Atlantic Rounds

Daily Waypoints and Ports of Call

2009-06-03T15:35:00.000-04:00

The Picton Castle has returned to Lunenburg Nova Scotia. This marks the end of the year long Voyage around the Atlantic Ocean. During the voyage I attempted to mark a waypoint on my portable GPS for each day we were at sea. I then took that data and have messed around with it to create a map that you should be able to see on this page. If you are receiving my blog as an email message, then you may have to go to the actual online blog with your web browser to view it.

If you click on the image, you will see a full size version.

I have imported the information into Google Earth. Download the Google Earth file. If you have installed the Google Earth application on your computer, then it should start-up automatically; otherwise, you might have to save the file and open it in Google Earth at a later time.

By my records, we visited 55 ports, 27 countries, and 4 continents. I have put the information into a PDF document that is kind of interesting to look at. It shows the ports of call and when we were there. It's not an "official" list, but it's the one that I kept in my journal.

I guess this is really the last post that I will make to this blog. The voyage is over, the memories of the good times are already getting sweeter. I really enjoyed writing this blog especially after receiving all the comments from people thanking me for keeping it up.

As always,
Thanks for reading,

-john

Home at last

2009-05-31T17:45:00.009-04:00

I am actually at home writing this blog post. I have been working on some final details to summarize the voyage, so I have been holding off on this one. I actually got home to Westborough Massachusetts on Wednesday, May 27th. I have spent the last few days getting caught up with friends as well as my two cats. I will be rejoining the Picton Castle for the nine week summer voyage at the end of June. On that voyage we will be coming to Boston for the Sail Boston 2009 event (yes, it IS going to happen). If you will be in the Boston area July 8-12 you should come by and check out the ship. But before I get too far down that path, let me tell you about the last few weeks on the Picton Castle.

We left the British Virgin Islands on May 6 after a nice beach bonfire and cookout on the little island of Sandy Cay. The BVI is a very nice place to sail. I have been here three time previously with my Venture Crew so I knew what to expect. The islands are pretty close together, so close that sailing among them it is easy to forget that we are in the Atlantic Ocean. Once outside the islands the seas build to their normal height, but inside the island group it is like sailing in a large protected bay or harbor.

We rounded the west end of Jost Van Dyke and said our final good byes to the Caribbean Islands. We then headed pretty much due north to the Island of Bermuda that was 830 nautical miles away. During this passage I had hoped to get more opportunity to do some sail making, but I was still on the 12-4 watch, so it was pretty difficult. The mate did allow me to work with the sail maker during watch, but that was only somewhat successful. The challenge with the 12-4 watch is that when not on watch all we feel like doing is sleeping. It makes it very difficult to work on projects. Getting up early is an option, but not always easy with just a few hours of sleep after getting done with watch at 4am. I did the best that I could, but it was a lot less than I would have liked and certainly not the opportunity that I had hoped for. Being on either the 4-8 or 8-12 watch would have worked out better I think, but that was not possible.

During this passage we all started working on sea bags. They are basically similar to the ditty bags, except quite a bit larger. They also have a sewn in cloth bottom rather than a wood base. It was pretty fun working on it and helping others along the way.

We also had our ship's concert. It was good fun. Each watch had a skit or song that they created and several crew members had their own acts that they performed. It was a very nice time on one of our last Sundays at sea. NickSA and Buddy were the masters of ceremony and did a great job keeping everyone in stitches.

We arrived in Bermuda on May 13th, pretty early in the morning. We ended up motoring a little so we could arrive in time. Bermuda is a good decompression stop. It gave everyone an opportunity to get laundry done and relax a bit before the final passage of the voyage. It is a good place to stop and make sure that there will be no surprises with the weather as we transition into the cold north Atlantic.

The morning of the 14th I worked with sail maker Dave doing the second layout of a new royal sail. The second layout is where we mark out the sail on the assembled panels that have all be stitched together. We will then take the panels back on the ship and cut out the sail and spend several weeks on the finishing details. We will add corner patches, grommets, tabling, bolt ropes, cringles and perhaps even rope covering before the sail is finished and ready to be "bent on" and used. It is a pretty cool process.

That afternoon I spent with Scientist (Nick) on a quest to find the best Dark and Stormy in the town of St. George. The Dark and Stormy drink comes from Bermuda made from pretty much the only things they make on the island; Barrits Ginger Beer and Goslings Rum. After much scientific research we came to the conclusion that the best is found in the can that we bought in the grocery store for a fraction of the cost. For some reason the bars and restaurants just never made them any better than they come in a can. It was tough research, but necessary.

The next day I was up early with Kevin and David for a trip to the exact opposite side of the island for a visit to the Royal Naval Dockyard. We took the ferry from St. George; the trip lasted about forty minutes. The bulk of the day was spent wandering the fortress and checking out the Bermuda Maritime Museum. We spent three to four hours in there before grabbing a late lunch and catching the bus back to the ship. The bus ride took us nearly three hours! We did make a brief stop in the capital city of Hamilton, but not more that thirty minutes. It's just really slow going on the roads, especially when they can't be in a straight line.

Here are some pictures from our brief stay in Bermuda:

The morning of May 16th we were all hands at 8am to make final preparations for our departure to Lunenburg. We raised our anchor and motored out of the harbor at 9am, right on schedule. The weather was quite nice, but as often happens, that can mean that there was little to no wind. We ended up motoring nearly four days due to the light winds. Such is the nature of having to be in a certain place at a certain time and the wind not cooperating.

One watch, when I was on forward lookout, I spotted a huge pod of dauphins near our bow. Within minutes they were all jumping seven to ten feet out of the water. It was quite a sight and would be the last one of the voyage.

We crossed the gulf stream at some point, either on the 18th or 19th. It is pretty hard to know when we were exactly in the gulf stream because it is like a river with no banks. It tends to wander around a bit. The only way to know is to monitor water temperature, which we did. The trouble heading north is that the transition is from warm water to slightly warmer water. Once we were on the north side of it though, there was no doubt. The water changed from twenty-four degrees Celsius to nine in the space of an hour! Very dramatic indeed.

We arrived in Nova Scotia the morning of Thursday, May 21 and anchored in Port Mouton Bay about thirty-five NM from Lunenburg. We spent that day getting the ship all pretty again for our return to Lunenburg. Since we could not clear in to the country until we arrived at the dock in Lunenburg then we basically had no contact with anyone except the few passing waves of some boats and a cell phone call or two. That night we had a little party on board, which was really nice. We all knew that as soon as we arrived in Lunenburg that our time together was mostly over since we would all be consumed with friends and family and the distractions of being in port. This was one of the last times that we would all be together.

The next morning we set sail and moved the ship a bit closer to Lunenburg so that we could be sure to make our 2pm arrival as promised on Saturday. This was our final night with everyone on board. The tension and excitement of the end of the voyage was overwhelming. Of the 25-30 trainees that did all or part of the voyage, only seven of us were on board for every passage. Some went home for brief periods to deal with home life, others took trains between some ports. It's not a meaningful number, but one that I though was a bit interesting.

Finally we hauled back the anchor for the last time on May 23rd and sailed for Lunenburg. We didn't even bother to fire up the main engine, just sailed off the hook like we have done so many times on this voyage.

At approximately 1400 (2:00pm) on Saturday, May 23, 2009, the barque Picton Castle sailed into Lunenburg Harbor marking the end of our year long voyage around the Atlantic Ocean. We were greeted by the entire town as well as many friends and family members.

The feeling of returning "home" was pretty exciting. The reunion with our friends and family would have to wait though. We still had to be cleared into the country by the Canadian Customs Officials. It took a couple of hours for the formalities. When that was over we had our final muster and were allowed off the ship.

Here are some pictures taken as we arrived in Lunenburg:

That evening we had a huge party at the Dory Shop as planned. There was a lot of music, dancing and just plain old visiting with everyone. The entire town showed up and we had beer from every country we visited on the voyage. It was a great night and a nice welcome home.

The next night was the awards ceremony where everyone was given a very nice print of the ship as a final diploma. I had assembled a slide show/movie taken from the 40,000 pictures that everyone contributed. The show was about two hours long, and to my surprise, everyone was just riveted to it. At the conclusion of the awards, the voyage was really over. People started heading for home. Some would stay for a few days to help get things unloaded from the ship and start preparations for the summer voyage.

The voyage lasted 364 days from the time we left Lunenburg on May 24, 2008 to our return on May 23, 2009. We traveled nearly 18,000 nautical miles, visited 55 ports, 27 countries and 4 continents. It was quite an adventure to be sure.

At times it was difficult being away from home. Sharing this adventure with everyone on the Picton Castle was very special. I know I have made some friends that I will have for the rest of my life. I also know that I have changed a bit over the past year. It's impossible to explain or even attempt to. A voyage like this changes everyone; whether it is learning how to live with thirty or so roommates or challenging oneself with new tasks and being out of our normal comfort zone. It was an experience of a lifetime; but not the last one that I will have.

I would really like to thank my friends and family that helped make it possible for me to leave home for over a year. Especially Maureen and Ian who handled my mail and unexpected bills; Nate and Lisa who looked after my house and more importantly, my cats; Ellen being a big help with the Florence support network; my mom for not saying once "I wish you would stay home"; and everyone else that I have not mentioned. Thank you all very much.

This won't be my last blog post. I will have a follow up one with some links and attachments to maps and a list of ports we visited.

That's it for now...

Thanks for reading,

-john

Antigua Classic Yacht Week; Iles des Saintes; and the British Virgin Islands

2009-05-04T13:29:00.003-04:00

It's been an interesting few weeks since I last made a blog post. My last post was from Martinique, where I had just got my first tattoo. It has healed nicely and I am very pleased with it.

From blog images

I guess that's a good thing because I will have it for a very long time!


We left the French island of Martinique on Easter Sunday, April 12^th. Being in Martinique was really like being back in France. Some people spoke some English, but, for the most part it, was as French as St. Nazaire, France so many months ago. We were sailing to the very British island of Antigua, which is not to be confused with the island of Anguilla that we visited a month or so ago. We got underway for Antigua around 3:30pm; we had spent the morning there so that a couple more people could get tattoos. We had some time in the schedule, so it was not a problem to do this.

The sail to Antigua seemed to take on the same aspects of our more recent short passages. The wind just would not cooperate and it forced us to motor way more than anyone wanted. Wind can be that way; it seems to want to blow at us rather than with us. When this happens, we have two choices, make huge six to eight hour tacks and gain maybe four or five miles or push into it with the main engine.

We arrived in Falmouth Harbor of Antigua on Tuesday, April 14^th and were cleared into the country almost immediately. The harbor was literally filled with all sorts of yachts and small boats. We were here for the Antigua Classic Yacht Race week and so were thousands of others.
From Antigua
This was going to be an exciting week. Most of the boats have a professional crew or a regular crew that sails them all the time, but many are still in need of some additional help. Since there was no square rigger race course (and because the Picton Castle is made to haul cargo, not race) the decision was made well before we arrived that we would not be racing. If we wanted to take part in the race, we would need to find spots on the racing boats. This was actually easier that I though it would be.

I was able to crew on a 52 foot schooner, “Heron” for Friday's race. She is a beautiful boat built by the owner and captain in Rockport Maine. He, his wife, and kids sail her in Maine during the summer and bring her to the US Virgin Islands for the winter. They live aboard the boat and also take passengers out for day sails. I hope to sail with them again at some point, perhaps helping them move her north or south. We had a fantastic day racing; coming in second in our class. It was a lot of fun being part of the race, especially with a nice finish.

On the last day of the race, Monday, April 20^th, we hauled back our anchor and joined the fleet for the start of the race. We had no intention of racing, but wanted to be out there for the start of one before heading our own way to the next destination. It was very cool being out there on the race course, trying to stay out of everyones way. It was a great opportunity for pictures that were captured by a professional in a helicopter. Check out their pictures. You will also see some shots of our little dory “Sea Never Dry” out their sailing in some of the earlier races. Not racing mind you, but just having fun with the big boys.

Here are some pictures of the racing and around Antigua:


I did have some disappointment in Antigua. My very good friend Spenser decided to go home early. It was not totally unexpected as he had been talking about it for a week or so before we arrived; but it still came as a shock in how quickly he booked flights and left. I am not sure I will ever totally understand his reasons for leaving a trip like this so close to the end, but everyone has to make their own decisions. I just hope he doesn't regret this one. I am the type of person that likes to see things to the end; but I realize that not everyone is like that. I know everyone will leave at some point, but that doesn't make it any easier when a close friend departs early. Spenser is my third good friend to leave in as many months; Gary and Corey have left since we arrived in the Caribbean. When I add, Eric, Cody, Nadja and a bunch of others to that list, it gets depressing. I am dealing with it, as we all with have to deal with the separation. Not having Spenser around makes it not as much fun as it used to be.

After starting the race with the fleet we continued on our way to the very small French island of “Terre de Haut” which is one of the seven islands that make up “The Saints”. We attempted to sail to the saints, which involved sailing around the very large island of Guadalupe. This was going to take a lot of tacking since the wind was in our face once again. We did a couple of tacks over a fourteen hour period but ended up motoring anyway. When we got clear of the island the squalls were quite frequent and we were still quite close. Not a great place to be so we fired up and motored the rest of the way.

The Saints (or Iles des Saintes) are as French as any place we saw in France. Sugar cane was never grown on the islands and there were never any slave plantations built there. The islands were essentially just used as French colonies and for that reason the population is pretty much just French people. Terre de Haut is quite small, about 10 square miles in all. Getting around is easy if you rent a scooter, which are quite plentiful. It is possible to see the entire island is a few hours as nothing is very far away and the roads are few. The first day I was off watch, I did some hiking and walking around the town. On Friday I rented scooters with Erin and Nicki. We had an absolute blast zipping around the island checking out all the beaches and having a look at Fort Napoleon perched high on a hill. It was a great way to spend the day.

Here are my pictures from The Saints:

On Saturday, April 25th, we tried to clear out of the country to get on our way to the BVI. The Captain, Lynsey and Nicki went ashore for the formalities, but after four hours of getting the run around they were informed that the police office would not open again until Monday morning. I guess there is no crime on weekends, so the police (who are also the local customs officers) take the weekends off. See how French it really is?

We hauled up our anchor and sailed a few miles to an even smaller island, Terre de Bas, which is also one of The Saints. This island marks the fiftieth port that we have visited in the last eleven months; The Saints is the twenty-fifth country; we have also visited four continents, which is quite cool too. We sure have been to a lot of places on this trip.

We spent the weekend on Terre de Bas and finally on Monday the 27^th around the middle of the day we were cleared to leave The Saints. We set sail for the British Virgin Islands; a place I have been to three time previously with the Venture Crew. I have been looking forward to the BVI for some time, but it also means that the trip is coming to an end in less than a month.

It took us two nights to reach the island of Virgin Gorda, which is the second largest island in the BVI. The sailing was fantastic nearly the entire way. We had some squalls, which are quite common, but aside from that, the wind was quite favorable and the sailing was wonderful.

On Wednesday morning, April 29^th around 7am the call was made for all hands, which we do every time we arrive or leave a port. There is a lot of sailing handling that needs to be done and it is much easier with everyone on deck. Unfortunately for my watch mates and I on the 12-4 watch, we were awoken with about three hours sleep and would be up for the entire day. After being up for ten minutes, I was called to the helm for our arrival. We needed to tack to get into Spanish Town, which is pretty involved on a square rigger and takes most of the crew to do a tack. Tacking is simply turning the ship through the wind, but it is not a simple process with square sails. After tacking we were close enough to Spanish Town that we headed for the anchorage. Once the hook was set the skiff was launched so that Lynsey could clear us into the country. We were cleared in by noon and had also done a fairly major re-provisioning. We then hauled back our anchor and went to “The Baths” which is a huge rock formation on the west side of Virgin Gorda.

The Baths are a great place to spend several hours and the Captain wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to see them. Normally we have one watch that stays on board the ship the entire time, no matter where we are. This day, however, he decided to let the on watch go ashore to the baths for a couple hours while he, Mike the Chief Mate and one of the engineers stayed on board. It was really nice that he did this.

We stayed and explored the baths until 5:30pm and then hauled up the anchor and motored back to the anchorage at Spanish Town for the night. The BVI officials don't allow boats or ships to anchor at the baths overnight. Once we were anchored again the off watches were allowed to go ashore, which I did for a few hours.

The next morning, I was on watch. The other two watches were allowed to go ashore for a couple of hours. This was done mostly for the watch that was one yesterday so that they would have an opportunity to get to an ATM for some US dollars. The was the first time we have used US dollars on the trip, and will actually be the last. The island were were headed to doesn't have a bank or an ATM, so getting cash here was pretty important to everyone.

We set sail around 11:30am and made our way around the west end of Tortola to the island of Jost van Dyke (JVD for short). We anchored in Great Harbor, home of the world famous “Foxys”, another place I have been with the venture crew several times. JVD is a great island. It is pretty small, but not too small. It has three really nice harbors, but most of the action happened in just two them; White Bay and Great Harbor.

White Bay is, in my option, one of the prettiest beaches in the Caribbean, if not the world. It's quite shallow in the bay, so it's not possible to go there with the ship, but it is less than a ten minute walk over the hill from Great Harbor. White Bay is a great place to spend the day as there are lots of bars, restaurants, beach chairs and hammocks to be tried. White Bay is where the Soggy Dollar bar is located; which is a very popular stop.

We spent five days in Jost van Dyke. Tomorrow, Tuesday May 5^th we are leaving Great Harbor around 1pm and sailing a couple of miles to a very small deserted island, called Sandy Cay. We will anchor at Sandy Cay for the night, have a big beach party and then leave the Caribbean on our next to last passage, which will take us to Bermuda and quite a bit further north.

Here are my pictures from the BVI. I didn't take too many, probably because I have been here so much.


The last two months in the Caribbean has been a lot of fun. All the other times I have visited these islands I have spent a day or maybe two in one location. On this trip, we spent as many as six days in one spot; sometimes more, sometimes less. It is a great way to take in an island because you get to feel so much more a part of the place, rather than being just a visitor.

It will be nice to get home for a little while though, and I am looking forward to that more and more. The next two passages will be fairly long in comparison to the very short ones we have done in the islands. There will be plenty of time to reflect on the past year and start coming up with some thoughts for the future. I think I would like to do more sailing, but not sure in what capacity. I would love to sail around the world one day, and just may do that, either on the Picton Castle or some other way.

For now we have about three weeks left before our arrival in Lunenburg. I am looking forward to getting there, but not looking forward to the return of cold weather. I have not worn shoes on board the ship for the past four months, except during the times when the decks were too hot and I needed a bit of protection from burning my feet.

The party on Sandy Cay will be a lot of fun, I am sure. The passage to Bermuda will be nice as well; it will be good to get back to sea. I will probably do a quick blog post before we leave Bermuda and start our final homeward bound passage. I will most likely include a list of all the ports and countries that we have visited.

Until then, thanks for reading,

-john

Anguilla, Dominica and Martinique

2009-04-10T11:03:00.002-04:00

My last log entry had us sailing north from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. We sailed about 350 nautical miles to the island of Anguilla. Unfortunately the winds were not in our favor so we ended up pushing with the main engine for a lot of the voyage. We were frequently setting our fore and aft sails in an attempt to get some lift from the sails but even that was not very productive. Sometimes the wind just doesn't come from the way we want and we are forced to “fire up”

On Thursday March 26 we had a little bit of excitement during our 12am to 4am watch. Normally during that time things are pretty quiet. We may be called upon to set some sails or take them in as necessary, but that is pretty rare at night unless a squall is coming through. This night however, we had our head sails set, as we normally do. Around 2:30am the sheet for the flying jib broke causing the sail to flog violently. The sheet is the line that leads from the corner of the sail (called the clew) that we haul aft to adjust the trim of the sail. Once the sheet broke there was nothing holding the sail in one place so it starts flapping. It woke up nearly everyone on the ship because it was so loud. In practically no time the halyard was struck and the sail was taken in. Spenser and Kjetil then went out on the head rig and stowed the sail. It only took about five minutes for it all to be over, but it had everyones' hearts racing for quite some time.

In the afternoon of March 26 we arrived in the island of Anguilla. This island was quite a contrast from the previous places we visited. This had a very strong “tourist” feel to it. Most prices of things were quoted in US dollars. This is kind of odd since the local currency is Eastern Caribbean Dollars (EC). The place we anchored had lots of bars and restaurants serving American food, which was also kind of strange. It almost felt like being at home. Almost.

The next day I was on watch and got to work with Buddy (A.K.A. “Sail Maker Dave”). He showed me how to do the final touches I need to get the new mizzen topmast stays'l completed. I needed to put cringles on the corners. Cringles are the rings that are affixed to the corners of the sail where the lines are attached. The rings themselves are called thimbles, but put together with wire and attached to the grommets at the corners the whole assembly is called a cringle. It's a pretty time consuming process; my first one took nearly four hours. I first had so stitch a covering on the rope out of canvas, then cut some leather and sew that in place around the grommets to prevent chaffing. Finally I got about four fathoms of stranded wire and seized the thimble through the grommets. It was kind of fun to watch the sail get that much closer to being finished.

I was then off the ship for the weekend. Spenser and I picked up a rental car and explored the island stopping at several beaches and other places on a search for cheap food. In Anguilla there are lots of roadside stands that sell barbecue chicken and ribs. Of course we had to try one out and were not disappointed. The ribs were really good, and had me thinking of a pulled pork sandwich from my brother Charlie's Rollin' Smokehouse BBQ in Indiana. This was the first time that we had anything barbecued that was not either fish or chicken. It sure was wonderful... and cheap.

The next day, being Sunday, meant that pretty much everything on the island was closed. It's a bit disappointing, but that is the way it has been for most of this trip. We are so accustomed to things being open seven days a week at home that we forget most of the rest of the world is closed on Sunday. We did manage to see the entire island and even find a barbecue truck with chicken and chips, so the day was truly a success.

Here is a link to some pictures from Anguilla:

On Monday March 30 we set sail for the island of Dominica. I was put on the 4-8 watch for the passage because we had a couple people leave in Anguilla. I do like the hours of 4-8 better than 12-4 because it is possible to actually do things during the day after the morning shift. I was able to work with Buddy on sails again and got all the remaining corners of the mizzen topmast stays'l completed in a couple of days. The next step with that sail will be to have it "bent on", which means that it will physically be attached to the ship on the mizzen topmast stay to then be set when conditions permit. That will be kind of exciting to see that sail set.

During the passage I talked with Lynsey and decided to sign on for the summer voyage. We will be doing two tall ship events, Boston and Halifax. As well as spending the balance of nine weeks sailing around the Canadian Atlantic Maritime. It should be a really nice trip. I am especially looking forward to sailing into Boston Harbor for the Tall Ship Boston festival. My friend Ellen has been selected to be the ship's liaison during the festival, so that will be very cool too. If you are going to be around the Boston area July 8-12 you should be sure to check out the tall ships. I can personally guarantee that you will get a great tour of the Picton Castle.

We arrived in Dominica on Wednesday, April 1. The island of Dominica is very interesting. There are something like 365 rivers and nine active volcanoes. The island is pretty much all rain forest with some larger town on the edges. We were anchored in the capital city of Roseau. The anchorage was pretty difficult because it is so deep. The water drops off very quickly making it quite hard to anchor. This was the first time that we actually anchored “stern to”, which is a clever way to handle a difficult anchorage like this one. Basically we put the anchor out and then backed in towards the shore and ran two very large dock lines to trees on the shore. We then hauled up on the anchor to set it and make the lines from the stern of the ship to the shore very tight. The anchor was then pulling “up hill” and made for pretty nice holding. The winds are pretty light in the harbor because the mountains all around it blocked nearly all the wind. This arrangement wouldn't work too well if we had a strong breeze on the beam of the ship as the anchor is never meant to hold the ship sideways. We had to pay constant attention to any wind of squall that might come up as it could be trouble.

Dominica is well known to the ship. This was the island that was used for the filming of the reality show “Pirate Master”. The show itself was terrible, but the ship had a staring role in it, but even that was not enough for people to watch. The show was just that bad. The filming of the show took several weeks on the island.

We spent eight days on Dominica. My watch had two days off, one day on watch, then two more days off, then the final day on watch again. It was a great island for exploring. The first day off a small group of us just explored the city of Roseau getting our bearings. There was no rush because we had so many upcoming days off as well. Spenser and I checked out the botanical gardens in the afternoon and then met up again with the group for some dinner.

The next day about seventeen of us piled into vans for a trip to the Indian River on the north western side of the island. The river was used in some of the scenes of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Once we got to the river we got into boats for a paddle up the river to a rum shack. The river was incredible. It is the only river than can be paddled on the entire island and they do not allow for motors, which makes it even nicer.

Here are some pictures of Roseau and the trip to Indian River:

The next two days off we rented cars and set of exploring the island. Distances are not very great, but travel time is quite long since the roads are narrow and very windy. We took nearly all day to cover about a thirty-five mile loop around the south of the island. We stopped at several places to have a look around and finally ended up at a water falls called Emerald Pool. I didn't find the pool to be all that Emerald in color, but it was certainly very nice. We got there kind of late in the day, which was nice since we had the place to ourselves. Dominica is popular with cruise ships; when they are in town everything becomes quite crowded. We got to the pool about 4pm and everyone was gone.

The next day we started off with a tour of the Macoucherie Rum Distillery. This is a very old place that still uses a water wheel to crush the cane and to power a pump to send the juice to the fermenting tanks. We had a nice tour and sampled some of the rum. It is the only rum on the island that is made from sugar canes, the rest being made from molasses that is purchased from other islands.

After some lunch at a picnic spot along the coast we headed back inland to see some more water falls and a cool gorge. We arrived at the Titou Gorge around 4pm. It was mostly deserted, but very very cool. The gorge was about three feet across, but fifty to ninety feet deep. It was quite hard to get pictures of, but I did my best. After the gorge we made our way to Trafalgar Falls, which is actually two water falls in one. We hung around there for a little while meeting up with Erin, Nicki, Nick, and Kjetil. By the time we got there it was after 5pm. They almost didn't sell us a ticket because the “closed” at 5pm. The warden gave us a really hard time for getting there so late. In reality, if we had got there five minutes later we could have just walked right in. There are no signs or gates or anything. It's a hiking trail to the falls!

Our plans to visit some hot springs didn't work out as we ran out of time. No matter, we had an awesome day. Quite a bit of driving, but I think we all ended up with a nice appreciation for the island. I am not one to play the “ranking game”, but if I were, I would put Dominica very high on the list. In fact, if I were to look into buying property on a Caribbean island, I think Dominica would be my first choice. It is that good.

Some pictures of the two day road trip are here:

Tuesday, April 7^th, I was back on the ship for a day of work. We had been in Dominica for a week and had plenty to do to get the ship ready for sea again. We also spent most of the day doing some painting and varnishing; a start in getting the ship all pretty again for a sailing event in Antigua. That morning, my buddy Corey left the ship. He is headed home, and I am not exactly sure why. He was supposed to be on for the rest of the voyage, but has some job opportunities at home that he can't pass up. It seemed quite sudden to me, but he made his decision and left.

Wednesday morning we left Dominica and made a day sail to the French Island of Martinique. We got kind of a late start and ended up having to motor some of the way to arrive before it got dark. As we were coming in it started to rain, which now seems strange. We have had so much sun with only the occasional rain squall that actually having a rainy day seemed different. We are anchored in the town of St. Pierre, which at one time was known as the Paris of the Caribbean. St. Pierre was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 1902, when nearly all the town people perished. For generations it caused problems with property rights and all sorts of other things when an entire generation is lost. The rebuilt city incorporates many of the old walls that are scorched or destroyed by the volcano. It is a very interesting place.

One of the main reason to be in Martinique is to visit a woman that is well known to the ship for her tattoos. Many crew members have got tattoos from her and the man that she learned from in past years. She does a fantastic job and getting a tattoo of to represent the voyage just seems like the thing to do. Yes Mom, I did get one...

We are in Martinique until Sunday when we sail to Antigua for the annual Antigua Sailing Regatta. I will write about that at a later time. I believe a lot of us will be crewing on all sorts of other ships rather that the Picton Castle taking part in the actual race.

Until then. Thanks for reading,

-john

Grenada and the Grenadines

2009-03-26T17:13:00.003-04:00

My last post we were on the island of Petite Martinique, which is part of the country of Grenada. We had arrived from the island of Grenada after a short sail. We left two crew members behind in Grenada, our carpenter and fellow trainee Matt as well as our second Mate, Paul. They were left behind to scout out some trees in the rain forest that could possibly be used as keels for two new schooners that are to be built in Lunenburg Nova Scotia. More of their story later.


We spent three days in Petite Martinique basically just relaxing and getting used to small places. The island is home to just 1,000 people, mostly concentrated in one small town. Not a hole lot goes on here, which was kind of nice for a change. Most of us basically spent two days just hanging out near the beach.

On the morning March 11 we left the island of Petite Martinique and made a quick sail back to the island of Carriacou. We had been on Carriacou at the end of our long sea passage across the Atlantic and the equator. We were there for the annual pre-lent carnival. Our second visit would be quite different. We anchored in a small bay off Paradise Beach, which was one of the prettiest beaches on the island.

Here are a few pictures from Petite Martinique:

While we were at Petite Martinique, Paul and Matt located a huge tree and with several hired people from the forest service had the tree cut down and milled into two 3,000 pound, thirty-three foot long logs. One huge problem that arose was how to get these two enormous logs a mile out of the rain forest and onto a truck to be transported to the water. On the morning of the 12^th of March, eight crew members left the ship and went to help then haul the trees out of the forest so that we could pick them up with the ship to get them back to Lunenburg.

Our anchorage at Paradise Beach was in the flight path for the airport. This airport is very small, so it's not like there are a lot of planes landing there, but our tall mast ended up being a bit of an issue and they requested that we move the ship a bit to help out, so the morning of the 12th we had to raise our anchor and we moved the ship about 150 yards to make a little more room. I was off the ship that day so after we moved the ship I went into the town of Hillsboro, which is where we spent so much time during the Carnival Festival a couple weeks earlier. It was much quieter this time around, as expected, but had that familiar feel that returning to the same place is sure to have. We spent another couple of days just enjoying the quiet life of a small island.

Saturday, I was back on watch. We sailed the ship from the bay near Paradise Beach to Tyrrel Bay, about three miles away. We did this so we could get the logs that were coming from Grenada on a cargo ship, but that never happened. We did get some wood for a small boat project, but the logs were not out of the forest in time to make the cargo ship. The sail to Tyrrel Bay took about 1.5 hours and the captain said it is the shortest sail he has ever done with the ship. The afternoon I spent putting some patches on our main topmast stays'l with Spenser. This sail is quite old and we have patched it numerous times. I think one of these days there will be more patches on it that original material.

The very next day, we sailed the ship back to Grenada to pick up the logs and the forest crew. We were all up at 6:15am for the sail and arrived about 2pm. We had hoped to get the logs loaded, clear out of the country and be on our way to our next island, but that was not possible since it was Sunday afternoon and the customs office closed at 1pm. It didn't really matter because it took all afternoon to get these enormous logs hoisted aboard the ship and just put on the deck for the night.
From Schooner Keels
This was quite an engineering project to be sure. The logs were floated out to the ship and then tackles were rigged on the yards with lines running to the deck and one to the capstan on the foc'sl head. Each log is estimated to weigh around 1.5 tons. Raising them out of the water and swinging them on board took a few hours. Everyone was quite exhausted and quite glad that we were not sailing overnight since we all had a very early start to this day.

The next morning, Monday, March 16 we spent a few hours in the morning getting the logs placed into the port breezeway and getting the ship put back into order while the captain and Lynsey cleared us out of the country. We were finally leaving Grenada for an overnight sail to the Island of Bequia, which is part of the country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, or SVG. This was the first overnight sail that we had done since we arrived in the Caribbean on February 22^nd.

These are pictures of the logs we are now transporting back to Lunenburg:

We arrived in Bequia on March 17, but it didn't feel at all like St. Patrick's Day for sure. It just felt like another beautiful island with good music and nice beaches. I had been to Bequia in 2005 with my friends from the sailing club in New Jersey. We had chartered two boats out of St. Vincent and sailed to most of the islands of SVG. Bequia is very popular with yacht charters as it is only nine miles from St. Vincent, where most of the charter bases are located. Most charter boats will spend their first or last night (or both) in Bequia since it's just a short sail to St. Vincent. The island has a great feel to it with a nice mix of “tourist” places and local ones as well. Spenser and I were on a quest to find the best fried chicken at the cheapest price. This meant bypassing all the tourist places and finding out where the local people would eat. We found a place that we would visit several times. The chicken wasn't higher than a six on a ten point scale, but the value for the dollar was remarkable, five pieces of chicken; fries; and a drink for less that $5US was impossible to beat.

On Wednesday, March 18, I was on watch. Donald our cook took the day off, so Bruce and I ended up doing the meals for the day. It was great working with Bruce. I really don't mind doing the cooking while we are in port since everyone is busy anyway and it is kind of a change of pace from regular ship type work. We made some tuna melts and a cream based pasta soup for lunch We made way too much soup, but came up with the idea of putting it in a pan with some cheese and bread crumbs and making baked macaroni as a side dish with dinner. We also baked some chicken legs and thighs and made a salad for dinner. All was quite delicious and well received. Bruce is an interesting guy. He is somewhere in his 60's and retired from working in a large bank for 30+ years just weeks before the trip. He is one of the hardest working people on the ship. We have been on watch together for a lot of the voyage and it is always a pleasure talking or working along side him.

A friend of the ship and master shipwright, Flemming Walstead joined us in Grenada and has been working on various projects. We were fortunate to be on watch on day as he was making some repairs to the wooden deck. He showed us how to put oakum into the seams and then seal that up with pitch. It is quite a process.

Here are some pictures of Caulking the deck.

March 19, I was off again. After making breakfast for the oncoming watch I went ashore with Corey at 10am and got some breakfast. Not that what I made wasn't fine, it's just nice sitting in a place and relaxing with a nice cup of coffee and eating food delivered by someone else. In the afternoon Spenser and I found the geocache that is on the island. It was located about ½ a mile from the main town on the top of a hill overlooking the harbor. It was a nice view of the harbor so made the trek up the hill worthwhile. We were supposed to leave the next day, but ended up staying. Paul, our second mate, had located some trees on a hillside that would make good stems for the schooners. A small group left in the morning of the 20^th to get these trees. By the afternoon they were on board and we got underway the next morning.

Here are the pictures of the visit to Bequia:

March 21 we arrived in the small island of Mayreau. It took the better part of the day to sail there, which was really nice. It was a fantastic day for a sail, we have had lots of these, but it's always quite enjoyable.

The next day was declared “Sunday Funday” or “Make Your Own Adventure” day. It was a day where we launched all the ship's boats and played in the water. One of the highlights was launching the dory that we had worked on several times since leaving Nova Scotia. We had made a sail and rig for the dory and this was the first time that she was sailed. The sail is made from cloth purchased in Dakar; the boat we had painted in several covers; and she has been named “Sea Never Dry”. She sails great and the colorful sails add to the great look of this classic boat.
From Mayreau
I spend most of the morning snorkeling with a group on the rescue boat The snorkeling was pretty nice. It was the first time that I used my underwater camera case. It took decent enough pictures and I figure out some things so next time should be improved. In the afternoon I took Gary's hammock ashore and found a couple of trees to tie it to. I spent a couple hours reading and dosing, which was quite nice.

Here are some pictures of Sunday Funday on Mayreau:

Finally on the morning of March 23^rd we set sail for Anguilla after making a stop in Union Island to clear out of the country of SVG and drop off a couple of friends of the ship that had been on board since Grenada. The sail to Anguilla took us four days with a mix of sailing and motoring to arrive on Thursday, March 26^th. This has taken us 350 nm north where we will spend a few days before sailing south again to visit more islands.

My next blog post will be in a few weeks. I don't know where we will be or what will happen in between. I suspect there will be a lot of beach time, but I know there will be a Reggae festival and a sailing race in there somewhere.

Until then... thanks for reading.

-john

Grenada: The Start of the Caribbean Leg

2009-03-10T12:03:00.002-04:00

We arrived in the island of Carriacou, which is part of the country of Grenada, on Sunday February 22^nd. The preparations for Carnival were well underway when we arrived in the morning. I was off watch for two days so would get to explore the island a bit and join in the Carnival celebration. Carnival is a festival during the three days before the start of Lent. It is similar to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but in a much, much smaller scale. The island of Carriacou has around 5,000 inhabitants, which more than doubles during the three days of Carnival. There is a lot of dancing and music going on nearly all the time, but things really crank up at night. The first night we were there seemed pretty quiet until about 9pm then it got crazy with steel drum bands and lots of dancing and partying going on. Surprisingly it quieted down around two in the morning, I expected it to go on on all night long.


The next morning there was a big parade down the main street which started at 6am, just after sunrise. The parade, was crazy. People were running around with buckets of paint putting colors on each other. I am amazed that I didn't get painted as Spenser and I were kind of right in the middle of everything. The parade lasted until about 8:30am and then everyone seemed to go on with their normal Monday. Businesses opened and workers got on with cleaning up after the parade. We spent the bulk of the day just relaxing and enjoying the quiet. That evening the party got going again and went into the early morning hours.
From Carriacou
Tuesday, February 24^th was a relatively quiet day for me. I was on watch so I had to stay on board the ship for the day. I spent the morning working with sail maker Dave organizing the sails that we store on board. It was hot and sweaty work, but something that needed to be done. The afternoon was spent doing some painting projects and other odd jobs. All the time we worked we could hear the music coming from shore; the sounds carry quite easily over the water.

The following day, Wednesday, we got underway for the Island of Grenada. It was just a day sail of about 35 nm. I was at the helm again for the initial part of the trip. This has become the norm for quit some time; especially since Nadja has left. She and I would share the helmsman responsibility when coming in or leaving a port. Now that she is gone it has always been me. I really enjoy this role. It can be very challenging to be certain, but it also is very educational. I take orders normally directly from the captain. It is a real treat to watch him maneuver this ship by only giving orders to myself at the helm, the mates for sailing handling, or the engineer at the engine controls. He always gets the ship exactly where we need to be as he knows precisely what each change he makes will do. He is such a master at this, it is awesome sailing with such a person. It is one of the true benefits of sailing on the Picton Castle.

We sailed off the hook, which means that we didn't even start the main engine. We raised the anchor, set some sails and headed out. As we picked up speed we set more and more sails until we had all the sails set. Very few ships in the world do this any more. Most will fire up their main engine and motor out of the harbor then set sails. There is nothing wrong with that, but sailing ships for hundreds of years always sailed on and off the anchor; they had no engines to motor them in and out of harbors. For some reason, once engines became part of sailing ships, the skills of bring a ship into anchor under sail were nearly forgotten. That is why it is so cool that we do this as often as we possibly can.

Here are some pictures from Carriacou:


We arrived in St. George's, the capital city of Grenada, about 4:30pm and had to wait for a harbor pilot to come on board and guide us into the inner harbor. We had planned on anchoring in the harbor but they wanted us alongside a dock; so that's where we ended up. The dock was part of the commercial shipping port and a short walk from town. We spent eleven days in Grenada. This stop marked the end of leg 3 and the start of leg 4 of the voyage. Shortly after we arrived in Grenada; Gary our ship's doctor left the ship as he had to return home to attend to some family affairs. We had joked a lot about the sanity of returning to Canada in the winter when he could have stayed in the sun and warmth of the Caribbean. I will miss Gary a lot. We had plenty of fun exploring places over the last few months, normally with a bottle or two of wine.
From Grenada
On Friday, February 27^th I was on watch for the day, this was after having the previous two days off; though they were not full days. I spent the day on galley duty with Erin so we had to set up the meals and do the cleaning of the dishes, pots and pans afterwards. In the morning I worked with Dave on the dock doing the second layout of a couple of sails. After the sails are initially stitched up they are oversize and need a second layout so they can be cut to the proper size. We need a pretty large, flat space and the dock area worked out perfectly. Donald our cook who is from Grenada took the afternoon off to visit with his brother so Erin and I had to cook dinner as well. We went to the store and bought some things and made an excellent meatloaf with roast potatoes for dinner. It was really fantastic; it had been a while since anyone had meatloaf.

The following day was the start of having four days off in a row. We had never done this system when we are on three watches. I had four days off, then would have two days on. It worked out really well, but was also a bit strange since it felt like a mini vacation. I ended up renting a car for three days to explore the island. The first day, Spenser, Marie, Matt and I drove to the center of the island to check out one of the many waterfalls. We hiked about thirty minutes along a pretty muddy path to the falls. It was a great hike and the falls were fantastic. At the first set of falls there was a side trail that was nearly vertical and also just as muddy that went up to a set of four upper falls. The hike up wasn't too bad, but the hike back down was crazy. After hiking back out to the car we drove to a nearby town for some lunch and then back to St. George's.
From Grenada
The following day Spenser and I started out on a two day road trip to the north of the island. Not that it's necessary to take two days as it's possible to drive around the entire island in one day, but because we just wanted more time to relax and explore things. We ended up in a town called Sauteurs where there is a 100 foot cliff that a lot of the original Carib Indians jumped to their death from rather than submit to colonization. The location is called Carib's Leap, but it was all locked up when we were there so we had to walk around and get some pictures from the side. We found a brand new guest house for the night. This place, called Petite Anse, wasn't even opened yet. They were just in the process of setting up for their grand opening the following day, but allowed us to stay there for about half price. It was a beautiful place right on the beach. We just hung out there all afternoon.

The following day we drove to the east side of the island and checked out a beach that was recommended by a local guy that we had given a ride to the previous day. It was a pretty cool beach, called “Bathway Beach”. There was a reef close to shore that made it a perfect spot to swim as most of the beached have a dangerous current running. We didn't end up swimming but got some fantastic fried chicken from one of the shacks along the beach.

After lunch we drove around looking for an old rum distillery, which according to the the guide book, would be hard to find. It took an hour or so, but we finally managed to get on the right road and found the “River Antoine Rum Distillery”. This place has been on the river for a couple hundred years and still does things pretty much the way they did back then. .They have a water wheel that powers the crusher for the sugar cane and heat the fermented sugar water with wood to distill the rum. There is also the longest railroad in the country here. It is a single car and a track about fifty yards long that is used to transport the crushed cane to a pile where they are used to make fertilizer and also burned in the cookers to boil the fermented juice. It was a really cool place; they let us walk around everywhere and had some rum to sample at the end.

We drove back to the ship stopping at a point on the south coast called Prickly Point. It was a cool lookout and I think named because there are a lot of cactus at the point. I always enjoy road trips, especially ones that are just loosely planned. It was a nice way to spend a few days off.

Here are the pictures from Grenada:

Wednesday, March 4^th was my first day back on board for watch after having been away for four days. My watch was on for two days and would then have another two days off. We did a lot of rigging projects on the ship, sending down all the stuns'l gear and booms that we won't be using again. I spent the entire second day working with on the mizzen topmast stay sail. I finally got the roping done, which took a lot longer than I anticipated. The roping is a rope, in this case 5/8”, that is sewn around the entire perimeter of the sail. It is what gives it strength and determines the shape of the sail when it is set. I had been working on this sail during our two most recent ocean passages and had an opportunity to work on it again. I really do enjoy sail making as I have mentioned before.

The next two days I was off again, but didn't really feel like doing much. I felt that I had seen a lot of what there was to see on the island and being in the Caribbean is all about relaxing or “liming” as it's called here.

We had a huge cookout on board the ship Saturday night for friends of the Captain and Donald. There was probably fifty people that showed up and seemed to have a really nice time. Several of them have joined us for a few days. It is really neat talking to them about living here and their experiences.

Since this is now the start of leg 4 we have had several new faces join the ship for the final leg. The ship has more people on her than at any time during the voyage. There is room for fifty-two, but most of the time we have had around thirty-five on board. We are now close to fifty, which includes some guests of the ship. Several new trainees have joined on. I think it would be difficult to join at this stage of the voyage. It's not something that I would have signed up for, but they did and it is nice having some new faces to look at and hear some new stories. I think it will be hard for them to get comfortable with sailing the ship since we will mostly be doing one or two day sails with several days in ports. When we started the voyage our first passage was twenty-five across the Atlantic. We all were quite comfortable with the ship and how to handle her. Watching the new people struggle with learning lines and everything, brings back some memories and show just how far we have all come.

On Sunday, March 8^th, we left Grenada originally sailing to Carriacou, but the winds had changed. This is quite unusual, but not unheard of. Normally the winds are from the east or north east, but the day before they shifted nearly northerly and were quite strong. This made the harbor in Carriacou untenable as the swell would be directly into the harbor making the very unpleasant and the holding probably impossible. So instead we went to the small island of Petite Martinique, which is also part of the country of Grenada. I have been to this island before when I chartered a boat out of St. Vincent a few years ago.

We will be here until Wednesday then sailing to Carriacou for a few days then on to Bequia sometime over the weekend. I love this lifestyle of hopping from island to island and spending several days in each. It gives us a real chance to feel part of the island rather than just spectators.

My next post will be in a few weeks. Not sure where we will be at that time, as our itinerary is always subject to change. We had planned on going to Martinique, but the unrest going on there at the moment, makes that seem quite unlikely, but anything can change at any time.

Until then... thanks for reading,

-john

From Africa to South America... then the Caribbean

2009-02-22T15:09:00.002-05:00

We left the main land of Africa on January 12^th and sailed to the Islands of Cape Verde just 300 nm away. The islands, which are their own country today, were once Portuguese. The people speak some Portuguese, but mainly their own language. The customs are an interesting cross between African and European. The landscape is harsh, at times it feels as if we were in the middle of a desert. The name would lead you to believe that the islands are green, but they most certainly are not.

We arrived in our first stop in Cape Verde, the island of Sal, on January 15^th. Sal is one of the two ports that we could clear in to the country. We had planned on stopping there only as long as it took for the customs formalities, then sail to another island the same day, but it took many hours to clear in so we ended up staying the night. My watch was on that evening, so we didn't get to go ashore. Reports were that the island and the town we were at was nothing to write home about, so I guess I didn't miss anything.

The next morning we were up at 6:00 am to get underway as it was getting light. We had an awesome sail to the island of Boa Vista. The wind was on our quarter and blowing very fresh. At times we were cruising at over nine nm/hr, which is pretty fast for us. We made the passage of thirty-five nautical miles in just over five hours, so we averaged about seven nm/hr. It's funny how speed like that can seem fast to me now, even though most people can ride a bike twice that fast! Of course we carry about 350 tons around, which you can't do on a bicycle, but that's not the point.

The island of Boa Vista is pretty flat. It felt like we were in the middle of the Sahara desert, but surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. The wind was blowing like crazy the entire time we were there. Walking on the shore was a hassle because there was blowing sand every where. It is normally like this, which I think is the main reason the island is so sparsely populated. Only about 5,000 people live on this island. We spent a total of three nights at anchor there. Not much to report really, aside from finding a geocache and having some really nice food. There just wasn't a lot to do, and the constant wind made it unpleasant to be out in it most of the time. It would be a wonderful place for wind surfers, but not much else.

The morning on January 19^th, we hauled up both anchors and set sail for the island of Sao Vicente, which was an overnight sail away. We arrived in the harbor town of Mendelo, which has a population of 50,000. It is a favorite last stopping off point for sailors crossing the Atlantic to the Caribbean and we met many French, English, German and Spanish folks doing just that. The town is actually very nice, with a very friendly and helpful local population. I met a guy named Manny on my first day on the island that had spent 27 years living in Providence, Rhode Island. His English, was of course, excellent. He was very helpful finding things. Many ship mates came across Manny in their travels as he carried a Picton Castle business card in his pocket.

We spent six full days in Sao Vicente, which was plenty of time. My friend Spenser's grandfather Hal Norrish made a surprise visit from Vancouver, which I wrote about in my last blog post. It was nice spending time with him; he is a wonderful man with a lot of interesting stories of his many adventures. Visiting the ship was just another one to add to the list. One day we rented a car to explore the rest of the island, which was an excellent idea. The island is pretty small with not many roads. We easily saw the entire thing is just one day. It's always nice to get out of the main town and explore. Nearly 90% of the island's population live in the city of Mendelo, so the rest of the island just feels empty. We had a nice lunch in one of these deserted towns on the other side of the island. Though there was several houses around, there were almost no people. It was a beautiful spot, with a few fishing boats pulled up on the beach. Later in the afternoon we found ourselves in another small village near the airport. This village had a lot more people and clearly their main income was fishing. As we sat there several small fishing boats were hauled up on the beach with the day's catch. Boat after boat arrived and it seemed like the entire village was there to help carry the boats and the catch ashore. Life seemed slow and very comfortable there. It was an excellent day and a great way to spend the time.

The food on Sao Vicente seemed very cheap compared to other places we visited. Everyone enjoyed eating ashore, as there were no shortage of places to eat. Three people could have a huge feast for about $25 total. We all gorged ourselves several times a day.

We ended up spending two extra days in Sao Vicente because we were not able to clear out of the country over the weekend. This ended up working out just fine. On Saturday morning a US submarine; the USS Pittsburgh, entered the harbor and docked. They are based in New London Connecticut and had been away from the states for many months. The navy guys seemed really excited to talk with us, because, like us, they have not been in places where people spoke English very much. They were excited to give us all tours of the submarine. Spenser and I were one of the first to get tours, we were there for nearly two hours! It was fantastic seeing inside a real submarine. We even got to look through the periscope at our own ship. We invited them over to see the Picton Castle; which about thirty of them did the following day. It was great talking with people from back home; I even talked with a guy from Hudson, Massachusetts. He noticed my New England Patriots shirt and started up a conversation. We avoided the topic of the super bowl.

The morning of Monday January 26^th we spent on the ship in preparation of our departure. We had expected to leave in the morning, but it seemed to take for ever to clear out of the country. I don't quite understand why it's necessary to spend hours in a government office just so you can leave a country, but they have their rules. We got underway just after lunch by sailing off our anchor and out of the harbor. This was the part of the voyage that many people have long been waiting for, the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean and the Equator.

Here are some pictures from Cape Verde that I had uploaded before we left the islands.

On this passage, three of us were selected to be “day men”. I was chosen to work with Buddy, the sail maker, which I was was quite excited to do. On the last passage, I had spent some time working on my stitching so that I could help make sails. All the sails on the Picton Castle are cotton canvas and all sewn by hand. It take months to put together a sail. It is very cool that we make the sails on board; there is no better way to understand the process of making cotton canvas into something that will move the ship through the water then to actually have a hand in making them. Working as a day man meant that I didn't stand a night watch, but instead worked from 8am to 5pm each day. A change in the routine was pretty nice as well. I learned a lot. It was especially neat watching my skills improve. I really am glad that I had the chance to work with Buddy. I hope I get more opportunities to help make sails in the remaining months.

We were in the trade winds for most of the first few days of the passage. At times we were cruising at over nine knots (nm/hr). We added some more sails to the ship called Stun S'ls or Studding Sails. These are extra sails that are raised outside the normal sails. They take some time to set so are really only used during light winds. They add about one knot to our speed. As we got closer to the equator the winds were not constant enough so we really only had the stun s'ls set for a couple of days. We will probably use them again on the next passage depending on the winds.

On our first Sunday at sea we had a farewell to Africa marlin spike where everyone wore cloths that were bought in Africa. The captain also lead a workshop on coconuts as we are headed to plenty of islands to get them from now on. It was really cool watching him cut them up, we all actually learned quite a lot.

As we got closer and closer to the equator, the nervous tension on board the ship seemed to grow. We all knew that there would be a ceremony once we crossed, but we had no idea what to expect. There was no shortage of rumors to feed the tension.

We crossed into the southern hemisphere just after noon on Wednesday, February 4^th. We had quite a celebration in the afternoon. I am not a liberty to go into any details of the actual ceremony. Several of us had our heads shaved, which is customary for a first crossing of the line. It feels really strange having no hair, but that will change as it grows back.

Here are some pictures of the passage to Brazil:

On February 7^th we arrived in the island of Fernando de Noronah, which is part of Brazil. The islands are a world heritage site and are simply stunning. We only spent one night on the island and then continued our crossing of the Atlantic to the Caribbean. The islands are famous for their spinning dauphins which enter the cove where we had anchored. I was able to get some pretty cool pictures the morning before we left.

Here are some pictures from Fernando:

They had no internet access on the island so I was not able to make this blog post as I had originally planned when I wrote it; I will simply continue from here...

Sunday February 8^th we left the country of Brazil and started our passage to Grenada. This passage took us back across the equator and into the islands of the Caribbean. Shortly after we set out on this leg, Mike, the Chief Mate asked me if I wanted to do sail making again for this passage. I was thrilled that he asked me and of course said that I would love to do it. I had learned so much on the last passage, but felt that I was just getting started. To have the opportunity to learn more of this, is something I am quite thankful for.

As I mentioned earlier, all the sails we carry have been made by hand usually by crew members while we are underway. It takes several months to make a new sail. We work on several sails at the same time so there is always plenty of work to be done. We are always making sails, either to replace ones that have become too old to be of any use any more or because something changed on the ship which requires a slightly different shape or size of sail. It is a lot of work, but a lot of fun making things by hand. I find it very rewarding and am very lucky to have the opportunity to do sail making on the ship.

We are now in the Island of Carriacou in the Caribbean. Carriacou is part of the country of Grenada, which is the island we visit next. We will be here for a few days taking part in the carnival celebrations. Our passage from Frendando to here was fantastic, it took just over 13 days of nothing but sailing. We sailed off the anchor in Fernando and dropped the anchor 2,028 nm later also under sail. It is very cool that we do this!

My next blog post will be sometime on the island of Grenada. We leave for there on Wednesday February 25^th and will be there for about twelve days. It will mark the end of leg three and the start of our final leg. Until then...

Thanks for reading,

-john

Cape Verde; Our last stop before our 2nd Atlantic Crossing

2009-01-23T14:41:00.003-05:00

We have been in the islands of Cape Verde about a week now. The islands are more like being in the middle of the desert than anything else. The landscape is harsh and the wind seems to constantly blow a gale. I have uploaded some pictures, but have not had a chance to write a proper blog post. I will do that on our upcoming passage and hopefully make the post when we arrive in the Islands of Fernando de Noronha off the coast of Brazil.

The next passage will take us between two and three weeks and will be the longest one we have had since leaving Lunenburg in May 2008 for the eastward crossing to Ireland. This passage will also include a brief dip below the equator to the southern hemisphere. It should be quite an exciting passage which I know everyone, including myself has been looking forward to for a long time. Trade winds, studding sails, here we come.

Here are the pictures from Cape Verde...

A proper narration will follow when we reach the other side of the Atlantic.

Until then, thanks for reading,

-john

Senegal: The Wild Wild West of Africa

2009-01-20T11:36:00.002-05:00

The country of Senegal is beautiful and incredibly diverse. The government is stable, the people more that very friendly, the climate is nice, and it is full of modern conveniences. It is also a country of contrast from large tourist hotels to mud huts. But more than anything else, it's the people with their welcoming smiles and greetings everywhere that make the place special.


We arrived in the capital city of Dakar on January 1^st 2009, but it wasn't until the afternoon of the next day that we were finally cleared through customs and allowed entry to the country. The original plan was to spend six days in Senegal and then move along the coast a short distance to the country of Gambia. That plan changed for several reasons; chiefly of which was that the direction of the wind would make it impossible for us to sail from The Gambia to Cape Verde. So, we ended up staying for eleven days.

I was on watch on January 2^nd, so it didn't really matter to me that it took a long time to clear the ship I;. I was staying on board anyway. We had many projects that were started because the weather was nice and we knew that it would stay that way since this is the dry season in Senegal. Matt, a fellow trainee and the ship's carpenter and I worked on getting the housing off the steering gear. We then set to the tasks of overhauling both the steering gear cover and the gear housing. Both projects would take until our last day to complete so it was good to start right away. Other started on various projects such as over hauling the port head, sanding and painting the dory and lots of other things.

The next day I went into downtown Dakar with a large group of shipmates. This was my first time off the ship since December 22^nd, it felt strange being on land again. After twelve days on the water it's amazing how your body just expects there to be the same motion on dry land. It takes a few steps to adjust to the surface not moving all the time.

We were anchored quite a ways from the center of the city near a marina for yachts. The initial shock of being back in a 3^rd world country quickly wore off as we left the yacht club and walked along the sand streets lined with make shift huts for stores. There was a taxi stand just near the yacht club so it was easy to jump into the cabs for the ride into town.

The city itself is really nothing special. It's just a large city with various markets spread through it. People are everywhere trying to sell things. Initially we were approached a lot since we were obviously not locals. After grabbing some lunch with the larger group, I set off with Spenser to check out some of the markets and to try to make plans for our next two days off. The markets that we went to were not tourist markets, but more for the locals. They sold everything you could imagine from hammers to live birds. They were as vast and diverse as the people and the place itself. There was a certain energy level that is very hard to describe. It vibrates and pulses the entire city like a large bass drum in a small room. Everything just feel so alive and buzzing; though by European or American standards, there appears to be nothing but poverty and despair.

Having done the markets and seen the main buildings of interest we went into a large hotel and asked for some suggestions of what to do with two full days off. We got some great ideas and maps from the concierge, never once did he ask if we were staying there; which of course we were not.

The next two days I was back on board the ship. The work projects continued from our previous day picking up where the other watch had left off. Working two days in a row is actually kind of nice because you can really get into a project. I was on galley duty the first day and ended up doing the cooking with Nadia as Donald was taking a few days off. In the afternoon we made a trip into the local village to buy some fruits and vegetables since we had nothing fresh on board. That was such a great experience; I am so lucky that I got to be a part of. The village market was small by Dakar standards and seemed more friendly. I will take the smaller places over a large city any day. Work projects continued the second day as well. All of use anticipating the return of the other watch so that we could hear what they did and then pick and choose from the best of what we heard.

Most had gone to Gorée Island on one of the days and just relaxed the other day. Nearly everyone had stayed in a hotel one or both nights. We would do the same. On the morning of the 5^th of January; Spenser, Gary, Kevin, David and I headed into the city to a hotel that was recommended for its proximity to the island ferry and the wireless internet that worked in the rooms. Gary called a guide that had been used by Captain Moreland, Donald and some others for Gorée Island and made arrangements with him for a visit that afternoon.

We meet our guide Ali at the ferry terminal for the twenty minute boat ride and he was with us for the entire afternoon. He was fantastic telling us all about the island and anything else we wanted to know. Gorée Island was the original port city and has been an important part of the defense of the city for centuries. There are building and defensive positions all over the island built by the Dutch, English, Portuguese and French; all people who have laid claim to the land and country. What Gorée Island is most famous for is its role in the trade of African slaves. It was one of the major trading locations in this part of Africa from the 1500's until slavery was finally abolished in the late 1800's. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

By far the most emotional and moving part of the entire afternoon was when we visited the slave trading house. The building was built in the 1700's. The first floor was a collection of holding cells where the men, women and children were separated and held until time for transportation. One large room was a weighing room so they could make sure that the slaves were of a certain minimum weight. Those that were under weight were deemed not fit for the brutal ocean crossing and were placed in a separate cell where they were feed large quantities of food for thirty days to get them ready for transport. Those that didn't gain weight fast enough were tossed into the sea where the sharks ate them; giving the nickname of shark island to Gorée for a period of time. At the back of the building was a single door that lead to the sea. It was known as the “Door of No Return” since anyone who went out that door was either loaded on a slave ship for transportation or tossed to the sharks. It was somber and peaceful making it difficult to picture the brutality and horror that must have been felt during the time of slavery. We live in a world that is quite removed from those times. We read about things and try to picture what it must have been like, but I am sure we can't even come close to reality. It is hard to imagine a place where people were bought and sold like goods; where men and women, both black and whites made a living of capturing and enslaving others. But yet this existed for thousands of years. What we saw at Gorée Island was merely the last few hundred years of the slave trade.

We returned to the city for some dinner and relaxed at the hotel for most of the rest of the time. We headed back to the yacht club in the afternoon of January 7^th and learned that the sail to The Gambia had been canceled and we were to be in Senegal for another four days. This was fine with me; sure it would have been nice to visit another country, but we had seen so little of Senegal that an additional two days would allow us time to explore the country beyond Dakar. That research that we had done the first day was going to pay off since we had some good suggestions of things to do and originally no way to use them. I passed along the idea of finding transportation to the original capital city of Saint Louis and exploring there and a nature reserve nearby to some of the people who were off the first two days in the hopes that they would think it sounded interesting and then report back what they found.

Here are some pictures of the first few days in Dakar, including Gorée Island:


The two days on watch were pretty fun. The weather was nice and warm, but not as hot at it was the first couple of days that we worked. Either it was that we were all getting used to the warmer weather, or it actually was a little cooler; most likely a combination of the two. I know that my friends and family at home, digging out from yet another snow storm, have no sympathy for us. I would much rather complain about it being a little warm than wishing I had more layers of cloths to wear. I know I am enjoying missing winter this year. It's going to be hard to go back to snow shovels and ice scrapers.

A few groups of shipmates that came back from two days off reported taking my suggestion for the Saint Louis trip. It was kind of nice having days off “second” so that we could learn from their experiences. Of course there is a certain about of fun to be had figuring things out the first time as well. I woke the morning of January 10^th for my 4am, one hour, anchor watch with an upset stomach. There had been a flu type bug that had been going around the ship that I had so far avoided. It had been with us for a couple of weeks and had hit a lot of people one way or another, usually just for a day or two. I was not looking forward this as this was the start of two days off. I went back to bed at the end of my watch having taken some medication and managed to sleep for a couple of hours before breakfast. I still wasn't felling 100 percent, but decided to go with a group and make the most of our two days off.

I went in to the yacht club on the first skiff run to buy a carving that I had seen a few days earlier. Spenser had talked to a local wood carver about buying some wood to use for some projects on the ship. He ended up buying a huge teak log and a piece of ebony. At that time I had seen a carving of a cat carved from ebony and thought about it for a couple of days and decided that I would buy it when we went ashore again. It is really nice since he used both the white and black ebony wood for the carving. But what I like most is that it appears to not be finished since one side of the cat is still the bark of the wood. It looks like the cat is just coming out of the piece. Anyway, I bought that and sent it back to the ship when the 10am skiff arrived.

When the skiff departed with our extra things we left too. Mike, Nadia, Gary, David, Kevin, Spenser and I got into taxis to one of the transportation centers of Dakar to find a way to get the 250km to Saint Louis. To say that this is a transportation center may give you the wrong idea. It is really a huge parking lot with what appears to be, total chaos. There are buses, vans, taxis, cars and hundreds of people all trying to get their vehicles filled so they can set off to wherever they are going. We are surrounded by guys that all want to help us find our transportation, of course they will take a small fee for their “service”, but they only tell you that at the end. It is an interesting experience, to say the least. Nadia and Gary are each negotiating with various people, trying to find the best way to get there. We could take a bus, but that won't leave for a few hours and will take longer. We could take a private car with driver, but that will be a little more expensive. We finally settle on the car and driver and are soon on our way... or so we thought. Before we can actually pull out of the parking lot, everyone person who even remotely thinks they talked to us approaches the car for a little money for their assistance. The driver gives some of them money, as do we. In the end he just pulls away and we are finally gone.

The drive to Saint Louis was fine. We picked up some beer and turned it into a proper road trip, West African style. It takes about five hours to cover the distance to the city. The countryside if very interesting and immediately I know why we were smart to take this trip out of Dakar. We pass through several small villages and get a real sense of how people live in the country. It is Saturday, which is a big market day. Each village is alive with people buying and selling things. We don't stop at any of them, but that is fine too.

Once in Saint Louis we make arrangements with our driver for a return trip on Sunday and then find a hotel. Spenser, Kevin, David, Gary and I end up at a hotel, which is in the oldest building in Saint Louis. It was an old French Colonial building with an open courtyard. The rooms as arranged on four floors around the courtyard. It was a very nice building and pretty cheap too. That afternoon we made a booking at the tourist office for a tour of the national park nearby for the next day.

On Sunday, we were up pretty early for some breakfast at the hotel and then out to meet our tour guide at 8am. We were driven to the Djoudj Nature Reserve and were quite impressed with all the birds that we saw there. The place is amazing. I have never seen such large pelicans and so many of them. It was truly astounding. In the park we were loaded into a boat for a cruise along the river, where we say thousands of Pelican, Cormorant, Heron, Ibis, Spoonbill, Egrets, Fish Eagles, Swallows (African and not European for you Monty Python fans) and several other birds. We saw a crocodile and some warthogs as well. It was the pelicans that stole the show however just because of their size alone.

After the nature reserve it was back to the city for some lunch before the return trip to Dakar. We meet Mike and Nadia as planned along with our driver and settled into the car for the long drive. Saint Louis was a nice city to visit. It would have been a great place to spend a couple more days, but there just wasn't time. The beaches at the edge of the city were reportedly spectacular, but I never got to check them out.

Once back in Dakar it was back on the ship to get ready to set sail for the Cape Verde Islands. It took several hours to get cleared out of the country, but we were finally raising the anchor and on our way by 3pm on January 12^th.

Here are some pictures of the trip to Saint Louis:


We are now in the Island of Sao Vicente, which is our second real stop in Cape Verde. This will be our final stop in the islands before our return crossing of the Atlantic and the Equator. Our first stop was the island of Sal where we just cleared into the country and spent the night of January 15^th. My watch stayed on board so we didn't get to see that island, but reports were that there really wasn't much there.

Friday morning we were all up at 6am for the day sail to Boa Vista, which was our second stop. We were flying along with a really nice wind on our port beam. Our ship was never built for speed, so when we start doing 8.5 to 9 nm/hr we figure it is nearly time to get out the water skis. We had two days at this island. There was not much to see, it really was like an African desert surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. Spenser, Kevin and I did find a geocache after about a 5 mile hike along the beach, and that was pretty much the event of the day we were on shore. Internet access was quite limited, so I was not able to make this blog post until our third stop, where we are now.

We arrived in Sao Vicente after a very nice overnight sail. We cruised along in the trade winds doing about 6.5 to 7 the entire way. Soon after we arrived a small boat pulled up along side and a guy asked to come on board. He said the was looking for Spenser. Imagine Spenser's surprise when he saw his grandfather getting out of the small boat. He had made the trip from Vancouver to visit the ship. That is a pretty cool surprise.

Once we leave Cape Verde around the 24^th of January, the crossing should take us two to three weeks to arrive in the Island of Fernando de Noronha Brazil. We will be there for just three days before another long passage of a few weeks to Grenada. I have no idea if I will have internet access again before reaching Granada, it is very possible that this is my last post until then, which would be the end of February.

Until then, thanks for reading,

-john

Canary Islands and the Journey back to Africa

2009-01-06T16:45:00.003-05:00

After leaving Morocco just before noon on December 8^th, we had a pretty quick passage to the Canary Islands. The winds were quite nice and we made the trip in just three days. Everyone was hoping for a longer passage, but that was not the case. In any event, we anchored in the harbor near Las Palmas on Gran Canary Island around 11am on December 11, but the holding was not very good and the anchorage was very tight. We got permission to come along side a dock, but that took several hours; it wasn't until after 2pm when we were finally tyeing up to the dock. My watch had to stay on board anyway, so it didn't really matter. We would get the next two days to explore so we just settled into the routine of getting everything set to stay along side.

Being in the city of Las Palmas felt like being back in Europe as it was very much like the island of Mallorca that we visited a month or so ago. The currency is the Euro; the language is Spanish and the culture is very European. Morocco was a lot different and we all enjoyed the change of environment. It was kind of a let down to be back into Europe so soon. The city was nice enough. There was lots of miles of beaches with a very nice collection of shops and restaurants, but it seemed like we had had enough of all that before we got there. On Friday, December 12 I set about the city with David, Kevin and Gary to find a place to drop off laundry and somewhere for some internet time.

The next day, Kevin and I left the ship in the morning and hiked to a geocache which was about 1.5 miles from the ship. The cache was on the side of an old volcano, which was kind of cool. The hike up gave us great views of the city and the coast line. We noticed the waves to the north west were breaking quite high, so we decided to descend that way to check it out. When we got closer we noticed that there was a formation of lava that made a blow hole when the waves crashed in. It was quite impressive and seemed quite natural. This part of the island is far enough away from the tourists that there was practically no one here. We enjoyed exploring this area then headed back to the city along a newly constructed boardwalk. It was about a five mile hike when we got though, which was perfect.

The following day I was back on watch, but had galley duty with Gary. This day, Donald, our cook, took time off so Gary and I had to do the cooking. It's always a lot of stress since we have to figure out what to make and have nearly no idea what there is to work with. We made some soup and I baked some bread for lunch. Dinner was fried calamari with chips. It all came out very nicely and was well received by everyone. I do enjoy cooking on board as it is a change of pace.

We had originally thought we would be leaving Las Palmas on Monday the 15^th, but that was not the case. Several crew members needed visas to enter Senegal so that had to get sorted out before we left the city as there would be no opportunity from any of the other islands. We got word that we would be here for a few more days, which meant that we really had to find something to do. The city didn't have all that much to offer, so David, Gary, Kevin and I rented a car to see the other parts of the island. It was a really smart decision even though the weather could have been a lot better. The island is quite large so we were not about to see it all, but instead headed for the center if the island, which was the highest point and offered a very different environment from the sea and surf that we had seen so much of. The day was fantastic despite the weather. It was just nice to get out of the city and see something different.

A new crew member joined us in Las Palmas; Nick from South Africa. He will be with us for the rest of the voyage. It's always interesting getting new people on board. They have so much to learn, which most of us now take for granted as we have been sailing and working on the ship for seven months. It causes me to think back to those first few days in Lunenburg and getting overwhelmed with everything that I had to learn. It now seems like such a long time ago.

Here are some pictures from our first stop in the Canary Islands:

After a quiet day on Tuesday and watch on Wednesday it was time to cast off the dock lines and move along. We set sail for the small Canary Island of La Gomera just after 10am. It would be about a thirty hour passage. Once we were out to sea the captain explained to everyone at muster that they would start moving people into “day men” positions. This meant that some people would not stand regular sea watches, but would instead work during the days in various areas. I had already done this when I worked in the engine room for a couple of passages earlier in the voyage, but this was the announcement of the formal program expanding it to sail making and rigging as well as the engine room. Everyone got to express their interest in these various areas and they would chose one person for each for the next passage. It will be a nice opportunity to learn something in great detail as I was able to do with the engineering side of the ship.

The passage to La Gomera went as expected. We got there on Friday, December 19^th around 4pm. This island is volcanic as all the Canary islands are, but it has been a very long time since the volcano was active. On the way to La Gomera we passed the island of Tenerife, which is the only active volcano in the Canaries, though it has been many, many years since the last eruption. That island is over 12,000 feet high, which is quite impressive. What makes it even more impressive is that the water that we sailed though near it was over 10,000 feet deep!

La Gomera is a pretty small island that is very popular with vacationing Europeans. It seemed that most of the people were German based on the languages spoken and the fact that most of the restaurants had their signs in German as well as Spanish and English. The port that we anchored in was a very small town at the end of a fantastic valley. We were only here for a couple of days, which was fine. The town had little to offer, so pretty much everyone rented cars and took off to explore the islands.

Our first day in La Gomera I was on watch so my day to explore would wait for the following day. The wind was quite strong and the holding on the bottom was not great. It became necessary to drop our port anchor, which is very big and heavy. Normally we don't need two anchors out, but it seems that on this voyage we have used the anchor more than ever before. The anchorage was kind of small, and quite dramatic. The cliffs rose abruptly right behind our ship and we were nestled at the mouth of a valley; it was a pretty cool sight.

On Sunday December 21, Kevin and I rented a car and set off to explore the island. Four cars were rented on this day by Picton Castle crew members. We made a couple of stops with Susie,

Ryan and Marie before leaving them at a junction and meeting up with Corey, Nicki, Nick and Mary at a little beach along the coast. I think this is my first time being on a volcanic black sand beach. Kevin described looking at a handful of sand like looking at the stars on a very dark night as there are little sparkling bits mixed in with all the black. We had a nice lunch with them and then took off to try to get a glimpse of the island of Tenerife, which was to our north east. We made a pretty big circle of the north side of the island stopping at most of the pull offs along the road. It was a pretty hazy day, which made views less that perfect. We did spot Tenerife at one point, but a clear photo was not going to happen.

Traveling around the island was a great way to spend the day. It is incredibly beautiful, no wonder most of the island is another UNESCO World Heritage Site. I think I am compiling quite a list of visiting them on this voyage. We sure have seen quite a few, and I know there are more ahead.

Here are photos from La Gomera, Canary Islands:

The next day we weighed anchor and set sail for Senegal around 2pm. We had spent the morning getting things ready for sea and also waiting for a new crew member to arrive. Veronica has sailed with us before as part of a crew exchange from Den Helder to Bremerhaven. She had also been on the ship in the past and has spent a lot of time on other ships. She will be with us for the next couple of months and will become the watch officer for our next Atlantic Crossing.

Before we set sail Mike posted new watch assignments. I am still on the 4-8 watch, which is great as I really do like the time of that watch. The other watches are fine, but for some reason I just like the hours of 4-8. Part of these watch assignments was also make some trainees day men, meaning that they don't stand regular sea watches. This makes each watch a bit smaller and we rotate through galley duty a little more frequently. The first few days on a new watch is always interesting. We build up bonds and loyalties with other people on our watch so when that gets changed around we all feel a bit disoriented as we don't necessarily know the “new” people on our watch as well as we knew the ones from our old watch. It has always been nice to work with different people. I am glad they shake things up a bit from time to time.

The weather leaving the Canary Islands was pretty nice. We had a couple days of really great sailing and then the wind all but died. It didn't really matter much. The weather was kind of warm and there was no rain. Everyone was busy making preparations for Christmas. Each watch was baking cookies and other goodies to have on hand and we got into decorating the ship. On December 24^th we had Christmas Eve party that everyone dressed up for. We were still at sea, but mostly just drifting along.

The next morning was Christmas Day. During my watch we got to fill everyone's stockings with goodies. That was lots of fun and made for a great watch. We also got the BBQ ready for roasting a small pig. This was shaping up to be a fun Christmas. Later in the afternoon, around 3pm everyone was gathered around the tree on the hatch to open presents. The captain had a few words to say and then it was time for the youngest two crew members to hand out the packages. That was lots of fun and seemed to go on for quite some time. After presents, it was time for dinner, which was also served on the hatch. We had roast pork; stuffed tuna; lots of veggies; macaroni and cheese and tons and tons of deserts. Dinner was followed by music and partying into the night. Of course everyone was still on watch, but since the winds were so light and we were so far out to sea, there was little that had to be done except keep an lookout and steer the ship. The day was one that I will long remember.

Here are some pictures from our Christmas at Sea.

On December 27^th, we officially entered into the tropics when we crossed 23º 26' N latitude, the "Tropic of Cancer". We will be in the tropics now until sometime in April when we head back towards Lunenburg. It wasn't exactly warm on that day, but I did cut the legs off a pair of work pants to make some work shorts in the hopes of warmer weather ahead.

After Christmas the winds remained light until the evening of the 28^th. We were making less that 50 nm per day, which meant that if things continued we would not arrive in Senegal for a couple of weeks. The captain decided to fire up the engine to get a little closer for two days in a row, always stopping the engine in the evening and sailing in the light winds and current. The wind was nice on the 29^th and continued to be nice for the remainder of the passage.

We marked the end of 2008 while at sea with a midnight celebration around the hatch. The 12-4 watch constructed a “ball” made up of lights, bailing wire and wood. The ball was suspended from the main yard and was lowered in true Time Square style. Most people got dressed up in some pretty crazy cloths to ring in the new year.

It is January 6^th, 2009 and we are now in Dakar Senegal and will be here until the 8th before heading to either the Cape Verde Islands or Gambia. Depending on the schedule and weather we may make an additional stop in Africa before Cape Verde. We actually arrived here on New Years Day, but did not get cleared through customs until the 2^nd, and I was on watch anyway. Senegal marks our sixteenth country and thirty-second port so far on this voyage. We have many more ports, islands and countries to visit in the coming months as well as a few long sailing passages in between.

I hope every has a wonderful new year and enjoyed their Christmas/Holiday Season.

Thanks for reading,

-john

A typical day at sea

2008-12-16T08:53:00.003-05:00

My friend Martha, aka Mouse, suggested that I write something about what it's like at sea. She is right that I do mostly write about what we (I) do when in port. Since we have several pretty long sea passages coming up, I thought it might be a good time to talk a little about what happens at sea. In a month or so we will be making our east to west Atlantic Ocean crossing from Cape Verde to Fernando de Noronha off the coast of Brazil. That should take any where from twenty to thirty days I guess; and will include crossing the equator. We will also be sailing from there to Granada, which could take just as long.

On a long passage, say five days or more, we fall into a routine that quickly becomes the way of life. The routine is kind of comforting, although sleep is never a full night. Everyone learns quickly how to grab some sleep when they can. There is plenty of time to rest, just not any more than about seven hours in a row.

While we are at sea, we are split into three groups, called watches. Each watch is under the direction of a mate and has six or seven trainees plus one professional crew, called an AB, who organizes the watch. The watches are from 8-12, 12-4, and 4-8. We stand a watch for four hours and then have eight hours off.

Currently, my watch is the 4-8 watch, which I kind of like. These get shuffled around on a regular basis, so that everyone is not always on the same watch and with the same people. We are awakened by the 12-4 watch at 3:30am and have to get dressed and muster on deck with our AB at least ten minutes before the start of the watch. Someone is assigned to the helm to steer the ship and someone else is assigned to the forward lookout who watches all around the ship for other vessels, navigation aids and everything else. The forward lookout is also responsible for performing a complete check of the ship at the end of the hour. The ship check is for safety to make sure there is no water flowing in the bilge, fire below deck, or anything else that could be a problem. A ship check is done every hour of every day, and is just one of the many ways that everyone on board is responsible for everyone else. We stand these assignments for an hour at a time. When not on the helm or at lookout we are available for other things that need to be done,
like adjusting the trim of the sails, cleaning the ship, or other ship work. On the 4-8 watch we usually do a deck wash in the morning and wipe down all the outside surfaces with fresh water.


After we are relieved from watch at 8am by the 8-12 watch, we have breakfast and are free to do anything we want until it is time for our next shift, which is at 4pm. This is usually a good time for a nap or to get caught up on reading, learning things about the ship, playing games, updating journals and blogs, doing laundry, or working on a project.

For me, my second watch of the day starts at 4pm and goes until 8pm. During the evening time we sweep up the deck and put away things that the other watches might have taken out during the day. Since we are the last day light watch, we need to make sure that everything is put away for the night and that the ship is safe to walk around. We also clean the galley after dinner which is at 6:00pm. The four hours always seems to fly by. Watch is over by 8pm or as soon as our mate musters us and says “watch below”, which means that we have been relieved by the oncoming watch. Since 3:30am will come pretty early, I am usually in bed by 8:30 or 9pm. The next day the cycle continues all over again.

Most days at sea are like the last. We experience a pretty simple way of life, working on various maintenance projects on the ship most days of the week. The exception is Saturdays and Sundays. No work is done after noon on Saturday or all day Sunday. Of course we still have to do regular chores, like clean the galley and the rest of the ship, but additional work is not done. This tradition dates back as long as people have been going to sea on ships. Sunday is the day everyone has for themselves to do those projects they want to get accomplished. I have made a ditty bag to hold things and also made leather sheathes for my knife and marlin spike. I have plans to carve a seam rubbing tool from a piece of olive wood that I got in Spain.

When we get into port, everything changes. If you have read most of my other blog posts, then you are pretty familiar with what happens in port. We will have a day or two off the ship to do what we want and will also have time that we are assigned to be on the ship, called watch days. It seems at times that port days are a lot more stressful because they involve planning and forethought. Days at sea are pretty straight forward and can seem more relaxing in a lot of ways.

The past seven and a half months have flown by. We have some pretty long sea passages coming up, which I am really looking forward too. Seeing each port has been fantastic, but the real reason for going on a sailing trip, is the sailing. It's not as much about the destination as it is the journey and adventure of getting there in the first place.

Thanks for reading,

-john

Morocco and our Third Continent

2008-12-12T07:22:00.002-05:00

As I write this, we have just left Morocco and are Sailing to the Canary Islands, which are owned by Spain. We had spent just about a week in Morocco, which was fantastic. Personally, I had no idea what to really expect, I have been to other parts of Africa before, but never to a country in the north. It was really quite different and quite spectacular. We left North America in May and spent the last six months in Europe. Visiting Africa marks the third continent that we have been to. We have one more continent to go, South America, before we return home.

So what's the big deal? Perhaps it was the fact that all the other ports we have visited were somewhat like each other. Sure they were different countries, but each one had a lot in common with the last place we visited. Morocco was different in a lot of ways. First of all, it is a predominately Muslim country. The religious customs are evident everywhere, especially the five times a day that the faithful are called to prayer by a chanting that comes over the loud speakers. The dress is very different, particularly the women, but even the men too. The shops for the most part don't put a price on anything making it necessary to ask the price. Once this happens, then you get into a negotiation over the price with shop keeper. It is actually kind of fun, but certainly not a quick process. Buying a jacket can take fifteen minutes and may include having tea with the guy selling it when the deal is complete. Nothing happens really fast, which is perfectly fine.

Everyone in Essaouira was very friendly. This was obvious with just the first skiff run in to the dock. Several of the locals would come over to have a look and just to talk. Sure some of them wanted to sell things, but most were just there to be helpful. Even driving the skiff past the fishing boats always included a lot of time waving to the people working on the boats.

We arrived in the port of Essaouira on December 1. The weather had been nice, but the sea was quite lumpy with a big swell running from the north. The anchorage was not very well protected from the swell, but is about the only anchorage anywhere in Morocco, so it would have to do. Navigating into the harbor was a bit of a trick as the entrance was quite narrow and very shallow outside the unmarked channel. Once inside the harbor the swell was a little less, but not by much. It was going to be a rolling anchorage, but the holding was fine and it was the only place to go anyway.

It took several hours to get cleared in to the country, but once we were cleared we were able to go ashore. The ship was split into port and starboard watches so that ½ of the ship was on watch and the other ½ was free. My watch had the first night off, so a few of us went into town and got some hotel rooms for the night even though we had to be back on board at 7:30am the next morning for watch. The hotel we stayed at was cheap enough (about $20/person) so that was fine. They had free WI-FI and a pool table, so all was good.

The next day was a watch day for me but the other watch all went ashore and got to explore the town. The night before we really didn't check out to much because it was so late once we got there. Everyone had a great time bargaining in the shops and came back to the ship with lots of stuff that they bought or traded for. This was going to be a fun port and it was my watches opportunity to check things out the next day.

I spent nearly the entire day wandering the streets with Gunner, Kevin and Ryan. None of us bought much of anything, but it was fun looking around. We had some really good food too and made a full day of it.

The next day was Thursday December 4^th. We had expected that we would have to work this day and then have the next day off, but during the morning muster we were informed that things would be a little different. Rather than being on for twenty-four hours then off the next twenty-four, we going to work forty-eight hours and then be off the next forty-eight. This made it possible to actually go somewhere and not have to be back first thing in the morning.

For the next two days I worked on the ship. We had a lot of projects going so having two days meant that we might get to finish one that we started. Since nearly all the other watch took off for the day and night, the ship felt quite deserted. We are used to having 25-35 people on board, even when in port, but for dinner that first night I think there was only sixteen of us. It was so quiet. We couldn't wait for people to get back on Friday night so that we could hear what they did with the two days off and how they did things since we would have Saturday and Sunday off ourselves. Sometimes it's nice having days off after everyone else so they can figure out things.

Most had gone to Marrakesh for either one or both days. Some took the bus, others organized a taxi. Four of us (Gary, Kevin, WT and I) decided that the taxi seemed like an easier option. With four people it worked out to around $35 each for the entire day, so it was cheap enough. This gave is the option of going and returning when we wanted and we didn't have to try to figure out how to get there or worry about catching a bus at a specific time. The taxi we used was the same one that three shipmates had used the previous day. Nothing like getting a good recommendation.

The drive to Marrakesh was interesting. We passed through some very small towns all teaming with people. The countryside was mostly very dry and barren. The trip with around 180km and took us nearly three hours.

Marrakesh is a strange place. It is quite congested and hectic. After we arrived we decided to have a quick lunch to fuel up for the afternoon. After 1 ½ hours, we were ready to explore (ok, so it wasn't very quick, but that's the way it goes sometimes). The market is organized into various sections, but navigating it is nearly impossible. There are bikes, carts with donkeys, motor cycles, people, sheep, and cars all trying to fit into some very tiny streets. We wandered in the market for about three hours and had had enough. Between the smog, noise and constant pestering of the beggars and scam artists; it was time to leave. We found a hotel that sold beer (not an easy thing to find in Morocco actually) and called our taxi driver to tell him we were ready to head back. The market square gets quite crazy at night time with food stalls, monkey trainers, snake charmers, fortune tellers and everything else you can think of. It was quite an experience. I am really glad that we went there, it was well worth seeing. To think that this goes on every day is really amazing.

Here are some pictures from the trip to Marrakesh:


The next day was Sunday December 7^th. After some breakfast and internet at the hotel, I set off for the market. What a contrast to Marrakesh! I bought a few things for myself and for gifts. Walking around seemed like a stroll down main street compared to Marrakesh. Just a few days earlier it had seem so chaotic, this day it seemed quite tame and laid back. After dropping off my things for the 1pm skiff, I meet up with Gunner, Ryan, Gary and Kevin. We walked to the end of the beach area to where the camels and horses were and organized a one hour camel ride. Talking about a neat experience. The camel is quite slow, so it is certainly doesn't get the heart pumping. It is just a nice relaxing way to travel. We were lead to some remains of an old fortress on the beach that is crumbling into the harbor. I was amazed at the nearly lack of tracks that the camels left in the sand. Camel feet are really like snowshoes for sand. It was a great time and another great experience. I can check that box too.

After some dinner it was time to head back to the ship. The next morning we departed Morocco and started our passage to The Canary Islands. Morocco is a beautiful country with friendly people. The town that we visited, Essaouira is really a beach and surfing destination. We were there in the off season, so really don't have a perspective of what it is like during the height of tourist season. There was plenty to do there and around town. It might have been nice to get to Casablanca, but that was twice as far as Marrakesh, so just wasn't really possible. Perhaps next time... perhaps not.

We are now in the Canary Islands and it seems like being in another European port. The islands are part of Spain, so they speak Spanish and use the Euro for currency. We will be here for almost two weeks, but not in just one spot, we will be visiting a couple islands before departing for Senegal around December 22^nd.

The passage to Senegal is about 1,000 nautical miles, so that will take some time to accomplish. We will be having Christmas and most likely New Years underway, which will be very nice. Not celebrating the holidays with family and friends will be tough for sure, but something that everyone in the Picton Castle family will be going through. Having the holidays at sea will make it feel like a family gathering.

Until next time,

Thanks for reading,

-john

Here are photos from the stop in Essaouira Morocco:

Gibraltar and the Pillar of Hercules

2008-12-01T16:53:00.002-05:00

We arrived in the country of Gibraltar on Friday November 21 after a pretty quick sail from the island of Mallorca. The sailing was fantastic as we made really good time arriving a day earlier than planned. We arrived too late in the day to get cleared in to the country so everyone had to stay on board our first night at anchor.

The country of Gibraltar is a pretty interesting place. It is a British Overseas Territory like Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands. It does feel quite British with some double decker buses and red public telephone boxes. Since the country is only a little over two and a half square miles it is quite easy to walk the entire country in less than a day. The Rock of Gibraltar is the most obvious land mark with the city clinging to the west side of the slope and waterfront. On the north is Spain separated from Gibraltar by the airport that has a single runway that goes over the main road into the country. There are only a handful of flights each day so the road isn't closed for very long.

We anchored in the bay on the west side near the airport and had a great view of the planes landing. The rock has been used as a military base for several centuries. There are fortifications of all vintages literally covering the entire mountain. No matter where you walk you see evidence of lookouts, gun placements, ammunition storage or other military spots. A lot of it is overgrown making for some interesting discoveries.

The native fauna of the country is a monkey, the Barbary Macaques commonly known as “apes”. They are the only wild monkeys found in Europe and can be seen most places outside of the town area.

The famous Battle of Trafalgar took place not too far from the country. There is a cemetery where men are buried that died as a result of wounds from the battle. The men that died at sea were buried at sea so the cemetery is not as large as you might expect. It seems that this voyage of ours keeps coming back to that famous sea battle.

I was fortunate to get two days off while in Gibraltar; Saturday and Monday. On the first day, I spent time doing internet things with Kevin, then we set out after lunch to find some geocaches. There were eight caches in the country, but we only managed to get to five of them as one was a puzzle cache which I didn't have enough information for, and the others we just didn't get to. We did have a great day finding the five that we looked for. The caches brought us all over the rock a couple of times, so we had a nice tour while exploring the country.One of the caches was a webcam in the center of town; so that involved a call to brother Joe to attempt a screen capture. Unfortunatly, the camera was off line when we were there, which seems to be a common enough occurance judging from the description of the cache. It was nice chatting Joe for a little while anyway, eventough I did get him out of the shower pretty early on a Saturday morning.

Sunday was a day on the ship. It was not the typical work day though, we spent the morning doing some much needed house cleaning. There had been reports of some shipmates get bug bites so the decision was made to strip all the bunks, wash all the sheets, sun bake all the blankets and mattresses and wash down all everything with bleach. No bugs were ever found, as far as I know, but it was probably a good exercise anyway.

Monday was another day ashore. I again set off with Kevin to explore the tip of the rock known as Europa Point. It is where the lighthouse for the Straight of Gibraltar is and is also known as a “Pillar of Hercules”. According to legend this is the location that the God Hercules separated Europe from Africa by pushing apart the land masses forming the Straight of Gibraltar. The Straight is only about eight miles across and also marks the boundary of the Mediterranean sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It was a VERY windy day which made the walk to the point interesting, especially the walk back into down against the wind. After having some fish and chips for a late lunch we did a little shopping and made it back to the dock for the 7pm skiff run. At the dock was a Pusser's Company Store and pub, so a quick painkiller was in order as well. Enjoying a painkiller made be think back to days in the BVI and is a nice preview of days to come.

One of the main reasons for stopping in Gibraltar was to fill the ship with diesel fuel since the prices here are the best, by far, in all of Europe. This is a popular place for ships to fill up so it's necessary to have an appointment at the fuel dock. Our time was for Tuesday morning, so that is what we did that day. The intention was to leave Gibraltar after getting fuel, but the decision was made to wait another day since the wind was supposed to slacken and we would have a better sail leaving there and getting out into the Atlantic. After we took on about 12,000 liters of diesel we returned to our previous anchorage for the rest of the day and night. Those who were on watch on Monday (the previous day) got to go ashore, the rest of us spent the afternoon doing things on the ship.

Here are some pictures from my visit to Gibraltar:


Wednesday morning we sailed off our anchor and left Gibraltar and the continent of Europe to our stern. We have been in Europe since arriving in Ireland on June 17^th and have actually spent very little time in the Atlantic Ocean since then as well. We have sailed the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and many other seas, straights and bays. Now we are back into the Atlantic Ocean and heading south to new continents, islands and latitudes. Some interesting times should lay ahead.

Thursday November 27^th was Thanksgiving Day at home in the USA, but on the Picton Castle we decided to celebrate the holiday (a rare occurrence at that) the following day. This gave each watch some time to create desserts and make other preparations for a proper feast. On Friday afternoon we put the ship into a “hove-to” position so that everyone could enjoy the festivities. This basically means that we set the sails and rudder so that the ship was not actually moving forward, but sliding very slowly sideways. This is a common thing to do when riding out a storm and some ships actually do this each night so that a very minimum number of crew actually have to be involved with sailing the ship at night.

The turkey day feast was exceptional. Everyone got dressed up for dinner and we sat around the tables that were decorated with centerpieces and place settings. Captain Moreland and Cook Donald carved the turkeys and everyone helped themselves to the other side dishes and fantastic desserts. It was a fine celebration capped off with some singing and story telling.

Here are some other pictures from the Picton Castle Thanksgiving.

Since a storm was expected we had planned to stay hove-to for the evening. The winds and waves picked up after midnight and lasted well into the morning of Saturday November 29^th. Around 8am on the 29^th we wore ship (turned the stern through the wind) and got underway for Morocco again. The wind, rain and heavy seas continued for the day, but seemed to slacken as darkness fell. During my watch from 0400 to 0800 the wind picked up to force 10 and we were forced to hove-to again and wait it out. This only last a couple of hours and we were on our way. The seas were quite high, 10-15 feet and at the hight of the squall the wind was blowing about 50 kts/hr. When we got underway the wind had settled into a force 6 or 7, but it wasn't until Sunday evening that things started to settle down and get back to more normal conditions. Monday morning came in nice and sunny with pretty lights winds for our final run to Morocco.

We are now in Essouira Morocco and will be here for a couple of days before heading to the Canary Islands that lie to our southwest. I am looking forward to visiting Morocco as it will be vastly different from every other place we have been. I have spent time Africa before, but only to the central and southern parts of the continent. I have forgotten to buy Christmas cards while in Gibraltar and I am pretty sure that I won't be finding any here. Oh well, one of the many things I have neglected since leaving home.

The decision was made to skip the Madeira Islands as originally planned because it is getting late in the year and we need to be heading south. This will allow us more time in each port rather than trying to get there and only have a couple of days, then heading out and having a couple days in another port.

My next blog post should be from the Canary Islands in a few weeks time and will include information and photos from my visit to Morocco. Until then...

Thanks for reading,

-john

Mallorca Spain

2008-11-22T05:59:00.002-05:00

On November 10, we arrived in Palma Spain on the Island of Mallorca (pronounced my-orca). We had a decent sail from Portugal most of the way until the wind just about died and we ended up motor sailing for the last couple of days. Mallorca is one of the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea. It is a popular tourist spot during the summer, but being November it was pretty quiet. It was nice being there in the off season; I could not imagine the place crawling with people as you see in all the post cards. This island is the home of Nadja, one of the professional crew and a great friend. Her family did a lot of work making it possible for us to visit the island and made our stay quite comfortable and welcoming.

The first evening I ventured into the city of Palma with Cody and Ben for some dinner. Cody was leaving us here the next day, so I wanted to spend some time with him. Nadja's brother gave us a ride into town and we found a place that was open for dinner. The Spanish don't normally go out to eat until after 9pm, so finding a place serving food at 7pm was a bit of a challenge. On the ship, we eat dinner at 6pm and get quite accustomed to that eating at that time; waiting until 9pm sounded like fasting. We had a nice dinner, then Cody and I walked around the huge cathedral. It is stunningly beautiful at night because they have it all lit up. I found out after dinner that our dock space was a ninety minute walk from the cathedral when I decided to walk back to the ship. I knew it was a ways, but just felt like walking as it was a really nice evening and we had been at sea for several days.

On November 11 I was on watch, which was pretty exciting. We spent the morning sending down the Mizzen Topmast. This is a spar that sits on top of the Mizzen mast. It is made of wood so requires periodic inspection, varnishing and painting. Sending down the topmast is not a difficult process, but one that takes a great deal of time to do it safely and smartly. Before we began we were briefed on what was involved and then it all began. It was a cool process and one that most people very get to experience. After lunch we spent the time scraping the old varnish and paint off the topmast and overhauling the wire rigging (shrouds, stays, etc) that support the topmast.

The next day I went into town, did some internet and made a blog post about the past stops in Portugal and our passage from there to Mallorca. In the afternoon I rented a car for the week since seeing the island is not really possible without some form of transportation. There is not really much for train service and the buses only run in the city of Palma. I ended up renting a convertible since the price was good and of course the car was kind of neat to drive. I did some exploring around the area then headed back to the ship. Nadja had invited everyone that was not on watch over to her house for a barbecue and campfire. I would not miss this for the world, it is always nice spending time with shipmate's family and friends, plus I wanted to see their house. Nicki, Corey, Erin and I drove in the convertible with the top down. It was pretty cold, especially for Erin and Nicki in the back seat. I had the windows up and the heat cranking so we looked good driving down the road, especially if you ignored the frostbite on Nicki's nose. There were a lot of people at the party, lots of food and a great time. Nadja's mom, dad and brother are special people that opened their house to us and showed us a wonderful time.

I was off watch the next day as well. Gunner and I went on a search for a battery for his computer and then ended up at a market in the town of Inca. I had wanted to go there because I had heard that was a big leather factory in town. We had no idea that it would be market day. The weather was not the greatest; some rain and it was cold, but the market is a big deal. I was amazed at the size of it. Street after street were closed off and vendors were selling all sorts of things. People come from all over the island to this market each week. It was quite a find and ended up taking most of the day. Before dinner I took Spenser to a store to look at mini computers. We found out that they only come in Spanish language so he decided to not get one at that time, but ended up going back later in the week and getting one. The computer is pretty cool and is very, very small. After shopping we ended up in town for some dinner. My car got blocked in by other cars in a parking lot so we could not get back to the ship until late. It didn't really matter, we had a nice time just sitting in a hotel lobby in their soft chairs and chatting for a few hours.

The next day was Friday, November 14th. I was on watch that day and spent the day working with Donald and Nadja getting provisions for the next two months from a big warehouse store. We ended up getting seven HUGE flat bed trolleys filled with food and supplies. It seemed like a lot, but we will have to do it all over again in a few months. Thirty-six people eat a lot of food.

The following day I took the car and explored the west coast of the island. I had heard good reports about the drives on this part of the island, so I wanted to check it out. I drove for several hours exploring the little towns and coast. Parts of it reminded me of the mountains of Colorado. The hills were not nearly as high, of course, but the landscape was very similar; especially if you don't see the olive trees. Ok, perhaps it wasn't all that much like Colorado, but for some reason I though of driving through the mountains there. Maybe it was the narrow roads and dry land. Parts of the coast brought me back to driving along Big Sur in California, with the dramatic cliffs. Parts of the coast had been farmed since the 1500's with elaborate terraced gardens.

Sunday, November 16th, I spent the morning with Gary trying to get his camera back. He had lost it the previous day and for obvious reasons were quite upset about it. Not so much about the camera, but he had his six months worth of pictures with it. The camera would be easy to replace, but the pictures would be next to impossible. His wife and son had been here for the week and had left the day before. We retraced some of their steps, ended up at the airport. He had offered the rental car company a reward if any of their employees found the camera. It was along shot, but paid off. When we got to the rental car desk they had his camera and refused the reward. We can only speculate where the camera had been since the previous day they did not seem to have it. No matter, he was reunited with his camera and his memories of this voyage. I still can't get over how lucky he was to get that back. I doubt there was anyone, including Gary that had much hope. He has since made two backup copies of his pictures so this should never happen again. I keep three backups of mine, including the ones that I keep online.

That evening I was back to Nadja's for a second party. They did a repeat so that people that were on watch the previous night could spend time at her house. This was very nice as some people would not have had the opportunity since there is always one watch on the ship. My watch was able to go both days, as it worked out.

Monday, November 17 I was on watch and it was also the day that we sent up, or raised the mizzen topmast that we had sent down earlier in the week. It went up without any problems but did take all day. We also spent the day getting everything back into the galley. That had been completely stripped, cleaned and painted during the week. Both look beautiful again; they were great projects to get completed.

My visit to the island of Mallorca was very nice. It is a very beautiful place, especially in the off season. I can't imagine what it must be like in July and August. There are so many hotels and tons and tons of restaurants. It must be quite the place with everything filled up and the crawling with tourists.

Here are some photos of my visit to Mallorca:

Late morning of the 18th we set sail to Gibraltar. The weather was nice and the winds quite agreeable for this 450 mile passage. Shortly after we left the dock we went into some drills as we normally do. We practice man overboard, fire and abandon ship after leaving most ports as a way to keep everyone fresh and to make sure there are no issues in case of an actual emergency. We hit a bit of rain along the way, which is the first time in quite a long time that we had this much rain. Everyone has foul weather gear so it's not a big deal. The wind was nearly always from our stern and blowing quite fresh which made for a nice passage, even tough it was a little wet for a day and a half. It was quite a contrast from when we cross this section of the Mediterranean a few weeks ago. The rain ended mid afternoon two days into the passage, but the wind held strong. We were sailing at time doing close to 9kt, which is pretty quick for us. We made the distance in just over three days

We are now in Gibraltar and will only be here for a few days. I am looking forward to seeing this little (about 2.6 sq miles) country, but also looking forward to spending some more time at sea. My next blog post will be from our next port, which will either be Essaouira, Morocco or the Islands of Madeira.

Thanks for reading.

-john

Portugal

2008-11-12T05:02:00.002-05:00

We arrived in Cascais Portugal on October 21^st after our passage from Ares Spain. We had sailed most of the way when the winds turned light and then came from the wrong direction. We ended up motor sailing for the last five hours to reach Cascais before dark. On our way into Cascais we saw the German Navy sail training ship, Gorch Fock, doing the same motor sailing, but they didn't stop; they were headed to Lisbon.

The city of Cascais is about thirty-six kilometers from the capital of Lisbon. It is a nice resort type of town that is absolutely beautiful and very friendly. Lisbon is a short train ride away, which is just perfect,there are mountains close by, and of course the sea.

As most of my friends know, I am not one to play the ranking game. I always avoid questions like “What part of Italy did you like best... .what was is your favorite movie.... what is the best port so far...” I avoid these because I don't like to just pick one favorite of anything, because everything and every place is different. How can anyone pick one favorite? If I were to pick though, so far it would be Portugal. Something about the place makes it special. The people are friendly; the way they work craftsmanship into everything, even the sidewalks are impressive and the climate is nice. I think there were a lot more positives things here than anywhere else we have been. But, I am not about to pick it as the best place... just perhaps a little better than all the rest.

On the first night in town, several of us went ashore and grabbed a bite to eat. It started to rain, which was unpleasant because it would have been nice to explore the town a little and not end up eating in the first tourist place we stopped at. But, that's what happened. There is a large hotel right on the water that had free wireless internet, so that was good enough for a first night ashore.

I was also off watch the next day, so I returned to town with Cody and Spenser to explore the place. We visited a location called Boca do Inferno which is a cave on the edge of the water that sounds like a roaring dragon when the waves and tide are just right. It is kind of like Thunder Hole in Acadia National Park in Maine. The tide and waves were not good for the maximum effect, but it was still pretty cool. We were there because it was on the map and also because there was a geocache near by. Spenser found this one, which was his first. We spent time exploring more of the coast and found a second cache as well. Once again, caching has brought me to a place that I might have just skipped.
Here are some pictures in and around Cascais.
On October 23^rd I was on watch, which meant that my watch group had to stay on the ship and tend to her needs. Being at anchor, like were were in Cascais, is kind of nice as people are not coming and going all day as happens when we are alongside a dock. We spent the day working on the ship. Since the weather was really nice I ended up sanding and varnishing some of the pin rails with Gary and Geoff for most of the day.

The next day I went ashore with Nicki and Corey and we looked into renting scooters for the day to go to the old castle town of Sintra. When we got to the rental place we spotted some cool little cars that they had available and ended up renting those instead. The cars were basically frames, motors and not much else. No doors or windows, except the wind shield. There were a blast to drive and worked out better than the scooters would have.

Our first stop was the town of Sintra, which is only about fifteen kilometers from Cascais. The town is a central location for visiting several castles and is very interesting itself. The entire town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In the center of the old town is the Palace of Sintra, which we did not go into. We had some lunch then hiked up to a Moorish Castle on the ridge over looking the town. The castle was built by the Moors in the 8^th and 9^th century. The views from the walls are incredible. After the hike we stopped back in town for some dessert before setting off again. Our destination was the Pena Palace, but it was getting late in the day and it was closing in less than an hour when we arrived so we didn't get any closer than the road. We then decided to take a drive for the coast to a place called Cabo da Roca, which is the spot that marks the western most point of the European mainland. The drive there was a lot of fun in our cars and the view was well worth the trip.

Once back in Cascais we asked the car rental agent for a suggestion of a place for dinner and she suggested a Brazilian restaurant which was an awesome suggestion. This restaurant, like other Brazilian ones I have been to, specializes in an all-you-can-eat meat feast. They had wood blocks on the table that had red and green sides. As long as the green side was up, they came around to the table with various types of roasted animal flesh; once we had enough, we flipped the block to the red side. It was especially interesting going to a place like this with a vegetarian, but Nicki found plenty to eat at the buffet. We all enjoyed it so much that we ended up going back there again with other shipmates later in the week. Bringing sailors to an all-you-can-eat anything is always a good time, but when the main food is roasted meat, it's especially popular.
Here are some pictures from the day trip to Sintra.
The next day I took the train into Lisbon with Cody and Matt to have a look around and explore the city. Our first stop was the Thieves Market, which is a HUGE street market where hundreds of people sell everything imaginable. Most of it is junk, but there is also some really neat bargains too, just like a flea market back home. This one is every Tuesday and Saturday, we were there on a Saturday so it was very busy. After wandering the market for a while we stopped on the steps of a church and had some lunch that we had brought with us. It's always nice bringing some food so we don't waste time looking for a place to eat and it's also a bit cheaper.

With lunch out of the way, we continued wandering and ended up at the Castle of Saint George which is an old fortress overlooking the city. We had a quick tour and just enjoyed taking in the spectacular views and the warm weather. More exploring of the city and we bumped into Geoff and Gary. I know I have said this many times, but it still surprises me how it seems we can easily run into shipmates when we visit a place. We knew they were in the city, but never set off looking for them or had any idea where they might be. We saw Gary and Geoff riding a yellow trolley through the city. With them we ventured to the suburb of Belém.

Belém is a very cool place. There is the Jeronimos Monastery, which was built in the 16^th century. It took the entire century to build and was made to celebrate the discoveries of Portuguese explores, particularly Vasco da Gama, who is buried there. It is also the tombs of King Manual I and his sons. At the western side of the Monastery is the Maritime Museum, which was closed when we were there.

The Belém Tower was next on our stop. This fortress was built around 1515 to protect Lisbon Harbor. It commemorates Portugal's expansion overseas and Empire building. This place is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The shape and lines of the small fortress are quite interesting. It was getting late in the day, but we still had one more stop, which was the “Monument to the Discoveries”. This is just a large stone carved to commemorate the heroes of Portugal's maritime history. Featured prominently at the front is Henry the Navigator. The monument was unveiled in 1960 during celebrations of his death 500 years earlier. In all, it was a very fun day, we must have walked at least twenty miles, which is a lot for people who's world consists of about 180 feet of ship.
Here are some pictures from my first day in Lisbon.
At this port we had three “yard days” planned. Yards days are just special days dedicated to work on the ship that has been neglected or is nearly impossible to do while underway or at a dock. Each watch was assigned a yard day to be on duty. Trainees on the other watches were encouraged, but not required to work the days we were not on duty with our watches; profession crew were required to work all three days. I think most of the trainees worked at least two of the three days, if not all three. I don't know of anyone that worked just their one assigned duty day. This says a lot for the love that we all have for this ship. We take care of her and she takes care of us, as the saying goes. Beside, it's kind of fun to work on something and see a job through to completion. We got all the decks oiled, the entire rig tarred, and lots of sanding and varnishing done. Many projects got started and finished; the ship has never looked better. Of course the work is never done, but it's always nice to see a large list get smaller and smaller.

October 28^th, I took the first train with Spenser to Lisbon. It was Tuesday and he wanted to go to the thieves market. I didn't actually buy anything there again, but Spenser found a few things, so it was a worthwhile trip. On the way back home we stopped at Belém to see the Maritime Museum, which had been closed when I was there the previous time. The museum was pretty good, they had lots and lots of ship models. By far the best one we have visited was in Bremerhaven Germany, but this one was decent enough. While visiting the museum, we ran into Gary who had been to Sintra in the morning, but left there as everything was closed due to high winds.

The next day, we were supposed to leave Cascais, but ended up staying because of a problem with the shifter cable on the rescue boat that was getting fixed at the local marina. I was on watch that day and ended up doing the cooking with Geoff as Donald went ashore for the day.

We finally left Cascais on Friday, October 31. We had spent ten days there, which is our longest stay in any single port. It was planned to be a longer stay due to the yard days, but then two days were added at the end for various reasons. Our passage was short though. On the second day out we got word that we had to pull into a port and have one of our shipmates checked out at the hospital. She had fallen before leaving Cascais and there was concern of a concussion.

We anchored in a small town on the southwestern coast called, Lagos. Rather than our normal three watch system, the ship was split into two watches for our two day stay here. Each watch spent one day on the ship and had the other day off. My watch had the first day on duty; but it was not a regular work day. The idea was to do some training workshops to help move everyone's skill level up another notch. We spent some time calling braces; doing chart work; and driving the rescue boat and skiff. It was a really nice day; a good way to spend the time in port.

The following day I was off duty so I had the day in port. I spent most of the day with Spenser checking out the town; finding a geocache; and looking for something for a Halloween costume. We got notice that the next marlin spike party on the ship would have a Halloween theme, so I still had time to get something. I was finally successful in finding a silly hat and some other stuff; it was nice having the extra day to look around.

November 4^th, we sailed off the anchor to continue our passage into the Mediterranean Sea and Mallorca Spain. It is always cool sailing off the anchor, as it is nice and quiet; nothing but the sounds of the commands given to set sail and the heaving of everyone at the windless. It's not hard to sail off an anchor, but it is not something that a lot of ships do, small boats included. In the afternoon we had a workshop lead by the captain on overhauling blocks. Workshops that he leads are always so fascinating and informative.

The 4^th was also the United States. Presidential Election Day. I know that everyone back home must have been glad that day finally came. I can only imagine what it has been like the last several months leading up to the election with all the news stories talking about almost nothing else. It had been bad before I left home on May 1, I can only guess that it got worse. We got word that Obama won when I tuned in my shortwave radio and picked up a BBC broadcast from Gibraltar. The radio I had received as a gift from the Butlers and Brennans before I left home and it came in handy to get the results the day following the election.

The morning of November 6^th we passed through the Straight of Gibraltar. It was a pretty cool experience because it was just at sunrise that we passed the famous rock of Gibraltar. We should be spending some time there when we leave the Mediterranean in a few weeks, We also got our first glimpse of Africa, where we will also be going on the next leg of the voyage.

The following morning we passed some mountains on the coast of Spain that had snow on them. We had heard that it was snowing in Spain when we were in Cascais, but we not sure where. The mountains on this part of Spain are about 10,000 feet high and sure enough there was snow. It was interesting seeing snow from the ship, but also a reminder that we should be heading south soon; this should be a warm weather trip.
Here are some photos from the passage.
Before we were to arrive in Mallorca, we made one more stop in a very small island called Tagomago; it barely appears on the charts and is private. We anchored near there and spent time doing a lot of sprucing up of the ship so that when we arrive in Mallorca we would be all pretty and clean. We painted all the topsides, which is the outside of the ship that is above the water line. Lots of painting and cleaning. It's funny, but these days a ship is expected to arrive in a port having looked like she never left, in fact she usually looks better than when she left the last place. We spent on night at anchor and then were off first thing in the morning to finish the passage.

We are now in Mallorca Spain (pronounced “my orca”), which is the end of the second leg of this year long voyage around the Atlantic Ocean. It now seems like it has been a long time since joining the ship in Lunenburg on May 1, in fact it has. The voyage is about half over as well, so from here on we look with shorter vision of what is to come and jog our memories of events that have passed. I have my pictures of the voyage as a screen saver on my computer so I get constant reminders of some of the events and sights on the past six months.

At this port we have two crew members leaving the ship; Allison and Cody. Allison has been a friend of the ship for a long time spending months at a time on board and helping out with everything while the ship is in Lunenburg. She joined us about a month ago in Ares Spain. It was great getting to sail with her. I am sure our paths will cross again. Cody joined us in Bergen Norway for the second leg. He is returning home to North Dakota, finding a job and planning his wedding for July 2009. He will be a busy person and will be sorely missed aboard the ship. Cody amazingly learned his lines quicker than just about everyone and spent all his spare time getting up to speed as quickly as he could. He is a great shipmate and a good friend.

Mallorca is not only the end of leg two, but the start of leg three. We have several crew members joining us here, so there will be fresh faces on board. This leg will feature several ports in Africa and our second crossing of the Atlantic. During this crossing we will also be grossing the equator. This should be an exciting leg with many different ports, longer passages, and the islands off the coast to visit before reaching the Caribbean in February.

The journey continues.

Thanks for reading,

-john

A note about the TSB report:

As many of you know, The Picton Castle suffered a loss of life when a crew member was swept overboard in December of 2006. The Transportation Safety Board (TSB) of Canada did an investigation and finally issued their report this past month. I will not comment on the report or the event; not because I have been told I can't, but because I just don't want to. My decision to sail on this ship was with full knowledge of the tragedy and my own research into how the ship is run and operated. Everyone sailing on the Picton Castle has done their own research and all concluded; without exception, that the ship is safe; well managed; and well maintained. We stand 100% behind our captain in our support of him and this ship. If this were not the case, we would not be here. Here is a link to the report on the TSB website if you want to see what they had to say.

-john

CHEESEBURGER SOUP

2008-10-25T02:38:00.002-04:00

At the request of brother Joe here is the cheeseburger soup recipe. I didn't make it exactly like this because we have limited options on the ship. Rather than the evaporated milk I made up a batch of cream of mushroom soup and just added this to the ground beef/cheese mixture. This giving us an option for the vegetarians, so that was an added bonus.

I have had this soup each time I have sailed on the Victory Chimes (hundred+ year old, 3 mast schooner, out of Rockland Maine). Pam is the cook on the chimes and this soup is always a favorite of everyone on board each time she makes it... Thanks Pam for great soup idea, it was a hit on the Picton Castle as well.

CHEESEBURGER SOUP
(AKA: HEART ATTACK IN A BOWL)

1 lb ground beef
2 tsp chopped garlic
2 small onions (chopped quite fine)
Dash of liquid smoke
Dash of kitchen bouquet
1 ½ lb American cheese
4 cups evaporated milk
1 tsp dry mustard
You can also add minced jalapeno,
mustard seed and yellow cheese or velveeta

Brown the ground beef in a small amount of oil and butter. Add the onions and garlic and cook over medium heat until the onion is wilted. Add the dry mustard and blend well. Lay the cheese onto the ground beef mixture and allow to melt in. As it melts, stir it carefully. Add the evaporated milk to thin the mixture down. This should make about 8 servings.

Spain to Portugal

2008-10-22T05:41:00.002-04:00

We spent five very nice days in northern Spain before heading further south to Portugal. We were supposed to be anchored in La Coruna, but when we got there, we were informed that anchoring in the harbor was not allowed even though they had a designated area for it. We never did quite figure out what the story was since there was plenty of room to anchor. We even tried a harbor close by but were also told that we could not anchor there either, so we ended up at Ares, about seven miles away by water or thirty miles by bus.

The people in Ares were very nice, friendly and helpful. It was a pretty small place, but for some reason those always seem better. I think it's because arrive in a small community and it's a big deal. They enjoy having the ship there, because tall ships just don't come to visit very often, if at all. We show up and they are grateful to have us around; a large city and we are just part of all that is going on and most people don't even notice.

In Ares, they had a great library with free wireless internet access, which is always a plus. There were several bars in town, a nice beach area and a great park. It was a short bus ride from there to larger cities; everything was great.

My first day in town I spent with Gary just doing internet things and having lunch and talking on the beach. We pretty much had the place to ourselves as it is basically now the off season here. I thnk we spent three hours munching on food we bought and finding the bottom of a couple of bottles of wine.

About two hours and two buses away from Ares is the city Santiago de Compostela.. This city and the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela is a stop along a pilgrimage route. People come from all over and make a pilgrimage to this place. It really is beautiful. In addition to the cathedral, the city is filled with old buildings and streets. Each corner that you turn looks like a different movie set. The cathedral is stunning, but there is so much more to see in the city that one day didn't quite do it justice.

I left early in the morning with Cody, Spenser, Donald, Allison, Ryan, Nicki and Gary. We took a bus from Ares to the city of Ferrol and from there had to connect with another bus to Santiago. Having very limited Spanish was a bit of a problem, but it all worked out and we managed to find the bus station in Ferrol and get on the right bus. Once in Santiago we were a bit lost as there were no signs to anywhere. We finally managed to ask the right questions and get pointed in the right direction to the old part of town.

Once there, we meet Geoff and Gunner who had spent the night there. It was not surprising that we saw shipmates there, as I have said before, it happens all the time. You can travel to a city of several thousand people and meet two shipmates pretty easily.

It was a nice visit to the city, which ended too quickly. The bus ride back to the ship worked out just fine. For a time we were not exactly where to catch the bus back to Ares, but got that sorted out and it finally showed up and we made it back in time for the 11pm skiff run.

The next day I was on watch, which meant some ship's work to be done. The weather was a bit rainy so we all worked on some projects out of the weather.

On October 18th, we left our anchorage in Ares and started making our way to Portugal. The weather was fantastic and we had a fair wind so the sailing was great as well. When I got up for the 4am watch on Saturday morning we were flying along doing about 8.5 kts with our royals set. It was fantastic for sure. The wind slackened as the morning wore one, but we continued to make good progress. At that pace we could have arrived on Sunday, but that was not to last. We are not exactly in the trade winds as of yet, but are in the winds that are pretty constant in this part of the world. They don't last for ever though, and we were soon plodding along doing 2-3 kts.

On Sunday I was on galley duty with Susie and Jackie. Since it was Sunday, Donald our cook had the day off which meant that we had to do the cooking as well as all the other work of being on galley duty. Cooking on the ship is a bit of a challenge, but also fun too since it is a change of pace. For lunch, I made the cheeseburger soup that Pam of the Victory Chimes in Maine always makes. I had never made it before, but had kept the recipe for just such an occasion. It was a big success, I could have made twice as much and it would have all got eaten.

We arrived in Cascais Portugal on Tuesday October 21. The sailing here was fantastic under mostly sunny skies. We will be here until the 29th; three of those days being set aside for doing some different work on the ship, including oiling the decks, tarring the entire rig and lot of other projects that should be fun to do. The weather is supposed to be nice and sunny, which is one of the reasons we are here. We will also have a good amount of time off, which I am looking forward to as I have never been to Portugal before.

From here we will be heading back to Spain and nearing the completion of the second leg of this voyage.

Here are some pictures from northern Spain.

My next blog post will be about our stop in Portugal. That should be in about three weeks time.

Thanks for reading,

-john

A fine week in France

2008-10-14T05:41:00.002-04:00

France was fantastic. I really had no idea what to expect. I had heard, like everyone else, about how rude the French can be, but I can honestly say that I never saw that to be the case. Everyone was friendly and helpful; that's all you can ask for. The only regret is not having more days to explore Paris, but it's probably not going any where.

We arrived in St. Nazaire France on the last day of September, but were not cleared through customs until the following morning of October 1. It has been exactly five months since most of us arrived in Lunenburg Nova Scotia. We have visited twenty-one ports and ten countries; many more to come as the voyage is not even half over yet.

St Nazaire and the Picton Castle actually have a bit of history. When the ship was employed with the British Navy during World War II, she was a mine sweeper. The port of St. Nazaire was taken over by the Germans and used as a base for submarines. There are huge, very heavily fortified submarine “pens” that are still there today. Taking back ports was key to the liberation of France during the war and the port of St. Nazaire was targeted as one that needed to be taken. The HMS Picton Castle played an important role in operation chariot. She was one of four mine sweepers of the fourteen ships in the operation to disable the dry docks in St. Nazaire. The operation was a big success and one of the turning points of the war as it forced the Germans to us a ship yard in Norway and limited their capabilities.

Enough of the history lesson, it's time to have a look around. On October 1, Cody, Matt, Ryan, Donald, Marie and I took the train into Paris. The trip took about three hours, which wasn't too bad. We had heard that the train was one of the high speed ones, but we were not so sure when we got on. The train just seemed kind of old. At one point I took out my GPS receiver to check the speed and found out that we were doing 182 miles/hour. I guess that really is a high speed train! It sure didn't feel like we were going that fast, no wonder we got there so quickly.

Once in Paris we found a place to stay. That was not as easy as we expected, every place we went to was booked up for the night. We finally found a place because the receptionist at one hotel called five or six other places until she found one that had a couple of rooms. See what I mean about helpful! We found that place and took their last two rooms and were now set for the night. The rest of that afternoon was consumed with eating, drinking and walking around the city. We walked to Notre Dame Cathedral as it was just getting a little dark, from there we wandered along the river until we got to The Louvre, which was still open. We checked out the opening times for the next day and continued on our walking tour. We ended up at the Eiffel Tower around 10pm, and just lay on the ground looking up at the tower. It was a great sight and the tower was also still open so we took the elevator to the top for views over the city. As most of you have heard, I called my mother from the top.

The next day we were up early to explore the Louvre museum and the rest of what we could with the full day we had available. We spent about five hours walking around the inside of the Louvre, taking pictures; looking at the incredible paintings and sculptures. After having our fill of fine art, Donald, Cody and I started walking along the Champs-Elysée to the Arc de Triomphe. It was a couple miles, but seemed like many more having walked many miles inside the Louvre. On our way there we meet Spenser and Erin from the ship, who had just arrived in the city for the start of their two days off. It's strange how often it happens that we run into fellow shipmates even in a city the size of Paris.

After the Arc de Triomphe we meet up with Ryan and made our way to the train station for some dinner and the return trip to St. Nazaire. We all had to work on the ship the following day, or it would have been real nice to spend more time in the city. Paris was a wonderful excursion. I think it's always good leaving a place with more to do; it makes a return visit something to look forward to.

Here are some pictures from my excursion to Paris

Friday, October 3rd we did some ships work in the morning, then we opened the ship for the public. We were very busy with tours all afternoon. There had been a few articles in the local newspapers so people came from all over to see the ship. I wish I could remember more of my high school French, but had enough of it left in the brain to make some sense of things.

I had the next two days off as we were not scheduled to depart until Tuesday morning. I thought it would be great to hire a car for the two days and see a bit of the countryside. Cody and I drove to a small medieval town called Clisson, which was about an hour and half drive from the ship. Nadja and Mike had been there the day before and said it was a neat place, and they were right. We picked up some stuff for lunch and arrived at the charming little town just after noon. We walked around the old fortress and then explored a park along the river. This park was built by two Italian brothers in the 1700's and is now owned by the town. The views along the river were pretty spectacular. When we had enough of the town we headed back towards Nantes and from there to the ship. Along the way we tried to stop at some wineries, but they were all closed. Their vines were all picked and everything was shut for the weekend. This was quite surprising because I know at home that harvest is not at all complete. A winery would never be closed on a Saturday during harvest season; but in France, like most of Europe, things are a bit different.

Having struck out of the winery we opted to tour a country chateau, The Chateau of Goulaine. This place was full of surprises. First of which was a butterfly enclosure. We never did know why this place collected butterflies, but it was fantastic. There were hundreds of different kinds of butterflies in this small greenhouse like building. They are shipped in from all over the world on a regular basis. It was pretty neat for sure. We got a tour of some of the chateau and they also had a museum with a collection of artwork and other things from the LU biscuit company. It was funny that I had bought a box of these in Paris. Cody and I had a lengthy discussion in the car about the artwork on the box (and cookies). We then get into this place and discover there is an entire museum filled with artwork from the company that makes the cookies. Some of it is quite collectible. I guess it's not a very exciting story, but more ironic that we had just debated something as silly as a cookie box and then found out there was a whole museum of these exact things.

The next day I took the car with Spenser and sail maker Dave (aka Buddy) to Carnac, a town that is famous for its miles of standing stones, called megaliths. There are fields and fields (about 3 km in total) of these stones that were placed sometime between 5,000 and 7,000 years ago. I was totally blown away at this, I had no idea what to expect. No one knows exactly why these stones were placed where they were or that they were actually used for. The fact that they had been there for so long is pretty interesting and probably also indicates that there were many more of them that would have been moved or used for building projects. That so many remain is very cool. What will people 4,000 years from now think of what we are leaving behind? Makes you kind of stop and wonder.

Monday October 6 was a day of work and watch on the ship for me. Nothing special going on, no tours as we had been open for the last three days and had a bunch of work to do. The following day we were scheduled to depart but decided to stay for an additional day as there was a major storm in the Bay of Biscay that we had no reason to mess with. I spent some of the time taking pictures of the port and ship yards. We had been there nearly a week and I had not spent much time in the town at all. Before WW2 the place was very large and populated, but suffered lots of losses during the war. Practically the entire town was rebuilt after the war, but not many people returned. Most of the buildings are from the late 1940s and 1950s. The ship yards are now involved in building cruise ships and some of the space is being used by airbus, the French company that makes large planes.

We departed St. Nazaire with the rising tide on Wednesday morning. The mayor of the city had given the ship enough St. Nazaire scarves for the entire crew. Most of us wore them in one fashion or another for our departure. The towns people lined the dock and the point of land at the entrance of the harbor just outside the locks. Someone even played the bag pipes as we left. This was an especially nice send off that ended a wonderful time in this part of France.

Along the way we saw lots of whales, some pretty small, but one was the size of a school bus... well the short bus to be sure. We also had a pair of owls visit the ship and hitch a ride for a while. We were a little concerned about Chibley possibly becoming a target of the owls, so she spent the night locked up down below; she has still not forgiven us for this. She has had to spend a fair amount of time locked up while we are in some ports because of local regulations. I am sure she was quite confused why she had to be locked up while we were sailing.

From France

We also saw huge schools of tuna just jumping out of the water as the dolphins chased them. What a sight that was. This also inspired the fishing crew to get out the gear and try to catch some fresh fish. Until this time we have had reasonable success catching some fish, but it has mostly just been mackerel, which is fine enough, but lots and lots of bones which make eating them less than enjoyable. This time the tuna were biting, which is a much better fish to eat, in my opinion. As we head further south the fishing should get better as well.

We are now in Ares Spain, which is in the north west corner of the country. Ares makes our twenty-third port in eleven countries. We were supposed to be in the city of La Coruña, but they would not allow us to anchor in the harbor and there was no space available alongside to dock, even though there appeared to be plenty of space. So we ended up motoring about seven miles to the only place to anchor. Unfortunately we are now about twenty miles by road to La Coruña. We may move the ship there at some point, but at this time that is not the case. Before arriving in Ares we made a stop in a small town called La Cariño. We stopped there because we would have made it to La Coruña around 9pm, so rather than arriving at night we anchored in the small town and all had a great afternoon on the beach. On the 13th, we motored to La Coruña and found out that suddenly we were not allowed to anchor there. In any event, here we are in Spain.

Our passage through the Bay of Biscay was fantastic which was quite unexpected. The Bay of Biscay is notorious for its nasty weather and rough sailing. Ships avoid this places if at all possible. The water isn't all that shallow (100-300 feet deep), but drops off quite rapidly to about 14,000 feet deep or more in just a few miles Waves coming across the Atlantic hit this underwater cliff and become all confused which can make for some very rough seas. We experienced some of this, but once again, the passage planning and weather forecasting of our captain and officers was fantastic and we had great sailing the entire way. We did have to fire up the main engine for a few hours on the last day because the wind was just non existent. I know fishermen in New England are fond of saying that you pay for all the good days with bad days. If this is true, then we may have many bad days to expect as we have had three passages in a row that were spectacular. I rather not think about our “bad day” debt, instead chalk it all up to great planning which leads to a balance of great experiences.

Bringing the ship to La Coruna would have marked the last port on this voyage where we are returning to places she either worked, visited or served in her previous days as a motor vessel. The ship visited there before making the journey across the Atlantic in 1993, but it was just a quick stop. From here on we will be visiting places not because the ship had been there, but just because they are really interesting places to visit. Some will be places she has never been, others will be familiar grounds from past world or Caribbean voyages. For the next few months though, the ports will be new to the ship and most of the crew.

While the stock market craziness continues at home, the Presidential Election is around the corner, the Red Sox continue their run for another World Series, and the New England Patriots have a challenging season, life on the Picton Castle is pretty sweet. We are finally heading south and will be enjoying some nice warm weather; long ocean passages; and more fantastic ports. Our next stop will be Portugal.

Until then, thanks for reading,

-john

Here are some pictures from my time in France (except the Paris trip)as well as some pictures from the passage to Spain.

Wales and France

2008-10-01T03:02:00.002-04:00

My time in Wales was very nice. I have never been to that part of the United Kingdom before, but found it quite friendly and welcoming. As I mentioned in my last blog post, we spent two nights anchored near a small town called Dale and then spent five nights alongside a dock in the town of Milford Haven.

While in Milford Haven we were visited by a large number of school children as well as people from the town that had a connection to the ship. From the late 1920's until the 1940's the Picton Castle fished out of Milford Haven. You may remember that the sails and rigging were only added during the retrofit in 1997 and originally she was a fishing trawler. Many people that had worked on her in those days came to view the ship. It is always fun talking with these people and hearing about what they did so many years ago. They are always thrilled to see what the ship has become. I suppose that it is like seeing an old friend that you have not seen in quite a while and noticing how much they have changed, but how much is still the same.

About ten miles away from Milford Haven is the actual Picton Castle, castle.
The people that open it to the public came for a visit to the ship one day and hosted groups from the ship at the castle on two different days. We all got to see the castle that the ship is named after, though that is the only thing that connects the two. The original part of the castle is from the 1400's. But like most castles, it has been extensively updated and changed over the years. It really is just another castle in the countryside, but it was extra special because our ship was named after it.

I took one of my off watch days and made a journey to Cardiff to see my friend Benjamin Kaminski play the viola. I had not seen Ben in at least four years and had probably not heard him play the viola in more years than that. I had a great day in the city; it was fantastic getting caught up with Ben and hearing him play. Ben was giving his final exam recital on Friday evening, but since we set sail the day before, I was not going to be around for that. It just worked out perfectly that he had this brief lunch time concert booked on a day that I could travel to the city. Visiting with Ben reminded me how special long term friendships are, even if there are years in between meetings. Keeping a connection with friends from the past is not easy at times, but is so important.

Our passage to Saint Nazaire was incredible. We have been so fortunate with weather these last few weeks. No one would have expected that we would have sailed from Wales through the Bay of Biscay to this place and had perfect sailing weather. The wind was from the east most of the time, and just when we needed it to turn northerly, it did and we continued to sail. It was spectacular, we sailed all but the last few miles into the locks and to the dock.

I spent the week working with Chris in the engine room again. I am really getting to know how things work, but there is so much more to learn. Chris is a great person to learn from because he is so patient. It will be nice to get back on deck again though; at times I fell a little separated from the rest of the crew.

We have now sailed into our tenth country and twenty-first port on this voyage. It seems like a long time ago that we were all meeting for the first time in Lunenburg Nova Scotia. I guess five months is quite a while, but sometimes it seems like it's just flying by. Occasionally I stop to think about all the places we have been and things we have seen, it really is spectacular. Waking up each morning and calling the ship home is special. Like my buddy Jim is fond of saying, “Who's luckier than us?”.

I am not sure what I will be doing while in France. We are close enough to Paris to make a trip out of it over a night or two, so that might happen. The city of Saint Nazaire doesn't have much to offer, but it is pretty close to some really nice countryside and famous places. When we leave here we head to La Coruna, Spain, which is on the north west corner of the country. Those will probably be the topics of my next blog post.

Here are some pictures from Wales, some you might have seen before.

Thanks for reading,

-john

Ipswich, England to Milford Haven, Wales

2008-09-23T06:30:00.002-04:00

We arrived in Ipswich on September 7^th after having spent three nights anchored off the coast of Holland waiting for some gales that kept moving through the English Channel. The town came out to meet us; we even had a reception with the Mayor on board the first night we were there. Ipswich was very comfortable. The city really made us feel quite welcome. One afternoon I went with a small group from the ship to visit Des Pawson and his rope/knot museum. Des is a special person, in 1993 when the ship stopped in Ipswich for six months he became friendly with the crew and has kept in contact with some of them since then. He is one of the worlds experts on making things with rope and has created quite an interesting collection of tools and rope objects that he has displayed in a small building on his property. He has written several books, one of which I bought and he signed for me. That will become a very special treasure from this trip, especially once I actually make something from his book. In addition to the book, I also bought some other things that will go into my ditty bag... I guess I am slowly filling that as we go along.

On Wednesday the 10^th, we were supposed to leave Ipswich and make our way through the channel to Wales, but we did not leave due to weather. I spent the afternoon visiting some museums with Gary and Cody. That evening we watched the English National Football (soccer for those of us in North America) team beat Croatia for one of the World Cup qualifiers. When this trip started I vowed that I was not going to watch a movie or TV for the entire year and until watching that game, I had been good on that promise. But I think I can rationalize that watching sports on TV is not much different than going to watch a game live, and certainly that would be fine.
The next day we didn't leave Ipswich either, so Gary and I took the train to Colchester, which is said to be the oldest settlement in England dating back to before Roman time. We did a tour of a castle keep and had a view of an old Priory from the 1100's. It was a very nice day away from Ipswich, we even had a picnic lunch before it began to rain. No caviar this time, but that was fine, we stuck to traditional English picnic treats, which included meat pies, pate, cheese and bread. Of course there was a bottle of wine, but in cups this time, not old beer cans like we used in Denmark.
Finally on the morning of Friday, September 12^th, we departed Ipswich. Our visit to Ipswich was fantastic. The town really rolled out the red carpet to greet us and make us feel welcome, but after six days it was clearly time to move on. We had spent a couple extra days in Ipswich because of some high winds that were blowing in the English Channel. We were nice and snug in Ipswich and had time in the schedule to wait for the worst to past; so we did. Here are some pictures from our time in Ipswich.
The winds were pretty light when we left, but they were from the east, which meant that they were directly in front of us, so we had to motor. After two days of motoring the captain decided to make a stop in Portsmouth England. We were all pretty disappointed to be making another stop especially because we had all planned on being at sea the better part of a week. We had spent about six days in Ipswich two days earlier and it just seemed too early to be in a port town again, especially with the weather so nice, other than the wind being from the wrong direction.
We ended up spending two days in Portsmouth, which gave everyone one day off in town and one day to work on the ship. Portsmouth is a very old navy town and is now home of the Royal Navy National Museum. Geoff, Matt and I spend four hours touring the old ships that they have on display there and could have spent more time. The oldest ship they have is in the process of being preserved. The Mary Rose is considered to be from the very first generation of naval ships. She was built in the early 1500s, sank in 1545 and was covered in mud and silt for hundreds of years before she was raised to the surface in the later 1970's. For many decades she has been undergoing a preservation process to save the remaining structure. It was fascinating to see what remains of this ship, the oldest of it's kind anywhere in the world.
The next oldest ship they had with the HMS Victory, which is the oldest commissioned warship in the world. The ship was commissioned in 1778 and remained in active service until 1812. HMS Victory is the ship that Lord Admiral Nelson was on during the battle of Trafalgar where he also died. That battle and the ship are a VERY BIG DEAL in British history. It seems every town along the coast has something named after him, including the hotel that I am now sitting in!
The third ship that we toured was the HMS Warrior which was from 1860. This ships is an iron clad ship which could run on steam engines as well as sails. The smoke stacks get lowered below the decks while she sails. The ship is absolutely enormous. She is really the last ship with sails to be commissioned in the navy. She was so big and so powerful that she was mostly used as a deterrent to battles. She never actually fired a shot in battle. Just her presence was enough for the battle to be over.
Our time in Portsmouth was quite nice, but it was also nice to get underway again. Here are some pictures from our visit to Portsmouth.

On Tuesday, September 16 we left Portsmouth and set sails for Milford Haven in Wales. The wind was excellent and we planned to sail as much of the way to Wales as we could. Sailing through the English Channel is pretty exciting and not many ships are fortunate to sail from east to west as the wind is almost always from the west.
After our night watch on the 16^th (actually 12am to 4am on the 17^th), Mike, the Chief Mate asked me if I would like to work as a day man in the engine room for the rest of the trip to Milford Haven. I had expressed interest in doing this early on in the voyage and was thrilled to have the opportunity now. Working as a day man meant that I was basically working from 8am to 6pm and not standing a night watch. It makes for long days, but nice nights of full sleep; there are always trade offs. I learned a great deal about how the ship works below decks. We have two water makers on board (one we use most of the time and an older one for backup). We also have two generators for charging the batteries and of course a main engine which moves us through the water when the wind won't cooperate. The engine room is full of all sorts of cool equipment and it was quit challenging getting to know all the gear and how it works in a short amount of time. Chris, the Chief Engineer is extremely patient and did a great job of explaining everything (sometimes more than once) and letting me run things as much as possible.
The diesel engine is a 7 cylinder B&W Alpha from 1965. It is started with compressed air, as is one of the generators. All the time the engine is running we have to monitor the temperature of everything and the pressures to make sure everything is running just fine. We did end up motoring for a while since the wind just died on us and we needed to get to Wales. Working in the engine room was a great experience and I will probably end up doing more of that down the road.
One afternoon the winds were pretty nice and the water pretty calm, near perfect conditions. The captain decided that it was a good time to launch the skiff and give everyone a chance to see the ship under full sail! That is an opportunity that doesn't come along very often for sure. It is never possible to see the ship under sail while you are on her, so having the opportunity to go out in a boat was fantastic. Pretty much everyone took advantage and their cameras and got lots of pictures of the ship under full sail... what a sight!
Before we arrived in Milford Haven we anchored for a night in a small place call Dale. We were about five miles from Milford Haven and had stopped to pick up a tv crew and two people from the Paul O'Grady Show. This is a show that runs on British TV and they were doing a segment with two regular people spending a day sailing on a tall ship. We took them out for a day and it could not have been a more perfect day for sailing. The segment will air on the show in the next two to four months. It will be interesting to see what they actually show. It took all day, but will probably end up being no more that 3-4 minutes on the show.
We are in Milford Haven now and will be here until the 25^th. The Picton Castle used to fish out of this port just after she was built in 1928 and did so for 20 years or so until world war two when she then used by the British Navy as a mine sweeper. Not to far from here is the castle of whom the ship is named; I guess that makes it the Picton Castle castle.
This stop will be our last of it's kind. Since arriving in Europe in June most all of the ports we have stopped at had something to do with the ship's past. From here will will start heading south to France.
I will be visiting the Picton Castle castle today. Tomorrow I am taking a three hour train journey to visit with my friend Ben Kaminski in Cardiff. I doubt I will have time to post pictures from both of those excursions before we leave Wales so they will be in my blog posting in our next port.

Here are some photos from the passage from Portsmouth to Milford Haven.

Thanks for reading.

-john

Tall Ship Festivals

2008-09-08T05:17:00.002-04:00

I am torn between making more frequent blog posts or keeping them infrequent. It has been several weeks since I have posted anything here and that seems like a long time. I have decided to just lump together the experiences from the last two tall ship festivals. A lot of what goes on at these is quite similar. I don't know how some ships do seven or eight of these. We did three and that was more than enough. The festivals themselves are fun, but they take a lot out of everyone.

We arrived in Den Helder in The Netherlands about a day after most of the ships did. We got caught in some bad weather and had to wait out the winds so that we could make it there. Coming in a little late allowed us to make a grand entrance, which was kind of fun with hundreds of people lining the docks watching us make our way into our berth. I have said this before, but it still amazes me how the captain handles the ship. Mind you he touches no engine controls or turns the wheel, but gives the orders to get the ship in and out of some pretty tough places. This docking required us to turn the ship around in a spot just barely larger than the ship itself. It must have looked like a well choreographed dance to the people on the dock; but this was done with no rehearsal; just one chance to get it right. It is very impressive indeed.

This festival in Den Helder was pretty good. The harbor was not very well laid out for so many ships which made for lots of walking to get anywhere. That was not the fault of the festival organizers, just the reality of what they had to work with. Getting to the internet hall and crew center was a 20 minute walk, and the town that was only a few hundred yards away was a 25-30 minute walk. Once in town, it was a pretty fun place. We were so spoiled in Bergen that it probably isn't fair to compare the two places. Several crew members took the train to Amsterdam, but I decided against it. It was kind of expensive and would be about three hours round trip and not leave a lot of time to see the city given my watch schedule. Amsterdam will be there for another day sometime.
The second day of the festival was the crew parade and the Picton Castle once again showed everyone why we have the most fun. They didn't give out any awards for this parade, but clearly we would have won. On Friday evening, August 22^nd we had a party on board our ship for crew members from the Norwegian ships that we have become quite good friends with. It was a great party in true Picton Castle style, it even ended with about a 30 minute fireworks display just a few yards off our bow.
The 23^rd was the day for the “Parade of Sail”. All the ships had to make their way out of the harbor and then parade past a naval ship. With so many ships it took hours to get everyone out into the harbor, but it was well planned and we all just sailed around outside the harbor by the water front until it was time for the parade to start. I was at the helm most of the day which was pretty hectic at times with all the ships maneuvering around. It was a pretty long day, but it was nice to see all of the ships under sail. We were fortunate to be pretty close to the beginning of the parade so after we passed the reviewing point we were able to move to the outside and basically hold in one spot and watch everyone come by. After the parade we headed back to Den Helder to tie up for the night before making our way to Bremerhaven Germany.

Here are some photos from our time in Den Helder

We had great winds for our sail to Germany. Actually, as frequently happens, we had too much wind. Combined with the current we were going too fast and could have arrived at the wrong time. We had two choices, reduce sail and try to go slower or get close and anchor and wait for the proper tide to make the approach through the river to Bremerhaven. We ended up doing the later, which was awesome because the sailing was so good.
We were up early in the morning of August 26^th after spending the night at anchor. We had a pretty good ways to go to get to the locks and the entrance to Bremerhaven. After lunch we were at the locks and had to get through them. These locks are extremely small and quite challenging to get into from the outside due to the current and the wind. I was at the helm for this, which was very exciting and kind of scary at the same times. It was quite a feat getting the ship into the locks. There were several hundreds of people lining both sides of the locks watching us make our way through. They gave us a round of applause as we exited the lock, to which the Captain removed his hat and took a bow.
Bremerhaven is a nice city. Our berth for the tall ship festival was right in the middle of things. It was very much a carnival atmosphere with food vendors and even a ferris wheel. I spent the first day exploring the city and checking out the maritime museum and going up the communications tower with Geoff and Cody. The weather wasn't very nice, but good enough that it wasn't raining all the time.
The next day I did a little shopping and visited some ships with Spenser. He was originally leaving the ship in Ipswich on September 10th, but has got the word that he is now able to stay for a couple more months and will be with us until at least Mallorca Spain in November. Spenser is such a great shipmate it would tough to see him leave, it is really wonderful that he is not leaving just yet; hopefully he can stay even longer.
Friday the 29^th was my watch's turn to be on the ship for the day. The original plan was to do some work on the ship and open for tours at 1pm, but that all changed when a huge food order arrived that was not supposed to arrive until the next day. We got 10 pallet loads of food which all had to be loaded into the freezers and cargo hold of the ship. It was a huge job and took until well after 1pm to finish. The crew parade was also that afternoon, but everyone was so wiped out from the food delivery that we ended up not doing the parade this time. I am sure we were missed.
My next day off was Saturday the 30^th. I ended up taking the train to Hamburg with Cody and explored the city for the day. We wanted to get to a ship chandler (which is a store that sells all sorts of ship supplies), but stores in Germany tend to all close pretty early on Saturdays. The big one we wanted to get to closed at 1pm, which was out of the question since our train didn't arrive until nearly 12:45. We did eventually find another chandler, but it had closed at 2pm which we were also too late for. No worries though, there will be plenty more stores. We had a great day walking around the city and exploring the park that takes up a huge part of the center of the city. Had a couple nice meals and then a train ride back to Bremerhaven. It was a fantastic day, nice and sunny too. It felt like summer again.
The next day, which was Sunday, we were supposed to leave Bremerhaven and make our crossing of the North Sea to Ipswich England, but the lock was way too busy and after waiting a few hours to get scheduled for a time through it the captain gave up and decided that we would just leave Monday morning.
I have said before that holidays seem to come and go aboard ship with hardly a notice. Monday was Labor Day back home (and in Canada too), but aside from a note on a calendar it was just another day on the ship. I thought of friends getting together for the end of summer cookouts, spending the last weekend at the lake in New Hampshire and doing all those “normal” things. But aboard the Picton Castle, we were casting off dock lines and heading out to sea again. Just a “normal” day, which even after four months stills seems like a dream.
The weather in the North Sea can be pretty rough especially near the Dover Straight and the English Channel. This time of year it's possible to get one gale after another just ripping through the channel and making it nearly impossible to make headway. Sailing ships have spent weeks just trying to get through at times. We ran into just the same problem. We traveled about 150 nautical miles and ended up anchoring less that two-tenths of a mile from where we had anchored before arriving in Den Helder on August 18^th where we waited out a gale for two nights. This time we spent three nights and it was September 5^th before we were underway again. We still had strong head winds, but nothing like that had passed the last few days.
September 4^th was my birthday aboard, which is not all that special because everyone that is on the trip for the year will have one. I was not planning on saying anything about it and just let the day pass. Word got out though when Corey somehow remembered a conversation we had in May back in Lunenburg about birthdays. It was a very nice birthday, with cake, candles and singing; but the special part was that I got to spend it at sea with a great group of people, albeit at anchor.
Tall ship festivals are a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. Doing three of them was just right as it took the first to figure it out; the second to enjoy it; and the third to be tired of them.
We are now in Ipswich, which is on the south east coast of England, still on the edge of the North Sea. Ipswich is very nice as we are the only tall ship in town. They have the red carpet laid out for us and are very excited for us to be visiting. In a sense, it will be a festival of one ship and we will be the center of attention. The night we arrived the city through a reception just for us on board the ship. The Mayor of the City was there welcoming everyone to Ipswich. We had wine and food and lots of prominent people from the city were invited. They have truly opened their city up to us and it feels very special.
When the captain brought the Picton Castle from Norway to America in 1993 they stopped for about six months in Ipswich, so there are plenty of people that made contacts with the ship during her extended visit. Once we leave here around the 10^th we will be making our way through the English Chanel to Wales. We have 10 days planned for that crossing and depending on the weather, that might be a lot more days than we will need, or not enough. Time, tide and weather will tell that story.
Thanks for reading,
-john

Here are photos of the stop in Germany:

Bergen Norway to Den Helder Netherlands

2008-08-21T12:49:00.002-04:00

On Friday August 8^th we arrived in Bergen Norway for the start of a large tall ship festival. The host city of Bergen did an outstanding job of making all the ships feel at home. We arrived and were escorted into the harbor to the playing of the Canadian National Anthem. It was quite impressive and made us feel very welcome. We were one of the earlier ships to arrive, so we got to see some of the others come in over the rest of the afternoon and the following day.

On Saturday, I was off watch so I had the entire day to explore the festival and the city. One thing that was very nice was the fact that all the ship's crews got free laundry service. I know that doesn't sounds like much, but it really is nice. I think pretty much everyone dropped off everything they owned at the laundry in the morning. I know I had about 3 weeks worth of stuff. The mountain of laundry bags was quite impressive. The guy running the place was fantastic, which meant that he was going to get a lot more laundry to wash. After the laundry drop off I took the funicular railway to the top of one of the peaks over looking the city. This was quite cool because I got a great view from there and got to watch some of the ships arriving, including the one from Mexico which put on quite a show.
After lunch, Corey, Geoff and I went visiting some of the other ships. Just saying we were from the Picton Castle usually meant that we got the “behind the ropes” tour. Which is exactly what we would do for crews visiting our ship. It is always nice to see how other crews live on their ships and talk to them about what they have been up to and what is next for them. It is a lot more interesting than looking at a bunch of coils of line on the deck.
That evening Eric's dad was on board with his guitar and we ended up having a sing along on the well deck. He is such an incredible musician. No matter what the song, within a few seconds he knew the tune and was able to join in, it is very impressive. It was a very nice way to spend time with Eric and his family. Eric is one of the five crew members that left the ship in Bergen. They will all be missed a great deal, but I will especially miss Eric because I have know him since the first days of October last fall when we both showed up in Lunenburg for our interviews. Hopefully he is able to come back and rejoin the ship for more of this voyage.
On Sunday, I was also off watch again so I had more time to participate in things. This day was very overcast, and later turned to rain in the afternoon. For Sunday, there were several competitions planned between all the ships. I had signed up for the tug of war, but we ended up not having enough people to participate. These events are really designed for the ships with much larger crews. We did participate in the basketball, volleyball, and were also able to get into the Viking Ship Rowing event at the last minute. We were in the very last race of the viking ships and as expected, won the event! With only nine oars, our crew beat the previous record (using ten oars) and came away with first place. For winning we were given a cool guitar and some other prizes. That afternoon was the crew parade in the rain. We all wore island shirts and foul weather pants and did crazy walking and formations and things all during the parade. We were clearly the ship that had the most fun and actually were awarded second place for the parade!
That evening was also the crew party which was pretty fun. It was also kind of sad though since it was the last time that we would spend with a couple of the guys that were leaving the ship. Both Tim and Peter were leaving early the next morning. I have come to realize that saying good bye to shipmates is a lot harder than I expected. We have been together for so much time that it will not seem the same with someone missing. Tim and I were on every watch together for the entire time, so I especially got to know him quite well. A part of the ship leaves with everyone, but also a part of everyone becomes part of the ship.
Monday was an on watch day for me, which meant that I had to stay on board all day with the others from my watch. The weather was pretty miserable with steady rain and cold. Normally we would be doing ship tours most of the day, but canceled them in the morning because of the weather. The afternoon was a bit brighter, so we opened up for a short time until the weather got nasty again. Chibley, the ship's cat has been missing for a couple of days. Everyone is on look out for her.
Tuesday was the day for the parade of sail and the start of the race from Bergen to Den Helder. We found out in the morning that we could not participate in the race. It appears that they have a rule that at least ½ of the crew be under the age of 26. We don't meet that requirement, so got disqualified. These rules seem to be a bit arbitrary since they have other rules that they were not enforcing, but it was out of our control. We left the dock anyway to participate in the parade of sail with the other ships with everyone on board except Chibley. It was tough leaving the dock without her since she is such a part of the ship. She is the cat that has been on four world voyages and has more time at sea than nearly everyone on board. After the parade of sail, it was announced that we would return to the dock area for the night and have an all out search for Chibley. I think everyone was relieved to hear this. It was just not a comfortable feeling leaving her in Norway. The news of the missing cat and our return made national news in Norway. We had fliers printed and everyone that stopped by the ship asked about her. About 7:30 that evening Chibley was returned. Some people had found her two days earlier eating a cheese burger in an alley and had taken her home. She is not a cat that likes being indoors, I can't imagine what she was like in some stranger's home. It is great having her back; with her return we have a very happy story to tell.
The next morning, with everyone on board we got underway to Den Helder. We are using a different watch schedule than we have so far. Normally we have 3 watches that rotate on a 4 hour on, 8 hour off system. For this crossing we are using what is being referred to as the “Scandinavian Watch System”. The ship has been divided into two watches and we have five different times that we cycle through. The watches are midnight to 4am; 4am to 8am; 8am to 1pm; 1pm to 7pm; and 7pm to midnight. Having 5 times and 2 watches means that each day is different from the previous day. It also means that the time to get the most sleep is during the day. I don't think too many people are very happy with this system. It does mean more people on watch at a time, which makes sail handling easier, but it also means that there is no time to relax, All we do is stand watch, eat and sleep.
The wind had been variable, some days light, other days nice wind. The passage was pretty good all in all. On Sunday the 17^th of August we had a really nice day. Sundays at sea normally mean no ship's work to be done. This has been a tradition with sailors for a very long time and is no exception on the Picton Castle. We still stand our watches, but during our watch time we can work on individual projects and do things for ourselves. In the old days, it was when the sailors would write letters home, wash and mend clothing and things like that. I didn't see any mending of cloths on Sunday, but nearly everyone was working on their ditty bags. I have finally got mine finished. I don't have a lot of things to put in it right now, but that will probably change. It was a fun project for sure and one that I will keep for ever.
On Monday we got pretty close to Den Helder. The wind had shifted around and was blowing directly from the way we needed to go. Since we can't sail into the wind (we need the wind from the side or behind us) we motored all day. Just around supper time the wind really picked up it's speed and we could not make any more forward progress. We have a very strong engine on board, but that was not enough to push the ship through the wind. It was clear we were not going to make it to Den Helder so we ended up finding a nice spot to anchor for the night and all day on Tuesday as well as the wind didn't decrease until overnight Tuesday, and they didn't decrease by much.
Tuesday was spent on board the ship going through various workshops with the mates. We had a workshop on weather forecasting by Mike, the Chief Mate; 2^nd Mate Paul taught navigation; and 3^rd Mate and Purser Lindsey taught sail trimming, setting and striking. All three workshops were excellent and a great way to spend the day at anchor. There were several Dutch sailboats sailing around the anchorage we were in. It was kind of neat watching them as they came close by to check us out. The wind continued to howl, but our very heavy anchor was well dug in and held us in place perfectly.
Wednesday morning we were all up at 5:45am to get underway. The wind was still blowing pretty hard and we had 25 miles to go, so it would take us about 7 hours to get to Den Helder. The next tall ship festival was getting underway so we needed to get there and join the party.
We will be in Den Helder until Saturday and from then we make our way to Bremerhaven in Germany for another tall ship festival. That will be our last festival event, which will be a good thing. I think 3 will be plenty.
Thanks for reading.

Here are some pictures from Bergen and the passage to Den Helder.

-john

Sweden and Norway

2008-08-08T23:06:00.002-04:00

We have been working our way closer and closer to Bergen Norway, the location of a huge tall ship festival and race. We are currently in Bergen which will be our most northerly point on this year long Voyage of the Atlantic. From here will be heading generally south for quite some time. The next blog post should be about the tall ship festival and the race to The Netherlands. For now, I need to fill in the gaps of what has happened since we left Denmark on July 27^th.

Before we left Copenhagen our watches got mixed around. This allows us a chance to work with some different people. I am now on the 12-4 watch, which is a quite a bit different from the other watches I have been on. The day time stretch is fine, we do a lot of ship's work, which is kind of fun. It really is enjoyable taking care of the ship with projects. The evening part is a bit tough since we are up from midnight until 4am. The nights in this part of the world at this time of the year are pretty short. The sun does set, but the sky never gets completely dark. The red/yellow glow just moves across the edge of the northern horizon and by 3am it is really starting to get quite light. Had we been here a month, earlier the sun would not have even set that much. The sun is just part of the night... it's still pretty late no matter how light it is.

On Monday morning, the 28^th of July we arrived in Marstrand Sweden. It is a lovely little island, which kind of reminded me of Nantucket with the expensive houses and boats everywhere. It's a bit smaller than Nantucket and the coast line is all rocks, much like the coast of Maine. It is still very much summer here so we hit the “beach” and then just explored the town. At the center of the island is an old fortress from the 1500's. From there you get a nice panorama of the entire area. It sure is beautiful here and it is really nice to still have summer weather. The weather was so nice that the next day we had a BBQ on the ship for those of us on watch. It just felt like BBQ weather. No pulled pork like from the Dover Rollin' Smokehouse, but excellent none the less.

On Thursday, July 31 we left Marstrand for our seventh country (that would be Canada, Ireland, England, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway) on this voyage. Hard to imagine that we have been so far in the last 2.5 months since leaving Lunenburg, but yet there is still so much more of the trip to go.

This was another overnight sail. With the weather so nice, we knew we were in the middle of a high pressure system. This is great for sun, but not so great for wind which was very light and mostly in our face. Unfortunately this meant we ended up motoring most of the way to arrive in Kristiansand on the south west coast Norway. This part of Norway is made up of very deep water fjords. We wanted to anchor close to the city, but we were unable to since the water was over 100 feet deep. We could anchor in that depth, but we would have all we could do to raise the anchor afterwards. We ended up coming alongside a dock on a small island near the city. The island is the home of an historic shipyard that is in the business of restoring steel ships using traditional methods. The city itself didn't really have very much to offer, so we made our own fun. Since it was still very much summer weather an island cookout was in order. We loaded up two boats and went to another small island nearby and had a great time cooking, singing and doing all those other cookout things. Here are some pictures from Sweden.

August 3^rd we left the dock around 9am and headed to Stavanger Norway. The winds were pretty light, but we were able to sail. Since it was a Sunday we had very little ship's works to do. This was a pleasant surprise. I was able to work on my ditty bag and get that nearly done. I probably have about another hour or so and it will be complete. Not sure what I will do with it, but it was fun to make.

We sailed through the night and arrived in Stavanger, which is the home town of Kjetil, one of our professional crew. Kjetil has sailed around the world on the last world voyage as a trainee and spent a lot of time working on the ship since then. He is a great guy with so much to teach everyone and he has great sense of humor. It was nice visiting his home town and getting to spend some time with his friends and family.

We were only in Stavanger for a couple of days however. We moved along to a small island and a town called Kopervik, which is where the captain bought the ship in 1993. The ship had been fishing out of Kopervik for 20 years so the town's people were very excited to see her again. This was the first time she had been back since 1993 and of course, looks quite a bit different. When she left she was a diesel fishing trawler that used to also haul cargo from place to place. Now she is a majestic tall sailing ship all very shiny and polished. It was an awesome visit; the entire town came out for a party.

We were there only one full day, and I was fortunate to have the day off. The man that sold our ship to the captain owns a ship that is rented out for dinners and parties. He invited everyone to come for a trip with him to Stavanger as he had to bring his ship there. This ship is pretty interesting. It has in it the only 4 stroke diesel engine still in operation. We had a great trip, even though it was to a place that we had just left the previous morning. It was really nice being on board someones ship and having no responsibilities at all. They even opened the bar up to us, which was very nice so we spend the 3+ hours playing cards, drinking beer and having a grand time. When we got to Stavanger, I had some lunch with some shipmates and the managed to meet up with Kjetil and his brother. They gave me a tour of the area that included a visit to a cool monument that commemorates The Battle of Hafrsfjord which the united Norway around 827. We also looked at some other interesting sights and I got some pictures from the tallest hill around Stavanger. It was a really nice opportunity to see more of the country. These are some pictures from Norway so far.

On Friday the 8^th we left Kopervik and made the trip to Bergen... Lots and lots of tall ships here in Bergen. More of that next time.

Thanks for reading,

-john

A Fortnight and more in Denmark

2008-07-26T13:11:00.002-04:00

On Monday July 14 we arrived in Svendborg Denmark, which was the beginning of just over two weeks in an amazing country. I have never been to Denmark before and I am quite in love with the place to say the least. Denmark is a beautiful country filled with friendly, helpful people. We have visited 3 cities; each one very different from the other.

Denmark is a country made up of many islands. Svendborg is on the southern end of the island of Funen, which is the 2nd largest island. The shipyard and ferry terminal dominate the waterfront area. Many wooden ships and other types have been made or restored at the shipyard. The city itself is very old and only a short train ride from the city of Odense, which is the 2^nd largest city in Denmark. Odense is the birth place of Hans Christian Anderson; there are many statues around the city related to his stories. We were in Svendborg for 3 days which meant that each watch would get 2 days off and work 1 day. I spent 1 day exploring the city of Svendborg and also doing laundry. It had been a few weeks since I had laundry done, so it was time. The other day off I took the train with some shipmates to Odense and wandered the town for the day. Both days were excellent and the train ride to Odense was a nice way to see a bit of the countryside. Things are quite a bit more expensive in Denmark then they have been so far, but aside from that it's a wonderful place.

On July 18^th, we left Svendborg and had a day sail to the town of Korsor which is on the large island of Sjælland (pronounced (Zealand). This was not a planned stop for us originally, but one that was a great side trip. On this day sail we had a couple of passengers on board; one who is a musician. We were in Korsor to take part in a weekend of wooden ships in the town. Our ship is made of steel, with steel masts, so no exactly wooden. It was great showing her off to everyone. There were about 40 old wooden ships there by the end of the weekend. On Monday morning July 21 all the ships left the harbor and started a race around the island of Funen. It would take them 6 nights to complete the race as they were stopping in a different port each night. We only started the race with them and broke off to make our way around the north of the island of Sjælland to Copenhagen. Our journey would take us 1.5 days of sailing.

We arrived in Copenhagen around mid day on the 21^st. The sun was out and it finally felt like summer. For some reason it seemed every time we arrived in a new port the locals would tell us how warm it had been just the week before. We arrive and it's cold... but today was different. Of course it is getting near the end of July, so it should feel like summer, but so far that has not been case.

Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, is a wonderful city. It is very easy to get around; there is a lot to do and the people are very friendly. I was quite fortunate to get 3 ½ days off during our 4 ½ day stay. On the first day, Gary (the doctor) and I used a couple of the ships' bikes and cycled around the city. We visited the Little Mermaid, which is the Danish version of the Statue of Liberty. We cycled all over the place and got back just after dinner.

The following day Gary and I took the train to a town called Helsingor (Elsinore in English). We were there to visit the Kronborg castle. The castle is also known as the Hamlet Castle, because it is the one that Shakespeare featured in “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark". Hamlet, of course was not real, but the castle very much is. Shakespeare never visited the castle, but it is very likely that actors of the time would have traveled to Denmark and given reports about the castle. The castle was first built in 1425, added to and rebuilt several times. The history is fastening and the ground are fantastic, which makes sense as it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The castle sits at the seaward approach to the Baltic sea and has always been a landmark for ships returning to Copenhagen. Danish ships upon seeing the castle on their starboard side knew that they were very close to home. Gary and I had a great day. We bought some wine, cheese, bread, fruit and even some caviar to have a bit of a picnic at the castle. Not having any wine glasses, we also bought a couple cans of beer to drink the wine out of. Normally I would have no problem drinking wine out of the bottle, but Gary being a dentist, I guess has a problem with that. I am quite sure we are the very first people to ever have wine from a can and caviar at the same meal.

Thursday the 24^th of July was a work day for my watch on the ship. We spent the day cleaning her and doing some painting projects. It is always nice to be working on the ship in port since we are able to get so much done. Since we are alongside a dock, it is kind of like working in a fish bowl since there is a steady stream of people coming by and watching is. It is almost like we are on display as much as the ship is. We all like talking about the ship, so a short break now and again to answers questions is always welcomed.

The lat two days I have been off watch and spent the time seeing the rest of the city. The Italian Navy has a training tall ship, Amerigo Vespucci that has all been visiting the city. In the morning several of us went to have a look around. She is enormous to say the least. Of course, she has to been since there are 400 crew members on board. What a beautiful ship she is, lots and lots of brass and everything is so much bigger than we are used to. We were not able to go below decks to see their living quarters, but we got close.

Denmark is a great country and the city of Copenhagen is remarkable. It is the hight of summer, so the crowds of tourists are here. The city is very alive and I would not hesitate to put it on my list of places to maybe return one day.

Tomorrow we set sail for a small island in Sweden. We should be there for just a few days then it is off to Norway.

The adventure continues...

Thanks for reading.

-john

Here are some pictures from the last couple of weeks in Denmark.

England to Germany

2008-07-13T04:33:00.002-04:00

Our trip from Falmouth England to Kiel Germany would have taken us about a week had it not been for a slow moving low pressure system that kept bring gale force winds into the English Channel. We Left Falmouth as expected on July 2^nd, but ended up stopping in Brixham England, which was only about 70 nautical miles away from Falmouth. Brixham is famous for building a type of sailing ship called the Brixham Trawler; but for those of us from the New England area, it is also the place that built the Mayflower. You will remember the Mayflower from American history class, as the ship that the Pilgrims sailed to America on. The Mayflower II was built in Brixham in the 1950's and is in Plymouth Mass.

We were planning to stay in Brixham for only 2 days as the storms passed, but ended up being there nearly a week as storm after storm kept coming through. This was kind of rough on all of us since we really were ready to do some sailing and get back into the routine of being at sea. Brixham was nice enough, but more than a day on shore was a bit too much. Not much you can do about the weather, except probably complain about it when it's bad and wait for it to change. We have great big heavy anchors on the ship so riding out the storms was never a problem. The ship held perfectly and we waited making the most of our time.

The 4^th of July came and went just like any other day. Even on the ship, you would not have any idea that people back at home were all on holiday for a long weekend. I spent the day on board, as it was my watch's day on the ship. The cook, Donald, had the day off and Luke (the Aussie) and I were on galley duty. This meant that we had to do the cooking for the day. It is actually a nice change of pace. A lot of people would panic, but Luke and I have done this before, so it really was no big deal. We had a look in the freezers to see what we could make for lunch and dinner and had a good time creating a feast for everyone. For lunch we made pizza from scratch and cooked up a batch of fried rice. Making the dough brought back memories of working in the kitchen at Camp Resolute, except our oven here is a hundred year old cast iron stove that used to be heated by coal and as since been converted to diesel fuel. Lunch was excellent but was only a warm up for dinner.

We found a beef roast in the freezer so had taken that out in the morning to defrost. It was quite a find. Roasting that up for dinner wonderful along with a fresh salad and some cheesy garlic mash potatoes. I even made a nice apple crisp for desert. Gee mom, I never knew apple crisp was so easy to make! It was an excellent meal and got many glowing comments from everyone.

Brixham was a strange place. Clearly it was an old town, but had tried to become a tourist destination. Thursday was pirate day, which was very odd. It was nice enough but it had very few services that you would expect; especially coming from Falmouth that had everything. There was not even a place to do internet stuff, which was quite unexpected. Here are some pictures from the stop in England.

On July 7^th we almost left, but the weather just would not move one. We ended up all being on board the ship for the day, which was kind of nice. We spent the morning and part of the afternoon doing some drills. After spending so much time in port our sailing skills had got a bit rusty and we really needed the drilling. Later in the afternoon we all worked on making ditty bags, with some instruction from the captain. A ditty bag is just a canvas bag for holding tools and other things. Making a ditty bag is a practical exercise because it has all the same skills needed as making a sail. It is quite challenging and a fun project. My bag is coming along just fine. It's tough getting the stitching nice and even, but that is the point; I am clearly showing improvement.

Finally on July 8^th the weather had turned for the better and we set sail in the morning. We made our way though the English Channel and into the North Sea. The weather was quite foggy most of the day on the 9^th as we passed Dover England, but cleared just enough to see the white cliffs and all the cross channel ferries. There was a lot of shipping traffic, it seemed at times that we were on a highway. In a sense I guess we were, just the road was made of salt water. In the North Sea we started seeing lots and lots of oil and gas platforms as we passed Belgium and the Netherlands. We are sure to see a lot more of these as we get further north.

On Saturday July 12^th we arrived at the western entrance of the Kiel Canal. We planned to arrive just in time to pick up a pilot to guide us through the canal. There are locks at either end of the canal, so the first task was entering the locks, which was pretty cool. Once through the entrance locks we motored through the 54 miles of canal to the locks on the eastern side. It was very cool traveling through the German countryside. It was kind of like a tour of rural Germany, but on a boat. The canal is quiet large and several times we passed large container ships. We even passed the Semester at Sea ship “Explorer” as she was heading west.

At the end of the canal we exited the locks and made our way to the city of Kiel Germany; where we tied up to a dock We will be in Kiel for just a day to pick up some supplies and a couple of crew members. After Kiel we are heading to Svendborg Denmark early on the 14^th for a few days, then on to Copenhagen for several days.

Here are some pictures from the passage.

Thanks for reading.

-john