On Board at last Nov 10,08
I joined the ship Tuesday after a very long walk across the seafront of Palma. It seems that the cabbies won´t go to this dock here just saying ¨Military Military¨over and over again. So I had them drop me at the cruise ship port and I walked. As i did I saw that they were right there is amilitary base between the city and the port that the road goes around. Eventually I hauled all my stuff around and onto the pier.
The on watch crew were busy downrigging the mizzen topmast which is quite the operation. (edited to change the name of the mast proper like!)
Once aboard it was as if I had never left, everybody welcomed me back with open arms and lots of ´noshit there I was stories¨.
Once that settled down I was assigned a bunk, number 32, upper bunk on the port forward side of the salon if you´re interested. I then stowed all my stuff and was amazed that the sapce was much larger than I thought. In fact several people mentioned that they were surprised at how little I brought, now I´m nevrvous again about what I forgot.
They put me to work rustbusting the shrouds they had unrigged. Just like old times 
I stood my first dock watch last night between 3:00am and 5:00am `äll by me onsies, savy´. It was wonderful and incredibly quiet, so quiet that the squeaks from my shoes on the dew damp deck was loud.
Today we spent the day sanding the inside of the galley preperatory to getting it repainted as well as studying all the lines and eating really well. Kolin tells me I will be on the 4-8 watch at sea which means I will be able to see both the sunrise and sunset. I look forward to that.
Tonight I will do another dock watch, 5:00 till 6:00 but this time I will have another crewmember with me.
More later
Thanks for Reading
KJ
November 13th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Reading your note, the first thing to jump out at me was “The on watch crew were busy downrigging the mizzen topgallant mast….” Now, if you’d only written t’gallant as all truly authentic 19th. century nautical fiction types seem too, I’d have conclude you were already a salt dog.
The best thing - in my experience - about being out and about in the wee small hours is how amazingly quiet it becomes - when we were in Istanbul on Galaxy I awoke at some unreasonably early hour, was out on deck watching the never-ending ship traffic on the Bosphorus, and the early morning call to prayer began to be broadcast from the mosques - the eerie, wailing “Allaaaaa-hu Akhbar” calls drifting over even from the Asian side. As the various mosques chimed in, the calls built to a substantial crescendo, then gradually faded away, one by one. In the daytime, I’d never have heard them
Good sailing to ya!
November 13th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Nice to know you made it safely to the ship and were warmly welcomed.
I’ll look forward to more details once you find an internet cafe that speaks English (maybe in Gibraltar?)