I couldn’t have imagined it a year earlier, but here I was, at the front of the Elissa on bow watch with a shipmate, attached by a harness, after dark, clinging to a railing as the ship seesawed on double-decker-bus-sized swells, larger than I imagined they’d be in the Gulf.

An ocean, sure, I imagined that would be scary. But, a wee gulf?

Maybe 20, 30 feet high, I’m not sure, but the swells seemed big, and I felt like I was on a rollercoaster.

I trusted this ship though, because she’d been all over the world since first launching from Aberdeen, Scotland in 1877 (Elissa is technically called a barque, due to the way her masts & sails are rigged, but she’s in a broader category of sailing vessels called “tall ships”).

We’d set out from Galveston that afternoon, a Friday, and by the time the jetty ended and the ship channel dumped us out into the Gulf, we were miles off of Galveston Island, Texas.

Most years her spring voyages are daylong trips in the waters around her home port in Galveston, where guests pay a few hundred dollars to sail. But this time, in 2023, she was headed to Florida to participate in the Tall Ships St. Pete Festival.

All 35-ish of the crew onboard had put in the sweat and passed the tests required to complete the yearly 8-month volunteer sail training program at Galveston Historic Seaport. The program is 2 or 3 Saturdays per month, where volunteers spend half the day learning and practicing, and the other half the day working on ship maintenance.

The crew is made up of volunteers, but there were professional officers, an engineer, and a cook hired for the voyages to and from St. Pete.

Outside of a Caribbean cruise and some ferry rides, I’d never been at sea before.

I soon realized where the new Avatar movie got its inspiration.

My crew was on the 8pm to midnight shift, the first or second night of the voyage, when we first saw the bioluminescent jellyfish flashing below the surface. Dozens, then hundreds, more than we could count, were lighting up the water as far as we could see.

Other times, the churn of the water where the bow and hull of the ship cut through the water caused bioluminescent algae to light up the wake in neon blue.

Alone on bow watch one afternoon on the 2^nd or 3^rd day, I saw my first flying fish. At first, I thought it was a hummingbird skimming over the surface of the water. But then I saw a school of them take flight together, a foot above the surface, and zip 20 feet.

Later I watched a sea bird circle the ship a few times before snatching one of the flying fish out of the air.

Another day, a pod of dolphins – two babies and three or four adults– joined the bow wave just below me and surfed for a minute before suddenly darting off and going about their day.

The occasional weary, glimmering swallow would join us on deck for rest.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget how brilliant the night sky was, and the way you could look up and see the masts bobbing around, silhouetted by the stars.

It was hot but bearable on this early spring voyage, but I was still drenched in sweat by the end of each 8am-noon work shift.

Each of our three groups worked two 4-hour shifts per 24 hours.

We had a shower onboard, but in order to conserve water we weren’t allowed to use it until we got to St. Pete.

The work shifts included scrubbing the decks and bulwarks, tarring the rigging, painting the bitts, polishing the brass, cleaning up after meals and loosing/furling/setting/dousing/handling the sails.

After several days of sweaty work with no showers, it seemed like our noses tuned out the stench and accepted the reality.

After a day shift we would eat lunch on deck, then I would usually grab some photos, go below deck and wipe as much sweat off my face and limbs as I could, and get in my bunk with my rechargeable mini-fan and try to cool off before a nap.

There is no AC onboard, but we did have some big fans doing their best to keep our sleeping quarters ventilated.

The two crew toilets onboard are similar to those in an RV. Due to the constant rocking of the vessel, using the restroom sometimes felt like a sweaty yoga session.

The wind wasn’t ideal our first couple of days, so we had to use our engine to motor practically right into the wind. We were on a tight schedule to get to Florida for the festival, which didn’t allow us to slowly work our way into the wind by sail, as sailors did back in the day (Elissa was first fitted with a diesel engine in 1918).

About halfway through the voyage, when the wind allowed us to turn off the engine and go on sail power alone, the sound when going to sleep changed from a constant engine churn to a sweet sloshing of the swells on the hull.

I didn’t have any cell service the few times I checked throughout the voyage, but my phone’s map was able to pick up our location as we got closer to Florida:

When I climbed out of the fore hatch Wednesday morning, five days after departing Texas, land had already been spotted, and the coast near the mouth of Tampa Bay loomed ahead.

Photos:

For a video tour of the Elissa and to learn about her fascinating history, check out this video.

Please feel free to comment below with any comments or questions.