The Crameid: Book One

I sing of a brigantine and seventeen students,

Who first set sail from the Virgin Islands;
They were not the first on the Cramer,
And will not be the last,
But the Caribbean waters were foreign to them.
From St. Croix to St. Maarten to Samaná, Dominican Republic
They were jostled and pushed by Neptune;
Most leaned over the side of the boat in anguish
As she rolled, but three strong ones--James, JP and Patricia--
Ate their fill of galley delights and lay down, satisfied,
In their cramped and musty bunks.

Tell me the reason, oh Muse, for the bioluminescence
Shining in the waves, almost as a reflection
Of the thousands of stars visible on clear nights.
Or of why there are no phyllosoma in the Sargasso Sea,
Or of how the clewl'n works to strike the tops'l.
How long would it take these seventeen students
To feel confident in their many jobs at sail in the Atlantic,
As a weather reader, a boat checker, an equipment deployer,
A line coiler, an assistant chef, a chlorophyll-a data processor,
An assistant engineer, a writer, a reader, a winkler,
A sailor.
Can such apathy hold the minds of professors?

There was a city they called Port Antonio--
Certainly welcomed by those who could not speak Spanish--
A city situated on the Atlantic Ocean, yet far
From the Dominican Republic from whence they came,
And the United States they think about often.
This land promised information about the Mooretown villagers,
About biodiversity and ecotourism, about reggae and literature.
The people would treat these seventeen students like tourists,
Which they were and were not simultaneously,
And some would feel uncomfortable looking at trinkets
While the island rocked back and forth like a large floating raft.

After adventures in Jamaica, presenting scientific findings
And hiking to marvel at green wonders not seen in the blue ocean
That the students would soon regard as their home,
They would set off on the last leg of their onerous journey
Up the Yucatán and back into the States.
The Captain prayed that King Aeolus would be kind
And offer them a favorable wind at little cost.
Once in Key West, a few would travel with family,
One would go see a space shuttle launch,
One would study for his LSATs,
And the rest would sail together to Charleston.

Just out of sight of Samaná, the students already
Had begun to wonder what would happen after
The Cramer had washed herself of the seventeen;
Would they ever be all together again?
The group had held together just as a copepod clinging to
A clump of Sargassum weed manages to nestle in a groove
And avoid being drowned in ethanol, instead being tossed
Once again back into the sea, a science evader.
Would all projects be turned in on time?
Would the water for the pasta ever boil in the galley?
The students constantly asked themselves questions.
Questions related to anxiety and homesickness,
Ignorance and frustration, curiosity and awe.
Hands to set the jib!
Which one is the jib downhaul again?