Every year, more than 3,000 people climb aboard the 103-year-old schooner to traverse the sea

STORY BY SIERRA TRYON | PHOTOS BY NICK DANIELSON

Ninety-eight tons of wood and canvas rock gently against the dock at Squalicum Harbor Marina. A calm morning wind travels across the water, carrying the sounds of a few dozen anticipatory voices. It’s 70 degrees, making it a perfect day for the schooner Adventuress to take her passengers out to sea.

Adventuress is massive, with two main masts and more than 5,400 square feet of sail area. To the eager passengers waiting on the dock, she is something out of a movie. Ships in Pirates of the Caribbean are not a far cry from Adventuress herself, a type of ship-engineered centuries ago to aid pirates and evade authority.

Sound Experience, a nonprofit operation that leads day, overnight and multi night sails from numerous Puget Sound ports operates Adventuress. Today, she’ll make figure eights around Bellingham bay during a three-hour sail. Adventuress’ passengers will be treated to an afternoon of sailing songs, knotting knots, hoisting the sails and marine life education.

There are 42 passengers on board for the Sunday morning sail, including eight children and 13 crewmembers. Rosie Wilson-Briggs, the program coordinator of Sound Experience, is a short 30-year-old sporting a pixie haircut, a face of freckles and a pair of glasses on her face with sunglasses on her head.

“When Adventuress was first built in 1913 for a very rich man named John B­­­orden II, she was a private yacht,” Rosie says. “She was state-of-the-art, had an engine, a spiral staircase, a clawfoot tub and electricity, which at the time wasn’t even in all homes yet.”

In her maiden voyage, Adventuress left port in Maine and sailed around Cape Horn and all the way up to Alaska, where crew attempted to catch a whale but turned around due to the blistering cold.

Adventuress motors out of the harbor, and deckhand Becky Cristoforo begins to lead children, parents and older couples on board through a sea shanty as they position themselves amongst the ropes, preparing to raise the mainsail.

“Sally is a girl that I loved dearly,”

“Way, hey, bully in the alley!”

“Sally is a girl that I spliced nearly, bully down in Shinbone, Alabama.”

Passengers echo, “Way, hey, bully in the alley!” as Becky continues to sing and deckhands throw their body weight into heaving the ropes and lifting the mainsail.

“Haul awaaaaay!” Captain Gordon “Bucko Billy” cries.

“Haul awaaaay!” the crew and passengers echo back.

Everyone, young and old, is positioned on a rope either starboard (right) or port (left) of the mainsail. Arms work the rope; hand over hand, until all 3,000 pounds of the mainsail have been hoisted up the mast.

As the sail nears the top, Becky pauses her shanty to call “Two — six” and 30 passengers yell back “Heave!” as they throw all their weight behind their rope.

An hour into the sail, all four sails are up and Adventuress is cruising. The motor ceases and calm takes over. Rosie calls for two minutes of silence. Everyone quiets. The wind has a sweet whistle when unobstructed by other noise, one that is best heard with eyes closed and sun warming the face.

Two minutes pass and passengers disperse, exploring the cabins below — bunks, tea stations, heads (toilets) and the vegetarian galley.

Back above deck, educator and deckhand Kelly Greenwood pulled out a box of shells, teeth and baleen and passed them around a circle of children. She explained that orca whales are in two categories: those who eat fish and those who eat other mammals. They all have unique vocal dialects.

Caroline, a third-grade student from Lowell Elementary, moved from Houston last August and wants to get better acquainted with Puget Sound. She recently saw two different orca pods on one very lucky whale-watching trip.

“For an hour-and-a-half, one of the pods swam right up alongside the boat,” Caroline’s mom says. “It was incredible.”

Tomorrow, Caroline will return to Adventuress with her elementary class and spend another day sailing around the bay and learning about marine biology.

Complete peace has taken over when Adventuress steers back to the marina. Three crewmembers climb into a small inflatable boat, while others furrow (fold) the sails and Adventuress transitions back to using the motor.

Several passengers have chosen to pay an additional five dollars in order to become yearlong members of Sound Experience. The membership will allow them to return for unlimited sails; some families have already pulled up a calendar of sails to register for it. It seems to ease the gloom of disembarking Adventuress at the end of the day.

The inflatable boat hovers around the bow (the front end of the ship), ramming the front of Adventuress, pushing her to be parallel with the dock. A group of spectators has paused halfway down the dock, shielding their eyes from the sun as they watch the ship return.