Atlantic Passage

So we finally got to go ashore, by we I mean the four new guys, Nick, Jay, Rich and me only to discover that the power was off in the city.  So much for getting this posted.

We went wandering around and had avery pleasant afternoon shopping for things like Jay´s rubber boots and an LED head lamp for me.  After a late afternoon meal of chicken Fajita´s in an American Kitch(chen) restaurant the power came back and I was able to get online only to discover that the PC in the Internet cafe won´t read my memory cards so… blah hand tyoig and no pictoires (sic).

Sorry I´ll try to do better in future

Thanks for Reading

KJ

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

This part was remarkably simple, no canceled flights or lost luggage just a little trouble finding my shuttle driver at Palma airport.

After a stunningly beautiful drive through Switzerland, over a high snowy pass and down into the “lowlands” back to the airport, I boarded a Swiss Air flight and took off for the sunny south. It was with some sadness that I said goodbye to Francois and Ursula as they have been truly wonderful hosts and friends to this wandering sailor without a ship.

I arrived just as the Sun was setting into the Mediterranean. As we drove into Palma from the airport the setting sun silhouetted not one but TWO sets of lofty spars. It seems that the Picton Castle has company at the dock. So at least I know “my ship has come in”.

Tomorrow morning I will try to get me and my stuff over to get on board at last. Doesn’t seem real just yet. Hopefully I can get squared away without too much trouble and begin trying to remember all 130 working lines on the ship

Next post may be after I’m aboard or I’ll edit this one.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Today we went up into the high alpine. We walked up to the toe of a glacier at a place called Morteratsch which is between St Moritz and the Bernina Pass that leads to Italy. It was a beautiful sunny day with very little wind. The scenery was stunning you can check it out here

We then drove up the road to the top of the Bernina Pass where the snow is already a meter deep. Then we went back down and through St Moritz past the lovely lakes and looked down the steep pass that leads into Italy 1600m below.

It’s been great staying with Francois and Ursula, they are marvelous hosts. Thank you guys it has been fabulous!

I think Jayne and I will definitely have to come back sometime.

Tomorrow I fly to Palma Mallorca and try to find my ship so I can finally get to sea.

Wish me luck.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

I did manage to get to Zurich eventually.

After flying to Frankfurt first, and then finding that Lufthansa had cancelled my flight to Zurich too, I had to take another one on which my bags never got loaded… I was picked up by my friend Francois and his lovely wife Ursula and taken down to the town of Scuol in South Eastern Switzerland. This town is in the beautiful Engiadina valley and the house we are staying in is 400 years old!

When I got up this morning my bags were waiting outside my room having been delivered from Zurich Post Express by the efficient Zurich Airport Lost and Found

Today Francois and Ursula took me around the town and out to a couple of beautiful little villages up on the sides of the valley. We also went to two castles one in ruins the other, Tarasp, which has been restored and had a look around. You can see a few of the pictures on a Google Web Album here.

Tomorrow we are going to go up to the high alpine, weather permitting, should be nice. The valleys here look very much like valleys in BC but there are houses on the mountain sides in many places and some villages are perched way up high. The tall Larch trees are all turning colour much like the ones in our mountains although the colour is more orange than yellow (they look rather like pine beetle killed pines to me).

It’s hard to imagine that just 3 days from now I will finally be aboard ship getting ready to begin my sailing trip.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

So…

I’m posting this from the Terminal in Toronto where I now have to wait for another 3 hours to go to Frankfurt because Air Canada cancelled my connecting flight to Zurich!

Hmmm…  I thought it was going too smoothly.

At least the checkin agents in Calary didn’t try to send my bags off on that non existent flight.  They were waiting on the domestic carosel just as if it was planned that way. Odd thing is that they assured me they would be checked all the way to Zurich.  Blessings for small miracles I guess.

Next post will hopefully be from Switzerland on the weekend.

Thanks for reading
KJ

So tonight is the last night I will spend on this side of the Atlantic until late May 2009.

I’m mostly packed, the pile was surprisingly small when I started putting it into my duffel bag.  I wonder what I’m missing?

It’s an odd feeling knowing that after nearly 18 months of planning and worrying I’m almost ready to head out.  Not exactly anti-climactic or anything but odd nonetheless.

Winter has finally arrived in Calgary with some wet snow on the ground and temps around 0C.  With any luck after I get to Spain on Monday, where the forecast says it will be partly cloudy and 19C, I won’t see snow again till next year some time

More soon.

K

My Last Night on West Side of the Atlantic (part two)

Quick crosscheck of the packing discovered a couple of “nice to haves” that were missing so Jayne and I headed out to pick them up.  We took the long way home via Bragg Creek. A lovely drive through snowy country in the moonlight.

Once back I repacked the missing items and called my Dad to say bye.

Maggie from the Ship’s Office sent me a map for Palma showing whereabouts the ship is supposed to be berthed on Monday.  It looks like it’s a mile or so from my hotel but not too bad.  There are a bunch of Webcams you can check out here.  Perhaps the ship will show up on Monday.

Tomorrow morning bright and early I have to head to the airport and get this show on the road.

Wish me luck.

Thanks for reading.

KJ

Here is a link to a page on the Picton Castle’s website with everything you ever wanted to know about the safety equipment and other details about the ship.
An overview of elements that contribute to safety at sea in the Picton Castle
In case you were worried about what I’m getting into
KJ

One of the things that people, shipmates and others that have spent time at sea, have mentioned is that regular soap doesn’t work in sea water. There are several (relatively) expensive concoctions that claim to be “sea soap” sold in yachting and outdoor stores however most of the people I’ve talkd too swear by Joy dishwashing soap.

Unfortunately Joy isn’t available anywhere around here so I started doing some research and found that the common element amongst all these sea water usable soaps is coconut oil.

So off to Safeway I go looking for coconut oil based soaps and lo and behold there are lots! It seems that the trend to “organic” cleaners has meant that many soap products are now made, and proudly proclaimed to be at that, using “natural coconut derived” oils.

But would it work in sea water that is the question.

Time for some science said I

Being in the middle of the continent means sea water is a scarce commodity, google to the rescue.  Sea water is about 35g of salt per Kg of water. So, after whipping up my own personal bit of the great briny, I tested three different dishwashing soaps, two Organic Earth Friendly ones and one generic lemon based one. Surprisingly all three worked although of the three the one with the highest level of coconut oil (ie first on the ingredients list after water) worked the best.

It will be interesting to see how this stuff works on real dirty clothes in real sea water.  At least being organic and “Earth Friendly” and all it’s unlikely to eat my skin if I use it as shampoo too.

On a “man this is expensive note” I filled my anti-malaria prescription…

$350.00 later !!!

Good thing I’m able to save some money on the soap

Thanks for reading.

KJ

I’m writing this on a shiny new Asus EEE PC 701.

This lovely little sub notebook will be my link to all of you while I’m on my travels.

It is my one (fantastic) piece of “corporate sponsorship” donated by Tremar Computer Solutions of Cochrane Alberta. Thank You Guys!

If you haven’t seen one of these little beauties they are about the size of a trade paperback book. This one has an 1Ghz Intel (R) mobile processor which is underclocked to 630 Mhz for stability and power reasons. There is 512 MB of RAM and 4 Gigabytes of solid state hard drive storage. An SD Flash card slot and 3 USB 2.0 ports will allow me to move pictures from my camera easily. It has built in wireless and Ethernet and even has pretty good sound (actualy better than my usual laptop). It runs a custom Xandros Linux distubution which is very nicely laid out. The screen is about 7″ across but pretty bright, I can use it outside as long as the sun isn’t shining directly on the screen.

Here is a picture of one:

Did I mention that this is a COOL THING (TM).

So now in addition to packing and making sure all the myriad details of getting ready to leave are handled I have to make sure I know how to make this baby do all the things I will need it to do on my travels.

KJ