoulders”. “Paris on the Prairie”.

Some old writer friends are travelling up to see me tonight, and on Friday, I’ll check into a room downtown that promises “striking views of the Magnificent Mile”, but perhaps more notably, free coffee, a hot shower and an air conditioning unit. But these days, I get uncomfortable in air condition—too cold, unnatural; I’d rather the breeze and heat. I keep going through this list often, keep hoping to remind myself of what’s there, the why of heading home.

Some people are built for life on the water. As Captain Jesse Loge said, “I wasn’t born a sailor, but I was born a traveler”. Nomad. People who aren’t content experiencing life in standstill: same state, same city, same neighborhood, same set of circumstances; the very things that provide most of us with feelings of comfort, home sweet home, make her face long and set off that old itch in the heart. Go.

I’m almost 25. Some part of me thinks that if I was built for life on the water, I would have figured it out by now, beyond doubt: two months at sea leaves a lot of time to think. So maybe I’m not nomad enough.

But another part of me wonders if it’s something you discover only after being gone from water, off the ship. A few weeks back on land and then the itching starts. You look out your window and the sprouting boxed herb garden, rosemary and basil and cilantro, still isn’t enough. Your car seems to go too fast, your days drag out.

How long can I stay away?

How much will I miss the deck, the bunk, the watches, the waves, the people?

Is it over there—that rise of buildings, honking of buses and taxis, painted blues billboards, hot asphalt, railed balconies—is that home? Or is it out here?

Wind. Sun. Warmth. We’ll see.

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Posts from the Denis Sullivan No. 9: Bunk Light, O Bunk Light

Aug 24 2010 - 9:52am | By:

“A ship,” Sullivan’s Senior Deckhand Wynne once told me, “is an inherently unsafe environment.”

Because of this fact, before the Sullivan leaves any port our crew has an extensive meeting with new passengers about emergency procedures: what to do if a fire breaks out on deck, if someone fell overboard, or if (knock on wood) it became necessary to abandon ship. And each person aboard is given a job in the event of those emergencies: man the hoses, toss ring buoys to the MOB, grab Ditch Kit 3 and head for Life Raft 1. Recent advances in shipping technology still only take us so far. Fires flare up in galleys, ships still sink, and once in a long while, someone is lost in the waves.

Understandably, crews aboard ships are militant about safety. Most of the Sullivan rules are “small” in nature: always face the stairs while climbing the companionways, never leave belongings strewn across the deck, latch all the doors closed during and after using them. Despite their larger, beneficial impacts, in being small, the rules take a while to master. So the question then becomes: how do you teach proper ship safety to new passengers in the quickest way possible?

Ah, the ancient art of public humiliation.

The other day I went for a run in Green Bay, WI. The humidity had broken, there was a slight breeze, the dawn sky was cloudless and I felt like I could run forever through the cool air. It was Sunday, the final festival day at Green Bay, and I was glad to see the wind die down a bit. I ran back through the empty festival grounds and stopped by the Sullivan for a change of clothes before heading to the showers, only to discover my bunk light was missing.

I had left it on.

I knew instantly that Tiff, our captain, had confiscated it. I pictured the tiny bulb in the left pocket of her tan Carharts. Crap.

Heat in my body lit through my limbs like wildfire: the penalty for leaving a bunk light on aboard the Sullivan is singing for the entire crew at evening muster. Like most other folks, I’m a loud-n-proud tune-belting agent on the interstate, in the house even, but I do not sing for crowds. Ever.

Much to my relief, one of the volunteers from Discovery World aboard this week, Stacy Mills (a.k.a. Saving Grace), offered to sing along with me. And at least I had the day to prepare. I checked my watch. Evening muster was, by my estimation, still ten hours away.

A Bright Sunday at the Green Bay Tall Ships Fest

Stacy and I selected John Masefield’s poem, “Sea Fever” (included in the welcome manual for the Sullivan) and paired the three stanzas with a classic sea shanty melody. At any slow point in the Green Village tent on that festival Sunday, we could be heard practicing our verses (albeit somewhat out of key), tripping up over the outdated phrasing, hammering out the harder bars of melody. Wander-throughs stopped and stared. As the afternoon progressed and our tune went from terrible to sufficient, we earned a few hesitant claps.

The Real Deal: A Professional Sea Shanty Performs at Green Bay

That dusk the Sullivan crew got a good laugh out our adaption of Masefield’s “Sea Fever”. And yes, they were laughing at us, but that was all right with me and Stacy, because it was worth it to see the smiles break after a long day’s work on Lake Michigan. That—and I was also laughing at myself.

You bet I got my bulb back.

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Posts from the Denis Sullivan No. 8: Didn’t I see you…? Don’t you work for…?

Aug 13 2010 - 11:29pm | By:

It’s incredible how many faces I’m starting to recognize in port now. Crews, vendors, sponsors—all foreign to me a month ago upon joining the Sullivan—are becoming a bit of a colossal extended family. At each festival stop we’re united again, and though I’m still learning their names, I often know, strangely, which ship they crew on, which vendors belong at what tents, even without an introduction. “Didn’t I see you…? Don’t you work for…?”

Now staffing a Tall Ships festival for me is akin to going to a family reunion: maybe you won’t know everyone there, or maybe they’re only vaguely familiar, but you know you’re all connected somewhere down the line.

In the case of the Green Village Tent, where I represent Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, that link-line is a passion for preserving the Great Lakes.

During a crowd lull this morning at Green Bay’s Leicht Memorial Park, I was sitting at my booth when from out of nowhere, a tiny rubber football came zinging across my table. I looked up to find Sam Bugg, Public Outreach Manager from Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, snickering from the other corner. It should be mentioned that Sam is not usually throwing rubber footballs at his cohorts, and spent much of today handling a red rat snake from Shedd and speaking to people about Shedd’s mission: connecting people to the living world to inspire them to make a difference. Bugg sees the animals cared for at Shedd—which includes otters, octopi, corals and rays—as ambassadors of their species. Bringing the public in close contact with these ambassadors creates a bond that motivates the preservation of the entire species.

Sam Bugg of Shedd Aquarium talks snakes at the Green Village in Green Bay.

And then there’s the early bird of our Green Village tent. I’ll give you a hint: you’re already at their website. It doesn’t matter how early I show up at Green Village from the Sullivan, Brent Gibson of Great Lakes United is already smoothing over the edges of a table cover, unpacking boxes, or straightening out pamphlets for the coming festival day. If pressed to sum up Gibson in one word, it would be dedication. When he speaks to people, he looks them in the eye and when they talk, he listens. I rarely see him sit down, even at his own table. And he always makes a point of welcoming each vendor of the Green Village on that first day. You can meet Brent in the video below of the “Duluth Festival Underway” post.

Jennifer Nalbone of Great Lakes United answers questions on invasive species.

Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, my sponsor for this summer’s tour on the Sullivan, is one of fourteen National Marine Sanctuaries across the United States, but the system’s only freshwater sanctuary. Protected on a federal level, Thunder Bay boasts one of the world’s most pristine collections of shipwrecks, thanks in part to the Inland Seas, whose cold temperatures and decreased salt content have kept the artifacts in striking condition. Thunder Bay is located in Lake Huron off the coast of Alpena, Michigan, about an hour and a half south of the Mackinac Bridge. Although divers from all over the world come to enjoy Thunder Bay’s wrecks, the sanctuary also offers experiences for non-divers. A free and year-around Maritime Heritage Center as well as scheduled snorkel tours helps the public get the shipwreck experience without the weighty oxygen tank. For more information, check out: www.thunderbay.noaa.gov.

There’s a part of me that’s really dreading going to Chicago after Green Bay, even though it’s a city that I love. I know it will be 2010’s final Tall Ships tour stop. There are countless aspects about this summer I know I’ll miss once the tour is over, and beyond that, there are things I don’t even realize I’ll miss. That’s the way it goes.

I do know my Green Village cohorts are somewhere near the top of that list.

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Posts from the Denis Sullivan No. 7: Duluth, MN: the Surprise of Superior

Aug 9 2010 - 10:01am | By:

Though Bay City, MI is whispered to be our tour’s kindest port, Duluth, Minnesota takes prize as the most surprising harbor of the 2010 Tall Ships Challenge.

Standing on the Sullivan’s quarter deck, waving back to the shoreline welcome crowd, my first impression of the city was the opposite of what I expected. It was Duluth’s topography: white wood houses, red brick clock tower, shiny hotels and skyscrapers rising against a sharp hill that made the city look more like something out of a calendar of French vacation beaches rather than a Midwest port. Except that when the Sullivan pulled into Duluth, it was in un-calendar-esque weather. Slight fog had rolled in and fat clouds meant rain. We were told to expect thunderstorms all weekend, the entire festival. I was thankful I’d be under a tent, but knew that the rain also meant the crowds would be thin at best.

And yet it did not thunderstorm. A hard rain came Sunday night, but left by daybreak. It sprinkled a few times on Saturday, but then grew calm again. And the crowds stayed—no—they came in droves, toting sweaters, sunblock, umbrellas and swimsuits, fully equipped for whatever Lake Superior had to offer. From day one of the festival, I was both impressed with the local population and slightly ashamed of myself. Of course the people were out. Of course they were accustomed to managing the abrupt weather changes that Superior, Trickster Queen of the Lakes, bestows on her coastal communities. All of which begs the question, what had I been expecting in Duluth?

Duluth festival goers enjoy the Tall Ships despite the threat of rain

Generalizing—like complaining, covered in an earlier post—is part of being human. Our minds relish the act of easy compartmentalization, particularly when it comes to regions and cultures. Take our America: the Midwest is “flat and industrial”; the South is “politically backwards”; the East is “arrogant and cutthroat”; the West is for “the moneyed and superficial among us”. We’ve all heard them before and on some level, it’s easier to believe the oversimplifications rather than making an effort to get to know—really see—what the region is like. Duluth upended my expectations, but maybe it’s because my expectations, on some hidden level, were more based on “flat and industrial” generalization of the Midwest.

It takes real work to resist generalizations. Travelling—the sailing I’m doing this summer aboard Sullivan—is a strong step, I believe, in the right direction; a type of antidote. One learns that there are French beaches on Lake Superior. One is reminded that no region of the United States—or anyplace—can possibly be summed up in a sentence.

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The Duluth Festival is underway and the Green Village is open

Jul 30 2010 - 9:45am | By: Lauren Cheal

Below is a news story by Matt Standal of the Northwest News Center featuring our very own Brent Gibson and some of our friends from Shedd Aquarium and Minnesota Sea Grant. There is still plenty of time for residents and visitors in Duluth to come down to the festival and check out the Tall Ships and the Green Village!

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Posts from the Denis Sullivan No. 6: Three Questions for Jesse Loge, Captain of the Denis Sullivan

Jul 29 2010 - 2:43pm | By:

Jesse Loge, who hails from the Northwest, earned his captain’s license in 2007 and has serves as Sullivan’s Relief Captain under Senior Captain Tiffany Krihwan. Last night we got to chatting in Houghton’s funky/smooth Ambassador Restaurant and I asked him some questions.

The Ambassador Restaurant in Houghton

Natalie Joynton: There are certain professions that one is more born to do, rather than made. Case in point: I feel that I’ve been writer for as long as I can remember, even before I knew how to spell—it was a way of looking at the world. How much of being a captain is being born a captain? Or would you say that it’s more education than personality?

Jesse Loge: Well I don’t think I was born a captain, but I was born a traveler [smiles]….I suffer from an extreme amount of wanderlust. I cannot stay in one geographical location for any significant amount of time without getting depressed, so I ended up on a ship and worked my way up.

NJ: I know that you’ve been on other ships before, but I’m curious to know what you like best about being on the Sullivan.

JL: The education we provide students. Other ships that I’ve been on will teach California kids about the War of 1812, none of which occurred in that region. On the Sullivan we talk about water quality, we take samples and we have them stand watch, which builds character. It’s all relevant. They leave the ship really having learned something during their time on board.

NJ: You’ve probably experienced a lot during your years as a Captain, so tell me two truths and a lie. I want to guess which is false.

JL: Okay…first one: I used to work making Cheesesteaks in the Foodcourt of a mall. Secondly: I once played a prominent role as a pirate in a commercial for Nascar. And lastly, one time, at an Industrial Light & Magic concert, I met George Lucas.

NJ: Hmmm. I’m going to guess the first is the lie, just because it’s the most boring of the three—and totally out of character with yours truly.

JL: No, actually that one’s true. At seventeen or eighteen, I needed a job. So I made Philly Cheesesteaks.

NJ: But I bet you’ve never met George Lucas.

JL: [Laughter] You guessed it.

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Posts from the Denis Sullivan No. 5: When the Wind is High Enough

Jul 28 2010 - 2:16pm | By:

It’s three in the morning and someone is at my bunk, whispering my name.

“Natalie.” A woman.

“Natalie,” Rebecca repeats. “You have thirty minutes until watch. It’s cold. Bring your jacket.” I resist the urge to pull my comforter over back over my head. I know that the watch before me, who have been on since eleven, won’t be released until I am up on deck.

That’s the way “watch” works aboard the Sullivan: after nine hours off, part of the crew has a four or five hour shift. Each watch we work is at a different time, and we get a full night’s sleep every third night. The crew is split evenly into watches, and there is always a crew on watch. Having the 3-8 am shift means I’ll go on watch again after dinner, around 6 pm. I pull myself out of my bunk and start searching for my sweater in the dark.

Getting ready for Evening Watch on the Sullivan

By the time I make it into the lit galley someone has already brewed a fresh pot of coffee. I get in line and squint at the clock. The Northwest wind is more forceful than I’m used to, but the waves are coming straight at the ship and we don’t have too much rock. By the time I climb back up on deck, we’ve assembled into “muster”: a small meeting of all the crewmembers on watch that shift, led by one of the mates. My eyes begin to adjust to the night, and I can make out their faces: Beth Deal, Kevin Slocum, Wynne Hedlesky, and then there’s me.

Cloudy Night Watch Sky, 3 am

Some of the duties while on watch are straightforward, such as standing bow. Standing bow helps ensure that the Sullivan doesn’t run into anything: radio towers, bouys, lighthouses, and most importantly, other ships. It means scanning the horizon, staring at the water line for your assigned hour and reporting any obstacles within view. It’s plain work, especially at night, but requires a high level of attention to detail and part of why those standing bow are relieved after only an hour. You must be totally awake, because the lives of the crew may come down to you spotting something in time to avoid it.

Being at the helm or steering the Sullivan, if you can believe it, is less taxing. That said, I’ve learned it takes practice to stay within five degrees of an ordered course with our finicky helm, a wheel that jerks left or right when the waves hit it. Boat checks are our final duty while on watch, and they are anything but plain. Performed every hour, boat checks are a full scan of the ship’s under-deck compartments: the dank bilges, heads (or bathrooms), and a trip into the sweltering engine room to record the oil pressure, voltage and temperature of our dual engines.

Needless to say, being on watch is exhausting. Crewmembers sleep for most of the nine hours that they are not on watch, yet there’s not a better job on the ship. I’ve grown much closer to the crew, as we’re often paired off for duties: deep conversation in the dark at the bow just before dawn, or joking our way through a stinky head check. And since beginning watch, I’m more confident in my role on the Sullivan, and feel that I’m finally getting into the routine of sailing life. But most of all, standing watch has taught me to respect the Sullivan itself. Because ships, like the Lakes themselves, are large but delicate things, operating on the simple rule that if you respect it, it will respect you back.

Yet it’s getting more difficult to think of her as a “thing”. In some way, she is alive to me—our Sullivan—with her hissing toilets, creaking masts, diesel scent, and rigging that sings when the wind is high enough.

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Posts from the Denis Sullivan No. 4: Open Spaces

Jul 26 2010 - 11:14am | By:

“You know, I like the deprivation,” Beth Glende said today, almost as if she was owning up to something. A returning crewmember aboard and a school counselor from Milwaukee, Sullivan’s home, Beth had taken no time in changing from her dock clothes to a pair of Carharts and the burgundy crew shirt. She seemed in her element as we motored up the Saint Marys River.

Deckhand Beth Glende

Of course Beth was talking about amenities: the lack of internet bringing us all back to reading books, the absence of any true privacy reminding us how to work with others (merrily! ), our Spartan bunks recalling an earlier time—our first few days of dormitory living or even, decades ago, when we had to share a bed with siblings. “Intense communal living”, as the crew calls it, has had its rewards.

But the conversation left me suddenly thinking about my life in Alpena, Michigan; the family and friends and partner I hadn’t seen in weeks. And that’s the way they come to me out here, and the missing: slinking in and surprising me at seemingly unprompted moments. There’s much to love about sailing, but it’s a fact of life that you leave people behind when you join a ship. That you watch a home blur away in your wake.

What type of person does it take to resist to these comforts for extended stretches of time? Cell phone reception out here is spotty at best, especially in Superior. Still usually I get to talk to someone back home each day. Immigrants in the late 1870s didn’t have that option. It was steamboat smoke all the way to American shores and a train to NYC, then a schooner would carry them to Chicago or Detroit or Green Bay, it all accumulating to over a month of travel. And those deckhands, captains, cooks setting forth for a last run of the season, late November, one last trip home to the Midwest. The strongest storms of the season ripening out on the water. Zero modern navigational equipment.

Some of Sullivan’s crew has been aboard for almost a year. In characteristic Sullivan fashion, we don’t talk to each other about who or what we miss. What “home” means. Maybe the crew finds it easier that way, avoiding subjects that strike hard or sink in and stay at the gut. Or perhaps they relish that last bit of privacy that this ship allows: one’s inner life. The who and what of what we think about in our bunks, before sleep, all six or seven of us in the same dark room.

What we have is the water, night watch, the ship, Angela’s from-scratch tomato soup, rainy sunrises and dirty clothes and warm fleece, calluses on our hands, and we have each other. And maybe that’s it—or enough—maybe the crew of the Sullivan has built a home, right here on the ship.

Deckhand Kevin Slocum

Just yesterday, we celebrated Joe Ewing, our educational programs director’s, birthday. I won’t mention any ages, but we baked him a chocolate chip cookie cake shaped like the five Great Lakes (okay, sort of). Some of the crewmembers who blue-light as musicians—Angela, Rebecca, Rick—got their instruments out and re-wrote The Kinks’ “Lola” (their version entitled “Joe-a”), surprising him on deck just as the sun was setting.

Joe said something then that confirmed this theory. “If I can’t be at home” he said, “there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than on this ship.” He paused and bit into a chocolate-dotted Lake Erie.

“With my second family.”

Galley Extraordinaire Angela McIntyre

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Posts from the Denis Sullivan No. 3: Of Ship’s Cats & Non-Sinkings

Jul 16 2010 - 2:30pm | By:

Late last Monday, seventeen high school students hugged (or at least semi-embraced) their parents one last time on the dock in Cleveland before climbing aboard to sail with the Sullivan on our next leg of the journey, Bay City, Michigan. Fit for a crew of 32, the Sullivan was at full capacity—all bunks occupied—as we motored up the blue Detroit River, day and night, through St. Claire Lake and River, and finally, set sail in Lake Huron.

While aboard, the students—all of whom were local essay contests winners (writers! like me!)—learned the layout of the ship, how to stand watch, tie knots, and of course, the one thing we all get to take part in: galley duty. Directing classes on deck was Joe Ewing, with the help of Sullivan’s professional crew. In one activity, the students were asked to write about their impressions of ship life. Here’s a sample:

“People may have superstitions of sailing far ways from home on a Friday, or may have superstitions of sailing too far out on a Monday morning. They may have superstitions of a myth or sea monster…superstitions are things that sailors or people do to make sure they are safe…. [and] a ship’s cat is a familiar reminder of life ashore, adept at keeping down the rat population. Rats lleaving or abandoning the ship would probably signify the ship is going to sink.”

Well, thanks to decent weather, wizened captain Jesse Loge and modern navigational technology, the

Sullivan did not become the stuff of legends by sinking. Rather, the students have made it safely ashore and are on their way home to Cleveland (hopefully catching up on some of the sleep they missed while on night watch).

Jesse Loge, Captain of the Denis Sullivan

As for me, I was eager to explore Bay City. Setting forth early this morning from the Sullivan, I ducked into a local café, Brewtopia, to enjoy some piping hot Chamomile tea and escape a short rain.

Brewtopia in Bay City, MI

Continuing onwards, I stumbled across Bay City’s Farmer’s Market a few blocks away. The sun was coming back, glistening on the asphalt of each wet parking lot, and people began to trickle in again, gathering around the vendor’s tents. The Michigan blueberries, I could tell, had been picked at peak. They sat full in their little green baskets, dotted with the rain that had just left.

Bay City is whispered to be a kind port—maybe even the kindest on our Tall Ships tour.

Today, I have a good feeling that they’ll live up to the buzz.

~Nat

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The Race to Save the Lakes: Race Update

Jul 16 2010 - 9:38am | By: Lauren Cheal

The Tall Ships completed the first race leg of the Great Lakes United Tall Ships Challenge® 2010 after leaving Cleveland, and here is a news story detailing how the race played out:

http://www.greatlakesboating.com/news/2010/07/15/eight-tall-ships-raced-cleveland-pelee-island-promote-great-lakes-protection

Good luck to all vessels in the next race leg!

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