0700 hours

Current Position: Anchored at Haverstraw Bay.

The sixth day of our Voyage of Discovery. This also marks the final day for our first leg crew, and the first day for our arriving second leg crew. It makes for an action-packed day and a long log, so click here to jump directly to the second leg.

Our crew awoke this morning to a cool, breezy morning at Haverstraw Bay, just around the point from our destination at King Marine in Verplanck, NY. We begin our day with one final reading from Juet's journal.

0800 hours

With their scientific presentations behind them, our student crew members are in a relaxed mood as Ms. Wegman serves breakfast.

0845 hours

We have just one task to complete before our students can end their voyage: the crew shirt presentation!

All of our young sailors have demonstrated that they are full members of the Half Moon crew, and have thus earned our exclusive crew shirts.

Our crew looks good in orange, if we do say so ourselves...

...but of course, everyone has their own sense of fashion.

0900 hours

We need to be at the dock and waiting when the second leg crew arrives, so it's time to move! The below decks team readies the anchor rode to weigh anchor once more.

By now, everyone is comfortable in any position we assign them. The below decks team soon has the anchor rode ready to go.

Mouse over for the many faces of cleaning the head.

Aha! We finally caught one! Everyone loves photos of crew members gearing up for maintenance duty.

0915 hours

The fore deck team joins the rest of the above decks team on the capstan. We're ready to go, when suddenly...

...the crew spots a crab swimming just under the surface, perhaps roiled up by our idling prop.

Captain Reynolds immediately dons a harness and doggedly pursues the crab until he catches it. Any similarities to Wile E. Coyote -- or for that matter, Captain Reynolds' pet hound dog back home -- are completely coincidental.

Once we obtain the crab, we discover it's actually a mating pair! In the photos above, the male is to the left. He's missing a claw (which will eventually regenerate), but he still puts up a fight, latching onto Mr. McDonald's shoe. On the right, Captain Reynolds indicates the female's broad, nearly vestigial tail, which now serves to protect her egg sacs.

We move our living samples of natural history into a bucket of river water, maintaining the water's oxygen level with an aerator just like the one in the eel's tank.

The students all eagerly crowd in observe the crabs.

That done, we leave the crabs to tend to their affairs and return to the capstan. We soon weigh anchor and motor north.

1045 hours

The "Triple A's" are at the helm as we come in to port. Alicia assists Abbey on the whipstaff while Annie acts as communicator to mooring Line Four below.

Mouse over to pass line two.

Mr. Colley slips over to the dock to receive our lines. We're soon secured.

1130 hours

Oh, but wait! The students' voyage may be at an end, but they still have the duties of full crew members, and there's much work to be done before the new crew arrives. Here, Jensen seems horrified to discover that his ability to take out the trash has been visually documented. Elsewhere, the students rummage and clean the orlop deck and help replenish our water supplies.

1215 hours

We can see that a familiar yellow school bus has arrived, marking the arrival of our new crew. Our departing crew members transfer their gear from ship to shore.

Our new crew has just arrived at King Marine in Verplanck, NY. We come out to say hello.

1230 hours

Captain Reynolds offers his greetings and gives our new arrivals a brief safety orientation before directing them toward the ship.

The new crew members load up their gear and transfer it all down the dock...

...to where the Half Moon awaits. The students from the first leg help cart gear, and return to the ship with us.

Sarah is the first new crew member to step forth and board the ship. Everyone else quickly follows.

1245 hours

Our combined crew enjoys a lunch of homemade macaroni & cheese for lunch. With well over thirty people on board, elbow room can be hard to find.

New crew and old mingle and get to know each other.

1315 hours

After lunch, it's time for our first leg students to officially disembark. After a week on the Half Moon, it's time for them to return to their friends and family (and, of course, to the classroom).

Some seem reluctant to leave. We hope that they, like Ms. Wegman, will consider returning to our ship to serve as docents or crew for many years to come.

Until then, of course, we'll see them again for our Albany arrival ceremonies on the 19th!

1330 hours

The Half Moon is now solely the domain of our second leg crew. For them, the Voyage of Discovery has just begun.

Our first step is to transfer their gear onto the weather deck.

Once all of their gear is on board, we transfer it below to the orlop deck, which will be home to our students and educators for the next week.

1415 hours

We begin to orient the students to their new surroundings. Senior crew members divide the students into small groups and rotate them through the varying stations on the ship, teaching them basic shipcraft skills.

On the weather deck, Mr. Colley teaches Shiava, Grant, and Santino how to belay and coil lines on the pin rail.

In the helm hutch, Mrs. Fountain offers an introductory demonstration on how to use the whipstaff to steer the ship.

Students also tour below decks, learning how to use head (surely one of the more complex procedures to be found on board) and how and where to perform fire & bilge duty, guarding against hazards.

Once the students have their bearings, they gather briefly in the orlop to work out their sleeping arrangements.

1530 hours

Captain Reynolds calls all hands on deck. There he introduces the students to an assignment that will help orient them to the scientific research they will ultimately present to the crew.

Since Jensen's salinity project was so successful on the first leg, we've decided to continue measuring salinity levels as we continue upriver.

Captain Reynolds shows the students how to read a modern navigational chart of the Hudson River, comparing it to our replica of a Dutch chart dating to the early 17th century.

As we journey upriver, we'll take water samples at regular intervals, each location marked by a river beacon and a notable landmark preselected by the captain. The students will need to correctly locate these sites, then collect water samples and subject them to testing.

1630 hours

With Grant at the helm and Katie standing lookout, we're ready to depart.

We cast off our lines and motor away from Verplanck, headed not north but south -- we'll gather our first water sample from Haverstraw Bay before turning around and heading upriver.

1700 hours

As we start taking samples, Dr. Jacobs uses the foc's'le as our research laboratory. She shows her rapt audience how to use a refractometer to measure the water's salinity levels, then has the students take the measurements and record their data themselves.

By the time we conclude this experiment, every student will have had a chance to collect and test samples.

1800 hours

Our students have been divided into two work details, traditionally known as Port Watch and Starboard watch. Each watch is on duty for six hours, rotating between different stations during that time, before rotating their duties to the next watch.

Down in the galley, Katie washes dishes while Ms. Wegman stows the haul from a quick supply run she and Dr. Jacobs ran this afternoon while the ship was docked at King Marine. You'd be surprised how quickly a crew runs out of chocolate pudding!

Mouse over to cast the bucket.

1815 hours

It's Emma's turn to collect a water sample.

We gather water just as Captain Hudson's crew would have done in 1609, by collecting it in a hand-sewn canvas bucket.

Once the bucket is full, Emma hauls it back onboard and fills a sample jar, which is labeled with the site's location and latitude. The sample jar then moves to the foc's'le for the next step.

In the foc's'le, students test the water's salinity levels, which are steadily dropping as we move farther inland. Every student gets an opportunity to use the refractometer.

1830 hours

Shiava is on lookout as we pass under Bear Mountain Bridge and begin our passage through the looming Hudson Highlands.

As the setting sun slips behind Bear Mountain, we serve dinner on the weather deck. Tonight's dinner includes chili (some experienced Half Moon crew members reading this may have just gasped) but neither we nor the ship suffer any ill effects.

(Pleasant weather: 1; shipboard superstition: 0.)

The students enjoy the view along with their dinner.

1915 hours

Sampling continues into the evening, with a steady crowd gathered at the doorway to our science department.

1930 hours

Darkness descends as we round West Point. We take a water sample here at World's End, where the river's depth briefly but steeply plunges to 175 feet.

Mrs. Fountain and Ms. O'Leary brought a cake to celebrate their birthdays, which both fall during this leg of the voyage. Once everyone's had time to digest dinner, we bring the cake up to share with the whole crew.

2015 hours

Above decks, we're passing Pollepel Island, marking the end of the Hudson Highlands. Below decks, the students start bedding down for the night. We're operating relatively late into night, but we'll soon reach our destination, and lights out looms at 2200 hours.

2045 hours

Ms. Wegman breaks out her fiddle to serenade the crew above decks as we close in on our destination just south of the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge. We were able to capture a little audio, and we'll try to upload it here following the conclusion of the voyage on the 19th. Check this space!

Shortly after 2100 hours, we set anchor, take one more water sample, hold an anchor watch briefing, and conclude a long day.

On this date in 1609:

The thirteenth, faire weather, the wind Northerly. At seven of the clocke in the morning, as the floud came we weighed, and turned foure miles into the River. The tide being done we anchored. Then there came foure Canoes aboord: but we suffered none of them to come into our ship. They brought great store of very good Oysters aboord, which we bought for trifles. In the night I set the variation on the Compasse, and found it to be 13. degrees. In the after-noone we weighed, and turned in with the floud, two leages and a halfe further, and anchored all night, and had five fathoms soft Ozie ground, and had an high point of Land, which shewed to us, bearing North by East five leagues off us.

-- Robert Juet's Journal.