Reading this week:

• Night and Morning in Dark Africa by Harry Johnson

My super amazing girlfriend knows me well, and so for my birthday got us a daytrip on the Tall Ship Providence (she pointed out that even if she didn’t know me well our home décor, or my half of it anyways, would be a constant reminder of the fact that I like boats). It was slated for, you know, my birthday, but on my birthday there was severe flooding in Alexandria and they had to cancel for that day. Ignore the fact that a boat seems like the absolute best place to be during a flood. Anyways that was the last sailing day of the season, so flash forward until now, when it is no longer my birthday, and we got to go on our boat ride!

Riding around on the Providence was an absolute hoot. We had been worried about thunderstorms and were thinking our trip was going to get cancelled again, but when our 4:30 departure rolled around it was a perfectly nice day. Sure there were a few sprinkles, and the severe lack of wind made it not much of a sailing trip, but the seas (my super amazing girlfriend: “we’re not at sea”) were calm and the views gorgeous.

I spent most of my trip explaining to (explaining at) my super amazing girlfriend what the various parts of the boat were called. This like the bow and stern and gunwhales. I also referred to the rear deck as the “poop” and the crew referred to it as the “quarterdeck,” but she was nice enough to let that slide unmentioned.

The biggest thing I learned on our boat ride is that while it is obvious that this Providence is supposed to be a recreation of an older boat named the Providence, I hadn’t realized the Providence to which they were referring had at one point been commanded by the late, great John Paul Jones! I know I am supposed to have known that already, but I was in many ways a terrible Midshipman. So that was a hoot. This led me to doing more mansplaining at my super amazing girlfriend, relating my favorite motivational story for why people should learn navigation. That story is that our buddy Jones (just John Paul at the time) was on a ship as like cabin boy or something. In those times usually only the captain and the first mate knew how to navigate. This was an anti-mutiny measure. I will not accept any fact-checking on this story. Anyways unusually John Paul knew how to navigate, which came in handy when the captain and first mate promptly died of yellow fever. He got the ship safely back to port, and the shipowners were so grateful they made him captain and he lived happily ever after (until he had to kill a guy and flee to America and hid his identity by craftily tacking “Jones” onto his name). Know how to navigate!

Upon learning this I sort of hoped we would find ourselves in a similar scenario. Specifically I was thinking that maybe those thunderstorms would hit and then I would have to come to the rescue. To prepare, I spent the rest of the voyage doing my best John Paul Jones poses, as you can clearly see above.

But back to boating. We launched from the DC Wharf and motored slowly down the Potomac. The crew did their jolly best to give us a great sailing experience, letting the passengers even handle some lines. They kept referring to them as “ropes,” but again in my magnanimity I let that slide. Those lines that were handled in turn handled the mainsails and jib which were raised for the benefit of our pictures, mostly. One of the crew explained that the Coast Guard only allowed them to raise certain combinations of sails lest the ship become too overpowered and capsized. I am sure this explains the reef in the mainsail given that I think at one point we experienced something in the range of 3 knots of wind. Breezy! They also opened a bar which definitely did a lot to contribute to the jolly atmosphere of the boat ride, and I recommend all boats come with bars. My super amazing girlfriend was kind enough to buy me a beer and we really got to pretend like it was 1776.

During the course of the cruise they also took us into the captain’s cabin and down below in the hold to check out those spaces. A fake rat added ambiance and we spent our time marveling at how they fit 70 dudes on a 110′ boat. Doing some back of the envelope calculations, if the submariner happiness factor (trust me here) is calculated by # of dudes / amount of space, they were much happier on this boat than I was on the submarine. All in all a wonderful trip. Eventually however we turned around, and sailed back up the Potomac, where we were treated to a beautiful view of wonderful clouds settling in over um, monumental monuments before docking at the conclusion of our three hour tour, accompanied by exactly zero Gilligan jokes (unfortunately). My super amazing girlfriend is super amazing and it was a great boat ride and you all should do it too.