Well our voyage from Falmouth to Lisbon is coming to and end we crossed into Portuguese waters about a day and a half ago and it was great to see land this morning. This part of the trip has been a very interesting one, with lots of new things learned on and off of watch. I started to do some navigation and plotting our position, which I got really into. Soon I could take the Taft rail logs and figure out how far we had gone in the last 24 hours, our average speed and keeping on that average speed how long it would take to get to Lisbon. Which most were quite excited to hear once we got more and more close, loving the trip but there is a bit of land lover in me! 
   Throughout the trip we had classes everyday with the morning watch preparing a ships report with some good facts about the boat and our voyage, along with a little comic relief which is definitely need at times, also with a nautical science lesson on different many different subjects, including things like displacement, propulsion, chafe, and weather. Us students also have been doing daily presentations on readings, mine was on an article by James Oliver Horton called "Slavery in American History: An Uncomfortable National Dialogue". It gave some interesting ideas of how to reinterpret and present America's role in slavery and some reactions people got with this history with has always been a tender topic. But with the help of historians and historic interpreters the history of this all will keep being told and never forgotten. The Amistad Freedom tour is a great way to keep the story alive as well as sharing the story for all to learn. Lisbon should be really interesting, especially with telling the story, I guess I better brush up on some Portuguese!

Comments (0)