Age of Sail by # 16

Butterflies were flying in my stomach like crazy as we all waited at the bus stop at school! I couldn’t believe it was Age of Sail!!

It took about an hour to get to San Francisco. As  we crossed a bridge, I could see the the Balclutha floating in the calm, blue sea water. When we got to our stop, we unloaded and ate lunch. As I was eating, I could smell the saltiness of the sea.

We were all waiting for Mrs.McClure when a man named Mr. Swift came over and asked us if we wanted to be part of his crew. We were all a little confused at first, but then we realized he was going to take us aboard the ship!

When we got on the ship, we met the first mate Mr. Jenks, whose shouts sounded like thunder in the sky.Then, we met the captain! We had to call her Sir. She gave each crew a leader. My crew, the boat crew, had Mr. Swift. He lead us over to a dory to raise and lower it.The dory was as heavy as an elephant! We had to reach as far as we could on the rope, then pull back as far as we could. My hands felt like they were on fire from all the rope burns, and were almost as red as apples! We had to show the captain how we did and she gave us an 18, which was the score for passing!

After raising and lowering the dory, we ate dinner. I had mushy cornbread, squishy coffee cake, and hard vegetable soup!After we ate, we had to muck the dishes!It was disgusting!I could feel the mushy, squishy bits all over plates!

Finally, we got to row a real dory! The paddles were huge, so two people had to row one and they were still heavy! When we got back on the main ship, we did Dog Watch. We all got a note from our parents and got to read them! Then we went to bed and got woken up for night watch. It was boring! I had to stand in place for an hour, and I was exhausted!

In the morning, the galley crew woke us up. We ate breakfast then mucked the dishes again.We did morning Dog Watch and talked about our experience. Then on our way home I learned hard work pays off, because we got to stop and have McDonalds for lunch!