Sunday 31 October 2010

Picton Castle at sea; Sunday 31 October 2010 בס"ד

Today was a busy day as we had a small amount of people on watch and a lot happened. At 0400 I stood first lookout, reporting only an airplane early on. At 0445 I reported that the headsls were backing, and shortly after we took in the inner jib and foretopmst staysl. After shipcheck, I was put to work overhauling two deckbrushes that were beat up pretty good. I had to take a hacksaw to the one that had a rusty bracket holding it together. I didn't get to finish reconstructing them with new brush heads however, because at 0600 I woke Shawn to report to engineer's duty (he's dayman engineer now), and we took in all sail. Then up and stow tgallants and royals, and I stowed the fore tgallant. There was an electrical storm astern of us closing fast, and we stowed very quickly before being called down to deck. I was fourth helm, and we tried to outrun the squall. The wind was quite variable from the quarter. Steering WxN at first, then the Captain came to me and told me to fall off two points to port, so I came to WxS. After helm, I plotted our position on the chart, then we were stood down for breakfast. I worked a little more on the deck brushes after, then, with the squall gone, we set all sail. I laid aloft to loose the main tgallant. Then I did my laundry, and began to read “The Cruise of the Conrad,” by Alan Villiers. I cleaned out and organized my ditty bag, then shaved my face to form only a moustache yet again, as today was to be the moustache shaving day for all who would participate in MOVEMBER, aka Moustache November. I then prepared for getting a noon sight with our local apparent noon (LAN) actually being 1200 (that usually doesn't happen). The quarterdeck was incredibly hot and foot-burning. I got a noon sight along with Dapper, Brad, Liam, and Yo. Had lunch, and then computed our data on the well deck. The call came to take in the foresl, which we did, then resumed our computations. Then the call came to take in all square sail, which we did. All day we'd had light airs and variable winds. After all the sail-handling, I went below, and read more Villiers, then napped. Woke up at 1530, and once on deck we set some sails again. I stood first lookout in my sandwich mask (it is Halloween), and I reported an orange buoy float by starboard, which turned out to be a lost halloween balloon that blew off the well deck (sorry environment). Then we had a Halloweenspike, complete with CANDY. I was on and off helm with Brad, relieving each other so that we could enjoy the festivities. We were steering WxN. I filled the 1800 log and plotted our position. I was too full from candy and cookies and rice krispy treats and other treats to even eat dinner, but after dinnertime I laid in cleaning galley dishes. Stood fourth helm steering W and then W 1/2S. There was lightning distant, but it was not coming our way. After watch, a well deck workout, then showered, read, and went to bed.