Wednesday 4 August 2010

Picton Castle at sea; Wednesday 4 August 2010 בס"ד

Yesterday started like usual with domestics. Did a lot of tidying up in anticipation for the Pitcairn reception. We were tasked with cleaning out the aft shelf of the chain locker, so I along with Jo and Robert were down there unlashing things, passing them up to be cleaned, and then restowing them in a more practical and accessible way. Once done, Robert and I bailed out the nasty bilge water with a tin can. Paul brought several charts to the salon and we checked them out and he explained things to us. At 1530, the longboat arrived with huge bamboo chutes, our crew and their belongings, and many islanders. There was a nice reception and we showed everybody around. We also learned that we were getting a temporary bro in place of Jimmy, none other than Pitcairn's own David Brown. That was pretty cool news, especially since he hasn't left the island since he was two or so. Word is he's on til at least Rarotonga and maybe Fiji. Also, Gary came back on the longboat, so he didn't end up going with Jimmy on the French ship. After about an hour we said oru final farewells and after the islanders go on the longboat we loosed the course, topsls, inner jib, foretopmst staysl, and after a seemingly endless go at the windlass (we had over four shots of chain out), we sailed off the hook. We had braced sharp on port tack earlier in preparation, and I made an error when I ran up the starboard shrouds to loose the fore bunt gasket. It seemed we were all a tad bit rusty after so long a stay ashore and at anchor, but we had to ship our sailor faces and do shit right. We braced around to a starboard tack (first time in forever) and sailed off the hook. After all the sail-handling was done (tgallants came soon after), 4-8 took the deck and after dinner I cleaned the galley. David B joined Shawn as the second bro on the 8-12. Stayed up with the other bros and others swapping stories about our stay on Pitcairn.

Woke up today almost late for morning muster as I ran out into the cold shirtless and fenangling my rig and harness on. Not much to do the first two hours, then stood third helm steering NW½N. After that, we braced in a bit, and I was the hoseman for deckwash. Took a nap until lunch, read the Count of Monte Cristo until watch again, and besides the usual stuff stood fourth lookout. After watch, typed up some of my logs since I'm about a month behind.