Freedom Schooner Amistad
April - December, 2003

I'm not going to get into too much detail with this post. I just didn't want to exclude this chapter, since it was my first professional gig on a tallship.

So... I was walking to my job as a bartender in Jacksonville, FL one day, When I saw on the waterfront a Tallship. Lately, I had been SERIOUSLY interested in landing a job on a tallship, so I could get out of the rut I was in and get paid to travel to interesting places and do fun work, while continueing to persue a carreer in Photo-Journalism. So.. I stood on the pier untill I could talk to the captain, and after " days of their port visit, I had talked my way into their purser position.
I joined them, about a month later, in Mystic, CT. From there, we traveled to New Haven, CT - Newport, RI - Portland, ME - Lunenburg, NS - Summerside, PEI - Gaspé, QUE - (The St. Lawrence River) - Quebec City - Montreal - (Lake Ontario) - Kingston, ON - (The Welland Canal) - Port Colburn, ON - then Erie, PA - Cleveland, OH - Toledo, OH - Port Huron, MI - Mackinah Is., MI - Beaver Is., MI - Sheboygan, WI - Muskegan, MI - Chicago, IL - Hammond, IN - Harbor Springs, MI - Detroit, MI - Sandusky, OH - Ashtabula, OH - Buffalo, NY - (all via lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan) - then back through the Welland Canal to Oswego, NY, where we downriged for a transit down the Erie Canal and back to Mystic. In Mystic, we uprigged and then to Boston, NYC, Norfolk VA, Charlston SC, and eventually back to Jacksonville.

I will never forget that trip.