After a clear Saturday night, the cold gray cover of departure morning wasn’t enough to stop a small army of family, friends, and pets, who gathered at the dock to see the voyage off.  As they witnessed, casting off from dock is a complicated procedure that involves a series of coordinated tasks, which occur throughout the ship.   There was lots of furious line heaving and radio chatter.  Two tugboats showed up to help pivot the ship into position and Captain Weinstock declared it “a very traditional” cast off.  I couldn’t tell if he was disappointed.   

[Hoisting line]

[Tugboats]

There is no easy way around the fact that in order to sail to Asia from Vallejo one must take the Pacific Ocean.  Therefore the first order of business was to navigate towards the Golden Gate via the San Francisco and San Pablo bays.  On the bridge, a professional pilot with expertise knowledge of the bay and its conditions advised the crew while cadets plotted our course in pencil on a series of enormous colorful charts.  “This ship is very responsive to steering,” the pilot announced as we approached the Richmond Bridge on a dead south heading.  It seemed like a good thing. 

As we passed her position in front of Angel Island, a SFFD fireboat congratulated us in the form of a sprayed wall of water. It was not long after that we approached the Golden Gate Bridge, where a splinter group of the earlier well-wishers was in position to give us one last goodbye, this time from above.  In response, The Bear sounded three sustained blasts and that was it: within minutes we had crossed a demarcation line and the laws of international waters were in effect. 

Down below in the control room, Chief Engineer Bill Davidson sat in a swivel chair surrounded by cadets. First class Howard Bastin was “in the box,” with the Bear’s two Enterprise r5 diesel engines in his control.  Although there is a mini-cruise to work the March kinks out before April cruise, bringing the engines online after an eight month hiatus is always a delicate process and the Chief seemed to be taking things gingerly.  As he oversaw the cadets in the control room, others kept an eye on the hardware in the engine room.

Eventually, the bridge indicated that we had cleared the traffic lanes and the Chief ordered Bastin to begin the process of shutting down the starboard engine for the purpose of conserving fuel.  Mostly, this involves engaging a clutch, letting things happen slowly, and making sure nothing goes wrong, which seemed to be the case.     

A little while later, after the pilot had literally jumped off the side of the ship (a few deckies kindly provided him with a ladder from which to hop on to his magnificent orange vessel), we had quarters, which is an official formation of all cadets at sea, atop the ship.  The cadets are grouped in to divisions, and the leaders took notes as First Engineer John Coyle reviewed a laundry list of irritations (“We have a very limited number of replacement parts for broken doors”).  

         [cadet Bastin mans the engine controls]

[Zach Denning inspect the starboard engine]

[Pilot Carlson and Captain Weinstock consider the Carquinez Straight]

[Clearing the Golden Gate Bridge]

[Pilot Carlson departs]

[Division leaders take notes on the Halo deck]

The last bit of land spotted today were the Farralon Islands, sitting peacefully in the northern fog.  But they were gone as quickly as they appeared and suddenly the future and past were just horizontal lines.  What exists here in the present is ten thousand tons of steel floating on top of the largest ocean in the world, headed to a place that few on board have ever seen.  Everyone seems excited. 

-JSF