Thursday 13 January 2011 [AT SEA]

Picton Castle at sea; Thursday 13 January 2011 בס"ד

Woke up at dawn, wrote my logs, breakfast, hoisted the flags, all hands muster at 0800. I'm still the Bosun's Mate, but I laid in with the 8-12s lashing down the hold and deck. I also quickly corrosealed a freeing port near the starboard breezeway. At 0930, Shawn grabbed me and said we and Logan are the dockline handling team, Logan being the coxn. 1000 we started, and one by one we quickly let off the forward leading midships spring, the well deck hawser, the headline, the quarterspring, and then finally the stern spring which sprung the ship off the dock. Then, after the ship had gotten away, the boat picked us up and we raced out to the port bow, where we engaged and pushed once the word was given by the Mate on the focslehead. There were plenty of spectators to see us off all along the harbor. Once we pushed the Picton Castle's bow to starboard, clearing a sharp turn, we raced around to the starboard bow and engaged, but never needed to push again. Then, once the ship was clear of the harbor and at sea, we fell back and Shawn made off the bow falls and sea painter and I the stern falls and we got hoisted up. Hopped out, then ran up on the quarterdeck and laid in with the hoisting team. Then laid in flaking out hawsers on the galleyhouse roof before WT called me down to put primer on the freeing port I had earlier corrosealed. Did that, and went to the paint locker. People were already painting bitts and coming to me for jobs, so I referred them to WT, since I had no list of jobs. I cleaned and reorganized my paint locker, which had become very disorderly while in port because everybody was in it all the time and put things back however they saw fit, which is not how I saw fit. Finished that pretty quickly, then was called to the quarterdeck by the Mate. The ship was having its compass adjusted, and the Mate told me and Brad to watch Nadja steer by orders and terrestrial points as Sophie translated between the charthouse and the binnacle in French and English. Soon, Brad was put on the helm, then we had a “fire in the paint locker” drill, which I did my job of forward extinguishers. Returned to the quarterdeck after putting away the extinguishers and the starboard fire hose. We then had an abandon ship drill, but I remained on the quarterdeck on standby to relieve Brad, which I did soon thereafter. Stood helm for well over an hour, swinging the ship around and steadying her up as we went in a circle having our compass adjusted by the local guy. My voice was starting to give towards the end since almost at least once a minute or so I'd have to shout the reply to the con the order given, for example, Con: Right easy! Me: Right EasAY!, Con: Steady! Me: SteadAY!, Con: Left a little! Me: Left a litTUL! Con: Steady! Me: SteadAY!, each of those being specific commands and not guesswork. No looking at the compass obviously, since the adjuster man was between me and the binnacle playing with the quadrantal spheres. Not that that mattered, because you rarely use the compass for this type of helming anyway, relying on terrestrial features, celestial bodies (the sun), and even clouds to see how you're moving. It was pretty cool to see how we adjust the compass (the last time was in Lunenburg and I was ashore for that), and I felt very privileged to be a part of the operation. Finished at about 1300, had a late lunch, and then we lowered the boat to return to adjuster to shore. Once the boat was away, we had an MOB drill using the ship to recover a coconut instead of the rescue boat. Successful retrieval, then hoisted the boat, and got underway. We had to motor a bit to get out of the lee of the island. Soon, set fore-and-aft sails, when most of it was set I went aloft to loose the main tgallant staysl. When I was just about finished, the call to loose all squaresl came, and I loosed the foresl on starboard side, which was tricky only because we were braced for sailing full-and-by and therefore were braced so sharp on a port tack that the yard was just squeezing the backstays, making for a bit of creative gymnastics and contortioning to achieve my goal. Laid down to deck, set all squaresail, set the spanker, and then cleaned the paint locker quickly. Shortly after, a muster about our passage upon the quarterdeck, and the Captain explained we'd go a few hundred miles south of Madagascar then head towards Durban, RSA, where we'd catch the Agulhas current right along the shore and ride it down the coast. This time of year is about a rougly 50/50 chance of gales down by the Cape of Good Hope. Dinner, then read some War and Peace. Then got distracted in the salon chatting with everybody about couscous, noses, and other topics. Finally, went to go to sleep, but “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” was being watched in the forepeak, so I watched the end of it, then DTW. A good busy day.