Thursday 23 September 2010

Picton Castle at sea; Thursday 23 September 2010 בס"ד

Morning watch was well-illuminated with a full moon. First hour I hung out upon the quarterdeck and told Megan the “10-mile run” story. Stood second lookout, and reported a very very faint disappearing reappearing light two points off the starboard bow, which I figured might be a small vessel very distant being periodically obscured by wave crests and troughs, but nothing came up on the radar to verify this. Otherwise, nothing to report. Cleaned the stove after shipcheck, then listened as Brad read aloud from Chapman's for a while. In the final twenty minutes, I was put on helm because the binnacle light had gone quite dim and [person] had trouble seeing the lubber's line. I was steering W 3/4S and it was easy to keep her steady. Right now we're about 20nm from the antimeridian 180°, and so right now I'm as far west as I've ever been and when I wake up for afternoon watch, I'll likely be as far east as I've ever been too. Go figure.

Afternoon watch had me on first lookout and already in sight was the island of Moala abaft the port beam. At 1230, I noticed another island under a cloud formation, as I remembered the Captain explaining to us in the talks about Polynesian navigation that clouds form over islands (oversimplification), and I was pleased with myself for utilizing this knowledge. If nobody had ever seen this island before, I could have named it Fredland, but it turned out to be Ngua. Pretty much the rest of watch was dedicated to painting seizings on the shrouds and backstays. At the end, I got a good video of Mate Mike, Donald, and DB hauling in a big Mahi, and DB smashing its brains in with our annihilator mallet. At 1630, a quarterdeck talk on Fiji and also on the voyage to Vanuatu and then Bali. Then got photos from Jan and Liam and after dinner gave photos of Palmerston dancing and fishing to Bronwen. Posted on the scuttle are crude blueprints and info on the Zebroid, whose name will be changed to Tiare Taporo after an old schooner that did runs in the Cooks many decades ago. Played Robert in chess, then read some and passed out.