Ocean Classroom: Good Shipmates

After nine weeks at sea, our Ocean Classroom students returned forever changed by their experiences participating in Proctor's trimester-long off-campus program in partnership with the Sea Education Association (SEA). What began nine weeks ago with twenty-one Proctor students and novice sailors arriving at the SEA campus in Woods Hole has evolved into a tight-knit crew of capable young mariners and budding marine scientists. They mastered balancing academic work and research with the physical demands of sailing and operating SEA's 134-foot steel brigantine research vessel, the SSV Corwith Cramer. They learned to trust each other through challenging watch rotations and weather conditions.

Students returned to campus this evening to present their research during the second annual Ocean Classroom Symposium, and to begin sharing their experiences, as much as words allow, with family, friends, advisors, and faculty in attendance. Their sense of pride in their accomplishments, excitement to share their stories, and deep appreciation for the community they built at sea filled the upstairs and downstairs lobbies of the Wilkins Meeting House.

Welcome home, Ocean Classroom 2024! We hope you enjoy this collection of ship's logs from the time the Cramer left Baltimore and sailed north back to Woods Hole, and as students began to grasp what they achieved.

The Raffee was Skied!

Thursday, October, 24, 2024
Position:  37° 02.6’N x 076° 08.4’W
Log (nm): 146 NM (since Baltimore)
Weather: Today was another beautiful day on the Chesapeake Bay; this morning, we started our last stretch of 80 nautical miles to the open ocean. We dropped the anchor at the end of the Bay in preparation to hit open ocean in the morning.
Location: Chesapeake Bay

This morning, C-watch was on dawn watch, and at 0700 we started hauling back the anchor to start making way. Once we were off and going, the watch was turned over to A-watch. We had some fantastic green eggs and ham for breakfast thanks to Quinn. During the time A-watch was the on watch they completed many deployments including the shipek grab, secchi disc, CTD, and a Neuston tow. Some of the highlights from our deployments today were a pipe fish in the Neuston tow, Rachel was our secchi bet winner of the day, and in our shipek grab there were many worms that were forming worm tubes. A-watch also skied the raffle sheet; this was the second day in a row that we messed with the raffle. The watch was turned over at 1300 to B-watch. During that time we had class. Today we had our usual weather, nav, and science reports, along with some project work time. B-watch brought us to our anchorage for the night in Cape Charles alongside many cargo ships, and Quinn chefed it up once again with some hot dogs and chili for dinner. C-watch is back at it for our evening anchor watch to call it a day.

Adam '26

"Hands to Set the Raffee!"

Thursday, October 24, 2024
Position: 38° 14.0’N x 076° 17.4’W
Log: 68.4nm
Weather: We've had great weather today, averaging 18°C. Today we sailed the majority of the day with the tops'l, main stays’l, jib, and the raffee (for the first time)!
Description of Location: Chesapeake Bay

A and B watch started their day with two-hour anchor watches; we were at an anchorage at Chesapeake Bay off of Annapolis. Around 0700, C watch got us underway! They hauled back the anchor and set sails. After sailing through the Chesapeake for an hour or two, we jibbed and hove to for science deployments: Neuston tow, CTD, Secchi disk, surface station, and a shipek grab. Towards the end of our science deployments, we had to maneuver around numerous crab pots. Luckily, thanks to our outstanding C-watch lookouts, we safely navigated through. Afternoon watch completed the processing from those deployments. The Secchi disk result was our trip's all-time low of 2.5 meters, meaning from the surface, 1% of light only reaches down to 7ish meters.

During class today, we all read the thank you notes from Hampshire Regional High School students. They were thanking us for our contribution to carrying and soon deploying the mini boat that they had worked on for a year. It will collect data that will be sent back to their school, and hopefully, someday, will float ashore where the people finding it can read the directions (in many different languages) on how to communicate with HRS. We will be deploying the mini boat named "Millennium Raiders" in a couple of days once we enter the Gulf Stream.
We finished the last 30 minutes of class dedicated to working on our projects. We continued sailing around 5 Kts down the Chesapeake into a beautiful sunset. We had a scrumptious dinner (shout out to Goop as Stu-Stew), and B-Watch will drop the anchor around 2100 tonight.

Sophia '26

Sailing the Gulf Stream

Sunday, October 27, 2024
Position (Lat and Long): 35° 59.8'N x 074° 01.5'W
Log (nm): 1268
Weather / Wind and Sail Plan: Clear night skies/BF 4 gusting 5 out of the NE, sailing under three lowers and jib on port tack
Description of where we are sailing: Gulf Stream 80nm off coast of North Carolina

Throughout most of today, we have been sailing for the Gulf Stream, which will eventually carry us north along its strong current and give us opportunities to conduct interesting science deployments. The past several days, we have had light winds out of the North East and sun. Although the clarity of the sky makes for beautiful sunsets, sunrises, and stars, it is not ideal for sailing. However, once we left the Chesapeake Bay and entered unprotected water, we encountered wind forces ranging from force 4 up to force 6. This also means that the sea-state is wavy and bringing up to 6-7 foot swells. Most of the time, we have relied on the three lowers, mainstays’l, forestays's, and mains’l. This morning, following a delicious croissant breakfast from Kendall, the C-watch lab crew hoved-to and worked hard to conduct a shipek grab and a Neuston tow which retrieved some pretty interesting organisms including lots of smaller fish. After these deployments, c-watch set us on our way toward the Gulf Stream.

Most of the afternoon was spent processing the deployments, continuing sailing under the three lowers, and occasionally setting the jib for extra speed. Around 16:30, we first saw signs of the Gulf Stream, which were formed by the clouds that settled above it, formed by the warm waters evaporating. As we approached the edge of warm water, the lookout reported a pod of around 15 dolphins, which proved that we were quite close, if not in the Gulf Stream. To add to the excitement, very soon after the crew spotted dolphins jumping all around the boat, nearly everywhere. After close examination and watching them play along the bow, they were identified to be spotted dolphins. Then, at 18:20, B-Watch and C-Watch ate their first dinner, which Kendall made Sausages and pasta, so delicious! Watches have recently started assigning Junior Watch Officers (JWO) for upcoming watch rotations. So far, we have had Reagan and Max for C-Watch, and Sophia and Freya for A-Watch. Currently, at 21:30, Bretton and I are the B-Watch JWO's for tonight's evening watch, which I am currently on.

Cooper '26

A Farewell to Warmth

Tuesday, October 29th, 2024
Position (Lat and Long): 37°49.5'N 072° 00.3'W
Log (nm): 1515.4 nm
Weather / Wind and Sail Plan: S/SE Force 5 winds, 3-4ft waves, upcoming rain, sailing under the 4 lowers (Mainsail, Main-staysail, Fore-staysail, and Jib) trimmed on a beam reach on a starboard tack
Description of where we are sailing: Leaving the Gulf Stream, 165nm East of the Chincoteague Bay, MD

Today began early at 0030 with a wakeup for dawn watch. Unfortunately I wasn't all there because I fell back asleep until 0052 when I was re-awoken. This time I got up and headed for the lab, ultimately being 5 minutes late to being 10 minutes early because on time is late. From that point on, Aiden, Aubie, Sophia, and I worked through our morning in the lab, fighting off sleep with conversations about Bigfoot and ghosts. We processed a very crabby Neuston tow, picking out some cool critters like glass eels, lobster larvae, myctophids, and other mysterious organisms of the Gulf Stream. Speaking of, we re-entered the Gulf Stream today after crossing a gap between a switchback. Today is likely our last day of warm weather, so we are all trying hard to soak up as much warmth and sunshine as possible. Once we exit the Gulf Stream, we will continue north to Woods Hole, where we'll wrap up things on shore. After dawn watch, I settled down for another 4 hours of sleep before lunch. After that, I worked on my project, looked at new marine debris data, worked on my Oceans and Societies journal, and prepared to be JWO for a second time, this time for 6 hours- a full watch. I have night watch tonight from 1900-0100 and I'm ready to JWO again. I struggled to find the fun last time, and hopefully, I change my mind. Just before this, I admired a beautiful double rainbow and a sunset. I've come to appreciate both sunsets and sunrises on this trip, but there's something special about seeing the world light up as you stand on deck.

As we make way back to Woods Hole, I've been doing lots of reflecting. It's a bittersweet feeling to be so near to the end. On the one hand, I miss my family, friends, pets, my big bed, eating whatever I want, not rocking 24/7, music, showering every day, and everything else that comes with being on land. On the other hand, my once in a lifetime experience is coming to an end. I've made new friends, explored the oceans, learned to be a sailor, seen Baltimore, gone phone-free for 2 months, tried new food, become a scientist, seen people's true colors, made endless memories, and truly pushed the limits of my comfort zone all things I will be forever grateful for.
As I close off this blog, I just want to say thank you to my Mom and Dad for supporting me all this way. The opportunities I have are truly special and I think sometimes I forget to say thank you. I try not to take things for granted but sometimes I just forget. This trip has shown me so much and allowed me to see myself and everything I love in a new light. I know this is getting sappy but it's true. I love you guys endlessly and I can't wait to see you all soon. I also want to say I love you to Lily, Maisy, Luna, Nana, Papa, Grampy, Pablo, Grammy Jane and Meme. I look forward to catching up with all of you.

Dylan '26

“To the Second Star to the Right and Straight on until Morning”

Thursday, 31 October, 2024
Position (Lat and Long): 40° 52.7'N x 071° 17.09'W
Log (nm): 2239.8nm
Weather / Wind and Sail Plan: Deep reefed Maine, our 2 stay'sl, and our jib
Description of where we are sailing:  We are sailing towards Newport Road Island, we were originally going to sail past Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard but there is a bit of weather coming.

"Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, only if one remembers to turn on the light" – Albus Dumbledore

That's something I've had to remind myself throughout this voyage. Even though this moment is hard; I can still turn on the light and find
happiness. Ocean has been and will probably remain one of the hardest things I will ever do.

C-Watch was woken up at 0030, but I was up at 0015 since this morning was my JWO (Junior Watch Officer) watch! We had watch from 0100-0700, which is always hard to get out of bed and wake up enough to run a watch. Once you get on deck and that wind hits you, and you can see more stars than sky, that's when you know that hauling yourself out of bed was worth it. Especially when you could look to the starboard side of the quarter-deck and see bioluminescent dolphins, which was insane. They looked like something from a Disney movie. They glided through the water with an Elsa blue colored glow, and then this morning at our watch turnover, there were more than 20 dolphins and babies! I never thought there were dolphins this close to Martha's Vineyard. This morning, when I got on deck, the air was warm and thick. There was some fog, but it wasn't bad. The dew point was crazy. The deck looked like it had just rained. Everything was wet, including down below was damp!

We are heading to Newport Road Island for anchor. There is a pretty nasty storm coming from the north that is building with 30knots of wind and 10-foot waves, and we are not trying to go through that again. Our original plan was to go up around Nantucket, over Martha's Vineyard, and then back to Woods Hole. We will be at anchor tonight and some of Friday depending on when the storm dies down. After that, we will make our way back to Woods Hole, which isn't that far from our anchorage. It's crazy to even be thinking about going back to Woods Hole. It feels just like yesterday that I was pulling into the SEA driveway and moving into our rooms in 165.

I'm not ready for the sea component to end, but I am ready to see my family and friends. Once I get used to life back on land that's when I'm going to start to miss living on the boat, getting up at 0030 to be on deck or in the lab, I'm going to miss being lookout and singing on the top of my lungs knowing that no one else can hear me because of the wind, and most of all I'm going to miss the sun sets, sun rises, northern lights, and the stars that we've been able to see; I'm not going to be able to see stars like this again with no light pollution.

Ocean Classroom has been one in a million. There is nothing like sailing on the open ocean on a vessel like the Corwith Cramer. The water is so blue it looks fake. I've always wondered if the National Geographic pictures and video of the ocean are heavily edited -- there's no way that water can be that blue -- but it really is that blue. This whole voyage has felt like a fever dream and something out of a Disney movie. Sometimes, I feel like Captain Jack Sparrow when I'm at the helm. I think I finally understand why he walks so funny when he's on land.

Virginia '26

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