Monday 20 September 2010

Picton Castle at sea; Monday 20 September 2010 בס"ד

Found it difficult to nap before morning watch because of stifling heat, but I got about fifteen minutes in and after two cups of coffee, I was good to go. I wasn't assigned any duty except wakeups, so first hour we messed around with my knot book and practice line, learning the zeppelin bend and tugboat bowline. Rebecca took Dapper and I to the focslehead to relead the tgallantmst stunsl sheet forward of the fore stay, because it had been chafing on the foresl. Second hour I cleaned galley, then weathered a small squally bit. Third hour, we literally spent cracking up on the quarterdeck telling stories about a certain ridiculous trainee. Did wakeups at 0330, now to bed and I have galley duty today at 0800.

HOLY SHIT! At 0615 I somehow woke up to Donald saying on the well deck “BIGGEST FISH EVER!” and so I ran out in my underwear with a camera and saw the 6+ft 160+lb blue marlin we'd just pulled in. The 4-8 watch had hauled it in and were in the process of killing it when I arrived to take several action videos. I returned to bed after about half an hour of fuss, and woke up at 0800 for galley duty with Mitch and Liam. Cleaned breakfast, did our galley task (cleaning the aloha veggie lockers), replaced ice packs in the coolers, cleaned out the scullery cooler because it was nasty, and hadnled the dayman 1030 coffee & snack break before setting up for lunch. After lunch, we caught another fish, though this one was a very small wahoo. Since it was already dead when we reeled it in, we kept it. Dan loaned me his book “Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean,” by Edward Kritzler, and I read up to page 75 while chilling and going back and forth to refill coffee and hot water as needed. A massive amount of pilot whales came by the ship too while we sailed over a relatively shallow spot of the sea (140ft). At 1630, a quarterdeck workshop on the fundamentals of weather and the coreolis effect creating winds from high and low pressure spots and the ITCZs (aka doldrums). Set up for marlin steak dinner (awesome) and cleaned up galley, then had crappy banana wine with Liam, Mitch, Rebecca, and Paulina. Now bed because I'm dead to the world.