Thursday 11 November 2010 [ARAFURA SEA]

Picton Castle at sea in the Arafura Sea; Thursday 11 November 2010 בס"ד

Got a wakeup at 0355, and on deck at 0400 with Nadja and Brad. Brad made coffee, and I readied the water and juice and then cleaned cups in the scullery in anticipation for an all hands groggy wakeup. At 0430, all hands on deck, and at 0500 I was in the chain locker making sure the cable was properly flaked with Davey. At 0530 the off watches were stood down. We loosed the topsls, I on the main, and set them. At 0615 I was on helm steering with extra precision using terrestrial navigation; W, then WxS, then W1/4S, right easy, steady, etc. At 0700 did a soogie down and windexing of all glass. At 0730, I was summoned to relieve Liam from the helm so that he could film (which he's been doing for Ollie since he left) an 800ft tanker overtaking us on port side as we both entered the Prince of Wales Channel, which is only a mile wide. It was pretty cool steering extra carefully, more like a car than a ship as I had to maintain adequate space between the outer limits of the channel and the overtaking tanker, the RMS Gladstone I think. Nadja stood by the helm, just in case I messed up, but everything was fine. At 0800 I was stood down, and at 0815 all hands were on deck and watertight bulkhead doors sealed as we entered the narrowest parts, just as a precaution in case we ran aground. Right after breakfast, we saw two sea turtles pass by starboard, and it seemed that the one was humping the other. Turtles need love too. I read on the hatch until 0845, when it was cleared to go below again, where I read a bit more and then passed out. Woke for lunch, and then I asked Mitch for his photos since he took some action shots and videos of me steering through the straits, then I read some more. At 1600, we were sailing along in the Arafura Sea with a nice wind blowing us along. WT had me put some primer on the main tgallantstay wire seizings, which I did fine, but when descending from my position on the fife rail, I handed somebody my aloft bucket full of paint and didn't realize the brush lanyard was wrapped around my harness, so the brush flicked up and got primer drops on deck, a serious fuck up. Luckily I was right there and quickly got a rag with some 004 on it to wipe them up. Then I was sent to tar the mizzen topmst seizings, which I did with extreme care so as not to spill even a droplet of tar. Deck clean, dinner, galley clean, coffee grind, final shipcheck, watch below. After watch, had our welldeck workout session, then had a Portuguese lesson with Sophie again, which this time was a hardcore approach to pronounciation. Then I read and went to bed.