We Are The Crew ...
	Or, "Please Pardon Our Tarry Fingernails!"
		"Crew of the ELISSA" is more than just our title song -- it is us. Besides our love of sea music, we of the Barquentones have one other overriding bond: We all have served as sailing crew on the graceful and historic tall ship ELISSA, homeported at the Texas Seaport Museum, Galveston, Texas. We don't have to imagine hauling a tops'l halyard when we sing "Cape Cod Girls" -- we sing from backbreaking experience, and have the blisters to prove it.       Our name, "The Barquentones" is a play on ELISSA's "barque" rig, a very common sail plan among 19th-century merchant craft in which the forward masts carry squaresails, while the aftermost, or "Mizzen" mast, spreads only fore-and aft sails.       The five-year, $5 million resurrection of this elegant lady of the sea from a rusting hulk in a Greek scrapyard is a long and miraculous story. But what keeps the ship with the "world's longest wake" alive and ready for sea is her crew -- a dedicated group of volunteers from all walks of life whose love for the lady entrusted to their care runs as deep as the seas she sails.       They are teachers, lawyers, secretaries, architects, geophysicists, nurses, writers, engineers -- men and women, retirees and school children. Hands that spend the week tapping on computer keyboards or answering telephones spend their off-time wielding tar brushes, sandpaper blocks and paint scrapers, or clinging to jackstays a hundred feet up, taking care of the endless details required to keep a vintage square-rigger seaworthy.       When the day's work is done, this unique conglomeration of shipmates likes to sit down amid the odor of manila rope, tar, sweat and spar varnish, and raise the timeless songs of seafaring from ELISSA's foc's'l-head -- as seamen did from these very decks a more than century ago.       Now, as ELISSA sails into her third century, we -- the "Crew Of The ELISSA" -- celebrate her continuing voyage by sharing a few of the songs you might hear wafting over the glassy waters of Galveston Harbor some still Saturday night.       We like to believe they are echoes from an era whose pace and grace we shall never see again -- echoes of melodies heard right here, on this vessel, in this harbor, indeed, at this very dock -- when ELISSA first sailed into Galveston in 1883.       As the Barquentones, we are proud to represent ELISSA, her traditions, and her ongoing mission of keeping Galveston and Texas' seafaring heritage alive and vibrant. At the same time, we humbly realize that we individuals who take the stage today do not own the "Barquentones" name -- we are only the current bearers of an honored standard that belongs to all our shipmates.      Over time, the faces change -- the arrangements evolve -- new songs are written and old songs re-written.      But the Barquentones sing on ... and sail on.
		Dedicated to Galveston Island, ELISSA, and all our shipmates -- past, present and future -- who have sailed her from the 19th century into the 21st: -- Bob, Al, Judy, Max, Robert, and Reg --