Saturday 6 November 2010

Picton Castle at sea; Saturday 6 November 2010 בס"ד

This morning I was first lookout, and reported lightning off the starboard bow. In the final minutes of lookout, I saw two ghostly figures approach the bow and dance off the port side of the stem, but it was still not quite twilight, and as UK Rob came to relieve me, I pointed them out to him. They were dolphins or maybe even pilot whales, but it was too hard to determine and they just looked like phantoms. Anyway, they quickly vanished. At twilight, I attempted to shoot my first twilight star sights, and managed to get a sight of Canopus with Bracken's assistance, but I was having difficulty bringing the stars down to the horizon and focusing with my glasses on or off. At best I could get it halfway down. We braced square, then got to scraping the focslehead. It wasn't long before we were pulled off that to LOOSE ALL SAIL. I loosed the main royal, both main topsls, and mizzen staysl. Then we set all sail. No cleaning this morning as it took the remainder of watch to loose and set all sails. Watch below, had breakfast, then went below to finish Gulliver's Travels. I then passed out, and woke for lunch. After lunch I began reading “Riddle of the Sands” by Erskine Childers. I went on deck to get a drink of water, and just as I emerged it was TAKE IN ROYALS. There was an approaching squall on the port quarter, and so I harnessed up to go aloft, but by the time I was ready, there was already sufficient people stowing. Back below, and read some more. On deck at 1530, and the squall had just passed us by. I went to the coffee station, and in a rare occurrence, our whole watch seemed to be getting a cup of coffee at the same time, so we had a pre-muster muster, where we competed to see who could drink the most coffee (Bracken and I had four mugs). I was on first helm, steering NW xW 1/2W, during which time the royals were loosed and set. After helm, I plotted our position and determined CMGT and Log. I then taught Megan the basics of using a sextant. Bracken and I also did a paper test to determine log, by throwing a piece of paper overboard from the port well deck bitt and timing how long it would take to reach Bracken with the stopwatch at the quarterdeck break. We compared the log speed with the GPS Speed Over Ground, and determined we have a 0.5kt fair current underfoot. Had dinner, then took in the kites, inner jib, and foretopmst staysl. Went out and stowed the flying jib and up and stowed the main tgallant staysl. Then a team of us worked to overhaul the spanker over the clew, which was the issue causing the poor chummy stows. Once that was rectified, I put a proper chummy on. I was then fourth lookout, and within the first ten seconds, I went back to the quarterdeck to report a massive squall that had not been previously reported. TAKE IN ROYALS, and I went aloft to stow the main royal. BAM CRACK! Lightning astern, and I'm up on the royal yard stowing, so if I hadn't been doing it quickly before, I sure was now. Once stowed, I laid down to deck with rapid descent, and was told to stand lookout from the quarterdeck. Soon, we took in the mainsl, but didn't stow on account of the lightning. Watch below, and as we were relieved from our muster, it started raining for the 8-12s. Today the stars aligned to give us all the bros at 2000, so we had a “BRO MEATING – SATERDAY,” as written on our whiteboard. Besides our usual schemes, Mitch and Clark were both nominated for brobation. After the meeting, I read more Riddle of the Sands, then bed.