T-Minus 5 Days

In five days I am taking to the high seas. I have a lot to get together between now and next Sunday. I have to pack endless amounts of clean underwear and socks, I am supposed to ply the crew with beer to ease my way into ship life, and I have endless numbers of electronic devices that require converters so that I can use them with European electrical system on the ship.

I fly from Washington, DC to Halifax, Nova Scotia next Sunday morning, arriving onboard the ship around 6:00pm. We set sail on Monday morning for Boston. The transit time from Halifax to Boston should be about 2.5 days and I expect I will be out of cellular communications for most of the transit as we will be some distance from shore. During times when the ship is out of terrestrial cellular range, we will rely upon a twice daily upload and download of email over the satellite network. No attachments are allowed and I will have special email address assigned to me once I board the ship - it will not be my regular GP email address.

This first transit will give me the opportunity to figure out what is what on the ship. I will be spending time with the captain and first mate going over their expectations for the month long journey, and figuring out the best lines of communication to keep the crew informed and briefed on our work.

I will also spend a significant portion of the initial transit to Boston briefing the crew on the history of our climate and energy campaign as well as what our plans are for the ship and her crew at each port. At some stops the ship will be able to come up alongside the dock, at other stops, because of the ships size, we will need to anchor outside the harbor and ferry visitors and media to the ship in RIB’s (rigid inflatable boats).

In addition to the open boats and press events, we have a couple of other exciting activities which I will save for a later post.

The current schedule for the first part of the ship tour is:
Friday, September 16th - Boston
Friday, September 23rd - Provincetown, MA
Saturday, September 24th - Hyannis, MA
Sunday, September 25th - Nantucket, MA
Monday, September 26th - Woods Hole, MA
Wednesday, September 28th - Long Island, NY