I saw her first
in the glossy pages of National Geographic —
a schooner slicing sunlight,
her sails like prayers to the wind.
And I said,
That’s mine.
Not in ownership —
in destiny.
For six months
I lived the feeling of it.
Saw my hands on her helm,
heard the ropes sing in salt air,
tasted the metal tang of adventure —
and when she docked in Copenhagen,
I was already there.
Te Vega.
Steel-hulled, gaff-rigged,
a cathedral of wind and will.
Sister to Te Quest,
both sailing under the guidance
of two captains, father and son,
visionaries of the Flint School —
a floating classroom
born of discipline, daring, and dream.
They carried the old master’s wisdom in his compass,
and we — the crew, the teachers, the children —
followed that invisible star.
I came aboard as galley bosun and teacher —
of French, Spanish,
and the nautical arts.
My cabin was Gacrux,
filled with teenage spirit —
five girls, fourteen and fifteen,
learning how to steady themselves
in the crosswinds of becoming.
Kids arriving from everywhere —
Holland, Germany, South America,
the States and Canada —
each carrying her own tide of homesickness.
We learned math through navigation,
history through footsteps on foreign soil —
Normandy’s silence,
Dachau’s echoing gates.
Freedom dissected through philosophy
we didn’t yet understand.
Some lessons were hard as sea spray,
others as sweet as my toffee bars —
legendary at mid-evening break.
Days began at dawn,
the bell slicing through dream.
Brass polishing,
engine-room duty,
watch rotations under the burning moon.
Even the youngest learned
that seasickness passes,
but self-trust does not come cheap.
There were storms —
one off Nice,
a tidal wave of silver fury
that tossed our certainties like driftwood.
And there were darker tests —
the Black Watch in Amsterdam,
customs officers tearing through cabins,
searching for contraband that was never there.
We stood small but steady,
salt-spined, unshaken.
Nights were wonder.
Polaris, Rigel, Arcturus —
stars that guided us and named the cabins we called home.
I’d stand at the helm,
feeling the ship’s pulse beneath my palms,
the deck thrumming with stories
older than any scripture.
Sometimes a girl would cry,
and I’d whisper,
Look up — see that star? That’s home.
I wasn’t captain,
wasn’t saint —
just a mate, a teacher, galley bosun,
keeper of small souls in the dark.
But the helm remembered my hands.
The sea remembered my name.
And the girl who had once dreamed from a photograph
learned that the picture was never fantasy —
it was a calling.
Te Vega,
you taught me
that faith isn’t belief —
it’s the helm held steady in a storm.
It’s the knowing, deep and wordless,
that what we imagine with conviction
will find us.
You were the ship that dreamed me awake.
And even now,
decades later,
I still steer by your stars.
Author’s note:
Between 1979 and 1981, I served as galley bosun and teacher aboard the Flint School’s sister ships Te Vega and Te Quest — a seaborne experiment in learning, liberty, and the limitless classroom of the sea.
