Our position is 39-48.7′N, 073-35.9′W, and we’re just outside the Ambrose to Barnegat traffic separation scheme at the entrance to the Hudson River, excited to be visiting New York in the morning! We’re here a little ahead of plan as we’ve had fair winds most of the way from Savannah so we’ve been able to sail almost the whole way and keep the engine off, which makes everyone happy. Even the engineer secretly enjoys the peaceful sound of water sloshing past the ship as she slips along – we’ve seen him on deck handling lines and everything. We are heading steadily NW now to get well clear of the traffic into and out of NYC; soon we will heave-to for the night and pick up our pilot early in the morning to guide us to our berth for the next few days at Hudson River Park’s Pier 25.

It was just another nice day at sea today: setting and stowing t’gallants, practicing sail handling with fewer people and fewer instructions as the crew get more confident and competent with their lines. Pizza for lunch. Elisabeth aloft tarring seizings, medical officer Jennie taking a turn at the helm. A gang cleaning the bulwarks, another gang clearing out the sole. The sole is a magical place, like a souk for sailors hidden under the floorboards in the main salon. Armpit deep and full of treasure: miles of sweet-smelling manila rope in big coils, spare sails and yards of heavy cotton canvas for making new ones, boxes of shackles, steel eyes, sheets of leather, carved wooden blocks. AB Aase made a diagram today of which sail is where in the sole – they kind of all look the same at first glance.

Right now it’s dinner time and the Captain is entertaining some of the crew over dinner in the mess. They are using a table cloth and everything. He says that it is a nice way to get to know crew and cook Donald gets to use some of his “cruise ship” presentation, which is very lovely indeed. The rest of us are finishing eating on the aloha deck or the quarterdeck. Beef stew, rice n’ peas, plantain and chocolate brownies for supper: comfort food to keep out the chill – it’s not warm like the South Pacific this far North in May. A little string band of ukulele and guitar has just started playing from the top of the galley house.

Tabby cat George is just eight weeks old, a tiny bundle of fur with wide eyes, big ears and a whippet thin tail. His belly is striped and he has four white paws and a tiny little white nose so he looks like he’s been caught with his nose in the cream.

George was adopted by Chief Mate Michael Moreland in Savannah, Georgia where he had been rescued that very same day by a local girl named Laura. When he was found, little George was a street-moggy, all skin and bones and big scared eyes, and he spent his first day on the ship just sleeping and eating. Soon his belly grew fat and round, and the rest of him will plump up soon enough too.

George is currently living in the mate’s cabin while he learns his job as Ship’s Cat, but he is enjoying his trips to the charthouse and promenades around the deck accompanied by the cooing of otherwise thoroughly salty sailor girls. He enjoys playing with string and hiding in dark corners like behind the desk in the office. He also likes having his face and belly rubbed. George seems pretty pleased with the crew for catching five beautiful fish in the last 48 hours – he especially enjoyed the fresh mahi mahi.

On the eastern edge of the Gulf Stream we were catching fish like mad, all sorts of tuna and mahi mahi. The fishermen and the cook all are pleased with the fishing. Almost like the South Pacific.

The crew are excited about heading out to the South Pacific too. They all are wondering who is signing up joining us for this once in a lifetime voyage, they want to know who their new shipmates will be as we head out for Galapagos and Pitcairn Island. Carpe diem!

We just took in the fore and main royal and stowed them. This gang is getting to be like old timers and they all steer quite well too, having never steered a sailing ship before a few short weeks ago. The gang is bending on some more fore’n'aft sail and a sail is getting repaired on the quarter-deck. Life is good.

Underway again and sailing is a good time to look back and reflect, so I want to tell you a bit more about our last port, Savannah, and the nice times we had there. Called Charleston’s “naughty little sister” she might be, but Savannah is a great historical port in her own right. Twenty miles from the sea, right on the river that divides South Carolina from Georgia, the town was built on the European cotton trade – at one time seeing the river full of ships, the view dominated by wooden masts, colourful flags flying from spars and white sails drying in the sun would have been commonplace, now it is a pretty special sight.

Savannah today is the third largest container port in the USA visited by eight or nine big container ships a day. The only other place I’ve seen so much commercial traffic is the Panama Canal. These ships look absolutely huge going up the narrow river and so close to our ships moored along the waterfront. The Picton Castle was moored right astern of the USCG Barque Eagle and we could look at the ships from the rooftop restaurants. The juxtaposition of past and present exists throughout the town too: the old cotton warehouses on the waterfront are now full of the bright lights of cafes, bars and little shops; the big old moss covered plane trees offer shade to people playing on their iPads. There was a real buzz about the town, and not just because of Tall Ships: people were graduating in caps and gowns, having their photos taken by proud parents; there were celebrations for Cinquo de Mayo; lots of people having lots of fun.

An enormous thank you is owed to the liaison officers and volunteers who gave their time to help make Savannah such a success for the Picton Castle too. Thanks especially to Harry J Fox and Ben T Franklin: for driving us all around town to get jobs done, taking the off watch to a fabulous lunch at the famous Mrs Wilkes’ (serious down-home Southern Cooking to which we were all invited) and delivering buckets of ice cream to the on watch at the end of a hot hot day. Thank you.

Monday morning, and it’s back to sea for the Picton Castle as we head north from Savannah towards New York City in the first leg of the Tall Ships Challenge races.

Just now we are under sail racing with the big USCG sail training barque Eagle and the replica of the HMS Bounty (built in Lunenburg in 1962 for the film with Marlon Brando – David Brown of Pitcairn Island, our chief engineer, got a big kick out of going aboard). The Mate is setting some more sail as the winds lay down as predicted for this evening, and we have been surrounded with jumping dolphins!

Savannah showed us a wonderful time and it feels like we’ve been on summer holidays. Memories of sunshine, ships, music and dancing. Thousands of visitors to the ship, wonderful to show her off. Excitement about the South Pacific voyage this fall is building – the other crews are jealous!

Five new hands signed on in Savannah, four trainee crew and one ship’s cat called George.

chief mate Michael and third mate Siri welcome ship s cat George aboard

Nadja on helm and Bob on the quarterdeck on the way into Savannah, photo by Norbert Stager

Picton Castle in the Parade of Sail at Savannah

Picton Castle sails in to Savannah, photo by Norbert Stager

sailing in to Savannah, photo by Norbert Stager

the tarpsl topsl on display advertising the south pacific voyage

View the the rest of this Album

Land came into sight overnight, now it’s a beautiful morning as we make our approach to Savannah, Georgia. Surrounded by ships: the barkentine Dewaruci (the Indonesian Naval tall ship following us in), fishing boats and container ships. A bunch of Navy ships were firing at each other a couple nights ago, doing all sorts of crazy manouvers, but their mock-war seems to be over now and they’re all quiet. Chief Mate Michael Moreland on the bridge guides us in. AB Allison is at the helm steering by the buoys. Crew are pretty excited about Tall Ships and visiting Savannah. I like that my first real visit to the USA is arriving by ship. 22 miles up this river we go.

Very tropical today with clear blue skies and small cumulous clouds here and there. We even see flying fish now and then, too. We had West Indian roti for lunch today. Roti is an East Indian word and the dish is sort of a Caribbean curry enchilada, pretty good too.

We’ve been busy busy aboard the Picton Castle as we sail from Bermuda towards Savannah, Georgia. Current position is 29o35′N 69o34′W and course is West by South. At Savannah we will join the rest of the fleet of the Tall Ships Challenge 2012, organised by Tall Ships America, so we will be on show to the public, and of course to a whole bunch of salty sailors. So we’ve been working hard to spring clean the ship, rub the winter sleep from her eyes and put her lipstick on so she’s all shiny and pretty and ready to be admired.

The last couple of days has seen sanding and varnishing of all the teak bright work on the quarter deck – binnacle, steering gear box, deck boxes. Lots of painting too: green trim on the charthouse, ensign red for the waterways, tropical blue on the breezeway overheads. In port in Bermuda we took advantage of the nice weather to have cold lunches and barbeque dinners for a couple of days so we could take everything out of the galley and the scullery and clean them all up, paint them all nice. And now Donald’s moved back into his galley, and all is well with the universe; Donald is more cheerful than ever in his sparkly domain, the food just keeps getting more amazing. You won’t starve on this ship, as one of the trainees pointed out today.

There was some final decorating to do in the galley – extra coats of varnish, painting trim – so the night watches pitched in and between 10pm and 2am everythining was prepped, painted and cleaned up, ready to light the stove again in time for breakfast. Was like having a little party of midnight-galley-painting elves busy in there. Got to be a business model there somewhere, hiring out the elves…

We’ve been having afternoon seamanship workshops too, so the crew can practice some marlinspike seamanship as well as practicing painting and cleaning things. So far we’ve learned eye splice, long splice, short splice and some seizings. Everyone’s got their own length of 3 strand manilla to practice on, some of them look more like hairy hedgehogs than others. Nothing that can’t be fixed with a good whipping though.

And this log entry was going to stop right there, but I got up this morning and had barely finished my morning cinnamon bun before I was up aloft on the t’gallant yard taking gaskets off so we could set the sail. That’s right, SAIL! The wind is still pretty light, about a force 3, but we’re hoping it will fill in later. We’re braced up sharp on a port tack, square sails, spanker, staysails and jibs all set. Engine’s off, generator will go off too at noon. Whoop!

The last time I saw Bermuda, she chewed me up and spit me out in the most romantic way possible. You in the unkempt fancy shirt, you know what I’m talking about. It was the kind of affair that leaves you woozy, disoriented, dumbstruck and always finding pink sand in weird crevices. In the end – and it’s a swift termination, always – in the end it always leaves you wanting more.

The universe is funny. Ten months after I last frolicked hand in hand with Bermuda, I was sailing back into St. George’s Harbour with a devilish glint in me eye. This time I was determined to be the one in the power position. This time I had security reinforcements to block pink sand from entering my VIP areas. This time I knew the exact ratio of rum swizzles to ice cream necessary for entering a higher state of brain power. There was no messing with me, no sir.

Of course, we all know what happens when you’re left at the whim of a beautiful seductress. All self-posturing flies out the window and once again you’re happily laying face first in a pile of rum cake, which you originally planned to present to your boss and/or grandmother.

After three-point-five days snuggled up at Penno’s Wharf, our Picton Castle crew leaves doe-eyed and dizzy after a long weekend of sweet Bermuda love. A healthy chunk of us were return visitors, having dropped by last year as our second-to-last stop on World Voyage V. We were all eager to re-visit favorite haunts. Some found pink sand beaches and swam in cool, turquoise waters. Many ventured to Hamilton, the capital city, in search of action and in some cases, sit in trees (???). Some claimed territory at the famous Swizzle Inn to partake in their signature Rum Swizzle. Some hiked around St. George’s to find forts, hidden bays and parks. Most of us considered it of highest priority to sip Dark & Stormys with Bermudian rum and ginger beer. For me, it’s nostalgia in a glass.

Of course, a few days in port allows for much ship’s work to be accomplished. Our girl will feel pretty sassy sailing for Savannah, as she got big-time gussied up by our diligent crew. The freshly painted galley and scullery have not grown tired of our admiring “ooooohhhs”; a newly varnished wheel box gleams aft of the helm; our favorite color tropical blue glimmers from the breezeway overheads. Our passage to Savannah will certainly find us armed with paint brushes, tar, sand paper and rust bust lust to ensure that heads will turn when we arrive for tall ships festivities.

As of Wednesday, April 25 we set sail at approximately 0700 for some southern hospitality. Due to the last dying remnants of Monday’s gale, we hung around for an extra day to let the seas calm down. Now that we’re satisfied with our Bermudian love affair, our sights are set on the siren call of biscuits, fried chicken and collard greens… lord have mercy.

We are looking at some poor weather for the next couple of days as a low pressure system blows through – looks like we will get off Wednesday bound for Savannah some 800 miles away. Our gang is a good one and settling right in, learning the ropes, working diligently and in good cheer.

The ship gets pretty scruffy looking over a Nova Scotian winter. Weather can be good enough for rigging and bending sail and stowing the ship but fog, snow and rain do not lend themselves to beautifying the ship. But here in Bermuda it is warm, sunny and soon with a pot of paint, tar or varnish and elbow grease of willing hands it all comes together. The ships skiff is getting painted up too, waterways overhauled and painted, galley painted out and the blue overhead in the breezeways are getting a bit of attention too. The ship’s office just aft of the charthouse is getting a good housekeeping overhaul too, as is the mess room.

But it isn’t all work as the off-watch finds plenty to do ashore on this fair island placed just where an island ought to be placed between the tropics and the higher latitudes to give wandering sailors and their ships a break from a North Atlantic sea passage. A bit squally today- should blow pretty fresh tonight- but we are as snug as can be.

2nd Mate Sam points out the best bar in St Georges

Bosun Susie and Mr Mate

Hoisting the Bermuda courtesy flag and the Q flag

Midships gang standing by

View the the rest of this Album