Tuesday 31 August 2010

Picton Castle at sea; Tuesday 31 August 2010 בס"ד

Yesterday I spent the day doing last minute errands and communications. I won't go into the hour by hour description, but I mailed postcards, got a $3 “Ina and the Shark” Cook Islands bill, bought some hardware and fabric, called the States, emailed and Facebooked, hung out with friends, etc. Nothing too exciting.

Today was awesome. It's hard to explain, but I really feel confident that I know what I'm doing, and we had a lot to do, so it was good. At 0800, the 8-12s took the deck and did deckwash and domestics. At 0900, all hands mustered and we learned our new watch schedules. I'm back on the 12-4. Anyway, Bracken pulled me aside to help shore the massive amount of cargo in the hold. He and I were cutting 2x4s and drilling them in place to keep the cargo from shifting. I forgot to say: We're headed to Palmerston and Pukapuka (Tonga's been nixed) with a completely filled hold full of cargo, massive amounts of fuel and gas cargo on deck, and 20 extra passengers (six of them children). The ship is quite crammed. It's pretty cool. Did plenty of lashings on deck to secure cargo. When looking around, I really felt like I was in a different time, with tons of people crowded around the dock, passengers and cargo all about the decks, and we the crew handling it like we do this all the time. It was awesome and probably looked like a scene from a photo you'd imagine from 100 years ago doing the same stuff. I was running around taking care of this and that, getting ready for our epic passage (apparently it's been a long time since this type of mission was undertaken by a sailing vessel). At 1400, we said plenty of goodbyes and shortly after, we steamed out of the harbor (there were northerly light headwinds). I was on the focslehead dealing with our bow line. Then went to the chain locker and stowed four hawsers, and sweat a gallon. Finished the 12-4 watch lashing things in the hold, and then played chess with Davey. Started making new bunk curtains from the fabric I got, and finished one. A child safety “cage” was built to cover the forepeak hatch from children, and Logan threw bananas down at us and called us dirty animals. Took a super quick rinse-off shower, now bed.