Atlantic Passage

Yesterday I spent a great day wandering around in town.
Found a great little Cafe at the top of one of the hills here with great coffee and good Internet, they even have power plugs at just about every chair.

One odd thing about St Georges is that all the big churches are missing their roofs and are slowly being rebuilt. From what I can tell this is the legacy of Hurricane Ivan.

Having a good Internet connection is a mixed blessing because it means I’m able to get all my personal stuff done and then I have time to do a bit of random surfing.

Big mistake!

The global economic situation is miserable and back home in Calgary things are not looking good for the oil patch.

So after a great relaxing day of walking around up and down hills in the hot Grenadian Sun I decided to check into the possibility of heading back to Calgary for a brief visit. Primarily to see my wife and family but also to touch base with my employer and to get a read on the prospects for the next couple of months.

That also is a dangerous thing, because once the world ashore gets it’s gaff hooked in a sailor’s gills it’s difficult to wriggle your way back to sea :-/

Oh well, as my fellow trainee WT is fond of saying “it is what it is” and I’ll just have to go and check it out.

Currently I’m scheduled to fly back to Calgary tomorrow, Saturday Feb 28, which will take nearly 24 hours and then fly back to Grenada next Saturday to make sure I’m here when the ship sails out on 8th of March.

In the meantime I have another lovely day to soak up the energy and vibe of this beautiful city with it’s fascinating and incredibly friendly people.

More later maybe…

Thanks for reading.
KJ
There are photos from my day ashore in St Georges here.

Spenser’s grandfather visited the ship while we were in Mindelo Cape Verde. While it was a nice surprise for Spenser he also went everywhere with a video camera.

He has posted a great video of us getting underway without using our engine. His narration is cool too.

You can check out the video here.

I’ve also added pictures from the last night at Carnival in Carriacou.

Had a great day yesterday ashore on Carriacou for the last day of Carnival.
David and I went for a hike along the shore North towards a large beach called Paradise Beach. Along the way we stopped on a point with a nice sandy beach and hung out for an hour enjoying the sun and sand.

Once we got to Paradise we had fabulous tall rum punches and relaxed in a shore side bar.

A 2.50 ECD cab ride back to town for dinner at the Hotel Laurena and I was good to go for the evening.

The hotel was having an after Carnival party so they began to clear out the restaurant to get setup. I started to pack up my laptop and stuff and they said I could stay so I sat in this big empty room with fabulous Caribbean music pounding at a nice comfy table with a good internet connection and power and enjoyed a nice long computer chat with Jayne

I then headed out to enjoy the last hour of party before the 11:00 skiff run and then went back to the ship and had a great sleep. It’s a good thing that there wasn’t another day of Carnival, it might have done some damage

This morning we up anchored and sailed off the hook and we are currently halfway to Grenada.

We should be there later in the afternoon and since my watch is officially on today I should be able to go ashore tomorrow which will be great.

More later…

It’s later and we are tied up to the pier in the inner harbour at St Georges Grenada. This is just temporary as we will have to move the ship tomorrow morning. The plan is to moor “stern to” that is with two anchors from the bow and two stern lines to the dock.

St Georges looks like a bustling town, very green and built up on the sides of the steep hills that surround the harbour. I’m looking forward to doing some exploring over the next couple of days.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

I spent the day yesterday ashore on Carriacou which is an island that belongs to Grenada.

It is Carnival here which is like Mardi Gras in New Orleans.
The people are very friendly and the atmosphere of Carriacou is very laid back. We are anchored just off the main pier at the biggest town called Hillsborough.

We hired a taxi and went for a tour of the island. On the opposite side we went to a village called Windward where there is a boatyard that builds traditional wooden boats. Being Carnival they were closed but we saw some nice boats at anchor off the yard.

The reefs on that side of the island really stand out from up on the hills (the highest point of the island is just 20′ short of being officially a mountain apparently). On the reef are three wrecks high and dry. One was tossed up there by hurricane Ivan and though relatively undamaged couldn’t be moved so there she sits.

After the tour we went back and basically hung out in town as the place got wound up for the nights festivities! Carnival here is really something, there are massive speaker banks set up outside on the street just far enough apart that the poiunding muic doen’t interfere with the next one. As it got dark everybody, old and young, came out on to the street and just chilled and danced. There were two steel band orchestras with 20 or more players that pounded out complex Caribbean music. The many little bars and food vendors all were hopping. Carnival is very family oriented with all ages staying out till late. Despite the large amounts of beer and “spiritous liquors” consumed there were no altercations and the police spent their time standing around in their crisp and neat uniforms watching the fun.

Each village on the island puts on a parade through the main street. Each village develops a theme for their presentation and then makes costumes for it. One group last night for example, had the theme of “Flames of Freedom” and they were all wearing T shirts with pictures of President Obama on them. Another had beautiful crimson and gold flashy costumes and a family of stilt walkers the tallest of which was probably over 15′ high. Each group has a truck loaded with huge peakers and a DJ that drives just in front as they drive slowly through the crowds with the group (and the crowd) dancing along behind. They turn off the street side speakers as they pass which is nice.

I stayed ashore till the late skiff run and really had a blast. It’s a good thing there was a lot of dancing or I would have succumbed to the fatal allure of too much rum

This morning it seems pretty quiet ashore however it is the last day, Mardi Gras, so I suspect the evening will be wild again. I have another day ashore so David and I are going to try and find what the cruising guide says is the prettiest beach on the island and chill out with a cold coke and maybe a drop or two of rum

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Photos of my wander around the island are here.

We left Fernando de Noronha on Sunday Feb 8 on a 13 day passage to Grenada in the Caribbean.
We arrived this morning at 9:30am!
This is a continuous post so read down for the latest.

Here are some pics to “whet your whistles” for when I can upload more:Pictures from Fernando
Here are some from the Atlantic crossing.

Sunday Feb 8,09 Day 1

This morning we awoke to find the ship surrounded by dolphins heading out to sea. They are famous for being “spinny and flippy” and sure enough they are. Some people watching them longer than me saw them leap out of the water spinning as they went!

So after our brief one day stop in Fernando de Noronha we are now underway to Grenada.
We sailed off the hook by backing our topsails and then turning and sailing down wind. A fine bit of seamanship that. We didn’t even have the engine running “just in case”.

Gary and I were on galley duty today and beimg Sunday it was Donald’s day off. Lovely way to start a passage. We survived and even got some compliments so I guess we did OK. By the looks of the schedule I’m likely stuck on Sunday galley for this passage, blah. That will teach me to do a good job the first time

There was a swim call just before noon, as we were waiting for the Captain to return from shore, so I had another chance to swim in this fabulous blue water. I borrowed Gary’s face mask and got a good look at the hull underwater which was cool.

We are sailing NNW under all squares with stunsls set and are making a good 6.5 knots in the steady SE trades. It should be another fine passage.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Monday Feb 9.09 day 2

We are still heading NNW as of noon today under all squares and stunsls.
We are making good 5 knots plus there is a NW trending current here of about 1 knot so we are making a good 120+ nm a day.

There is a fairly big swell running from the NE as well as the wind driven one from the SE which is making the ship roll fairly far every now and then when things line up just right. Have to keep an eye on the deck angle when moving around. You also have to make sure anything sitting on a table or the deck won’t go for a run if a roll comes unexpectedly.

It is very hot below decks making sleeping difficult. It also makes doing any off watch activities there uncomfortable. Trying to do them on deck is hot too because of the very bright euqatorial sun but at least you can feel the wind.

No changes in the watch for me this passage, I’m still on 4-8 which is just fine with me. Nadia, who was our AB has left to join the iEuropa/i in Chile where she will be working for the next few months. It was great working with her as she was very knowledgeable and very willing to share that knowledge. Our new AB is Ben who is great to work with too so it should be fun.

I have been working on doing Celestial Navigation over the last couple of weeks as you know and I thought I had hit a dead end. I was getting really whacky answers and couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong. Today was “find the stupid mistake” day and sure enough looking at it today after leaving it alone for 2 days I found the error. As I suspected it was really, REALLY, dumb so I won’t explain it On the bright side I now know my basic procedure was correct. Now to get some good sextant readings to confirm that.

Had a really good evening and night watch. the ship steers beautifully with the stunsls set. We re making good time so I hope the weather doesn’t change too much.

Thanks for reading.
K

Tuesday Feb 10,09 day 3

Had a good evening and night watch. The ship steers very well with Stunsls set.

When we came on deck this morning at 4:00 however, the stunsls had been taken in so we are now sailing under square sails, inner and outer jib but no staysails or spanker.

Was on lookout when the sun came up this morning. There was a large dark mass of clouds off to the North of us and the edges of this system extend into the east a bit so when the Sun came up it was into fairly scary looking clouds. So far nothing has come of it. I think it is the system the cross swell is coming from so not sure if we will be in some heavy weather later or not.

It is a bit cooler since the sun is in the clouds so I’m going to try and get some sleep before doing my morning sun sight for Navigation.

More later…

It’s later and the sky is covered in high grey clouds. That prevents me from doing any sextant work but it doesn’t seem to have eased the temperature any :-/ in fact I think the humidity has gone up, blah.

I noticed while on helm that my feet seemed to be burning and sure enough when I took off my shoes I found that the tops of my feet are covered in little red spots some have pustules on them. They are “sea water boils” I think. I also got them under my watch band. The only fix is to keep them dry (!?!) and they will dry out and disappear. If they break open they can get nasty apparently. Blah.

I guess I will have to try going barefoot on watch, it will be an interesting experiment.
I’ll let you know how that goes.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Wed Feb 11,09 Day 4

Had a very active and wet night watch this morning. We came on deck to dark clouds pouring rain and flickering lightning. Just as we were coming up the command to take in the Royals was made so the first few minutes were hectic. Then after we got that item of busines done we were ordered to put on our full fowlies includng boots in case of lightning strikes on the rig.

During the next two hours the rain slacked off and the wind settled down and we reset the royals. I went out to the very end of the jib boom to loose the flying jib. This means to unwind the long line, called a gasket, which secures the sail when it’s furled. That is the furthest outboard I’ve been right at the end of the jib boom. nailed to the end of the spar is the fins of a fish caught just before we crossed the Equator.

We reset the mainsail and I went up on the yard to overhaul the buntlines.

By the time my trick on the helm rolled around the rain had stopped and the wind was back to a steady NE force 4. She steered beautifully in the watery grey light of dawn. A very active and “salty” watch that.

Spent a fairly relaxed day. The sun came out and I got two good sun sextant shots.

By the time our evening watch was done however another storm front had moved in bringing stronger winds and very scary looking skies. We took in the royals and the flying jib. By the time we got off watch it was very blustery but no rain yet.

On a side note…
I’ve noticed something interesting and odd looking about how hanging objects swing inside the ship. For example a jacket hanging on a hook inside the salon, or my flashlight on a hook in my bunk. Unless the length of object is one in which it would swing in sync with the ships motion the object appears to move in a jerky way. It is like the object was on a stick that is swung by a hand crank instead of swinging smoothly like a pendulum. It doesn’t look real frankly. It looks like a bad pirate movie set where everything is dragged by strings one way then the other.

It is this behaviour that made taking clocks to sea for navigation a tough proposition until one could be developed that corrected for the motion.

The other thing this behaviour mimics is a changing gravitational field. Tossing something into the garbage can across the salon becomes an exercise in predicting how the ships motion will effect the trajectory. Generally a pointless exercise, much better to just walk over and place it directly in the bucket

Thurs Feb 12,09 Day 5

Our night watch was dark and grey. No rain but a fairly heavy swell with steady Force 4 winds. We reset the royals and flying jib jut at the change of watch.

It is still cloudy so may not get any sun sights this morning. My calculated position from the ones I took yesterday was only 30 miles off, which is not bad really at least I’m in the right ocean and hemisphere.

More later…

The afternoon watch was uneventful. We had a workshop on how to handle the ship in squalls which was cool and very timely given the recent weather.

The skies are pretty clear with a cool(ish) NE wind blowing and low puffy clouds flying along downwind. The stars came out very bright tonight should be agood night watch. We reset our clocks back oe hour tonight so I get an extra hours sleep to boot. Lovely.

Thanks for reading.
K

Friday Feb 13,09 Day 6

Our night watch was uneventful except for the last hour when we set the flying jib and gaff topsail and then 10 minutes later a squall boiled up astern and we had to take them in again. That was OK because the squall literally evaporated and by then it was the end of the watch. Setting and taking in sail is preferable to “soogying” any day.

So what is a typical day like for me at sea on one of these passages?

I’ll start with what I’ve been calling the “night watch”. I am on the 4-8 watch. This means I am in the group that starts their watch at 4:00am and runs to 8:00am. We also have an “afternoon watch” that runs from 4:00pm to 8:00pm.

It always seems that I have been asleep for only a little while when I hear a stage whispered “Kevin” beside my head through the curtains of my bunk. This is followed by a second “Kevin” a few seconds later if I don’t respond. A grunt won’t do, you have to say “Yes” or “yup” or some indication you are awake. The person doing the wake up will then say something like “It’s 3:30 this is your wakeup for watch.” They will also say something about the weather so we know if we need jackets or fowlies. This wake up is always 15 minutes before we are expected on deck which is formally at 3:50.

I tumble out of my bunk, sometimes literally if I misjudge the roll :-), get dressed, don my safety harness, my rig (which is my knife and marlin spike which is on a separate belt). I make sure my hat is hooked to my collar and climb up the salon ladder to the main deck.

The on coming watch musters on the port side the off going on the starboard side. The watches are relieved at 10 minutes to the hour as are the helm and lookout.

Once everybody in the watch is there the AB, in our case it’s Ben, details the various watch positions for the next four hours. Each watch is slightly different depending on how the AB likes to organize the rotations. A typical job would be 1st helm and 4th lookout. This means that I would get to be on the helm for the first hour and lookout for the last hour. There is always someone on helm and lookout. Other jobs are wake ups for the engineers at 5:30, the galley crew at 6:15, Kolin the bosun at 7:00 and the next watch which is 8-12 at 7:15. The Daymen like the sailmaker, rigger etc get their wakeups at 7:15 as well.

Say I got first helm last lookout (actually one of my favourite sets as is first lookout last helm). I would immediately go to relieve the current person on the helm. After an hour at 10 minutes to 5:00 or so, I would be relieved, passing on the current course to the new helmsman. They repeat the course back to me which lets me know they heard it correctly then they formally take the helm by saying “I have her” or something to that effect :-). Then I would go to the mate of the watch, in this case Veronica, and report “I am relieved, Nick has the helm, North North West” or whatever. She also repeats the course back to me for the same reason.

I then fill out the log with the course, taffrail log reading, barometer, wind speed and direction, swell size and direction, visibility and cloud cover.

I then go and sit on one of the veggie lockers and chat, if it is still dark, or join the other members of my watch doing whatever is doing if it’s not.

4-8 is interesting because we get both dawn and sunset and the ship is both waking up at the end of the “night watch’ and settling down at the end of the “afternoon watch”. This means there generally is no painting or maintenance work to do (yay!), but often sail handling in preparation for the night/day. There is aften a slight wind shift at dawn and dusk which means we have the brace the yards a bit as well.

In the morning one of our other duties is to do a “deck wash” once the engineers have the generator online, which is about 6:00am typically. They fire up one of the fire pumps and we wash down the decks with sea water while scrubbing them with rough deck brushes. This helps to breakup the salt and slime that makes the decks slippery. It also keeps the planking from shrinking in the sun. Off the coast of Africa it was necessary to removed large amounts of Saharan dust which coated everything.

Once the deck wash is done we typically do a “soogy” of the superstructure, the pin rails and the galley house on the main deck and the chart house and rails on the quarter deck. To soogy is to take fresh water and a rag or sponge and wash the salt off everything. I prefer sail handling

When we get to the end of our watch we muster and are formally relieved by the mate saying two magic words… “Watch below”. On 4-8 this coincides with a second layout of breakfast on the Aloha deck aft. My favorite meal I think.

After breakfast I typically head below and do this, ie update my posts, read, do my celestial navigation calcs and snooze till lunchtime at noon. The 4 hours after noon till 4:00pm are the same, more snoozing, reading, project work or if I feel gung ho I can lay in with the gang working on deck.

We muster at 3:50pm and the process starts again. The big difference with the afternoon watch is that we start by doing cleanups of the deck from the work done during the day and we also clean the galley after dinner. Since dinner is in the middle of our watch at 6:00 we have to eat fairly quickly and make sure to make plates for those on watch and helm. We always relieve them temporarily so they can eat as well.

When we finally muster at 7:55pm or so Veronica will give us a bit of info on where we are, things she liked or things she didn’t and then it’s that lovely “watch below”. At which point I usually hit the rack to try and sleep till I get that whispered “Kevin…Kevin” at 3:30 the next morning to start all over again.

Thanks for reading.
K

Saturday Feb 14,09 Day 7

Happy Valentines Day
Or as my eldest daughter says “Fuzzy pink commercial paper day”. She isn’t a fan

I am on galley today with Gary and Rich.

As I was going off watch at 8:00 last night I had a couple of astronomical revelatiobns. For nearly 3 weeks I have been looking at the stars when I could trying to identify the fixed navigation ones so called because they are bright enough to be seen at dusk and dawn when the horizon is also visible. This is called “Nautical Twilight” and is slightly different than “Civil Twilight” which is defined as when the center of the Sun is 6 degrees below the horizon.

So I was looking at the Southern Cross and noticed two bright stars to the East of it. Looking them up on a star map I got their names. The brightest one is Rigel Kentaurus the other one is Hadar. OK so far so good moving on… Then Ben tells me that Rigel Kentaurus is also known as…wait for it… ALPHA CENTAURI! Boo Yeah! There is a name to conjure with, raised being an avid reader of early science fiction

The next cool thing was that I finally identified the Large Magellanic Cloud. Not quite sure how I missed that before but once I knew that I should be able to see it there it was. The other thing I would have liked to see would be Sagittarius but he is below the horizon at this time of year. That is where the center of our Galaxy is.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Sunday Feb 15,09 Day 8

Our night watch started clear and moonlit but that quickly changed. A great black cloud loomed up directly up wind of us. I was on helm and the rest of my watch started makig comments like “Looks nasty” and “we’re going to get wet” all while looking back past me. Kinda made me nervous that. Luckily we had already gone below to get our fowl weather jackets when he squall first appeared on radar so when it started to rain we were ready.

It really poured hard for a while but the wind gusts weren’t to bad and although we took in the spanker we didn’t have to douse anything else.

We had a couple of other squalls roll through one with pretty strong wind gusts but nothi too terrible. The last hour of the watch I spent scrubbing the slippery parts of the deck that our daily deck wash tends to miss like below the edge of the hatch coaming and around the main mast under the fife rail.

We are now sailing NNW at around 7 knots with Grenada 1100 miles to the NW and the mouth of the Amazon river due West of us. I expect we still have 10 days to go on this passage.

More later…

It’s later and I just got off a very exciting afternoon watch. We had a couple of big ualls roar through and we have taken the main royal and the topgallant staysail. The wind is a steady Force 5 with gusts to Force 6. We are sailing long at almost 8 knots over the ground so about 7 through the water. Veronica says we should pick up a new current shotly that moves North at almost 3 knots.

Occasionally big waves crash into the side of the ship with a loud bang followed by a waterfall on deck. We are also sailing heeled over to Port which is nice for me

Should be an interesting night watch.

Thanks for reading
KJ

Monday Feb 16,09 Day 9

Night watch was uneventful if a bit difficult to move around on.
The wind is steady at Force 6 from the NExE giving us 7 knot over the ground. We are sailing NNW under Topsails and Topgallant on the main and Foresail, toplsails and Topgallant on the Fore. We still have the spanker and the main topmast staysail set , which at first seemed odd to me but she steers really well.

The flying fish are back. There have been very few around for the last couple of days as we recrossed the equator going North.

John and Buddy are hard at work on new sails in the Salon and the on watch gang are getting ready to bend on the repaired Fore Royal sail.

Should be a good day

The day was actually not bad. The sky stayed cloudy but bright and the seas have finally returned to a more pleasant blue instead of the menacing steely grey. There were no rain squalls and by the end of our afternoon watch the sky was clear and full of stars.

We are now 860 miles from Grenada making about 8 knots over the ground so we have picked up the new current.

Thanks for reading.
K

Tuesday Feb 17,09 Day 10
Our night watch last night was uneventful but trick to move around in as there was agood strong roll to the ship. We seem to have made it back into the tradewinds as the skies are much clearer.

We are really moving along now at over 9.3 knots over the bottom. We are sailing at only 6 through the water so we have definitely picked up that current. Luckily the current i going our way

Going to try to get a couple of Sun sights today and see if I can get a proper fix. Just one would be nice to prove that I can do it.

More later…

It’s later and I jut got off of our afternoon watch. The sky is clear and filled with stars sparkling like so many jewels scattered across a sheet of black velvet.

While on lookout I watched a school of tuna chasing a school of smaller fish. The tuna come straight up and out of the sea in bright silvery splashes. I followed one as it went back into the water and man are they fast. The flash throuh the water like so many silver bullets. It’s quite amazing really, Paul the second mate has his lines out to try and catch some but they seem to be laughing at him while they jump

We are now 650 miles from Grenada still doing 8+ knots.

K

Wed Feb 18,08 Day 11

Had a marvelous experience this morning right at the end of our Night watch.
I went out into the headrig to loose the flying jib. As you know this means I had to go all the way to the end of the jib boom to release the gaskets that hold the sail down when furled. As I was working I looked back at the ship and saw the sun rising behind her! What a magnificent picture that was. The sharp white prow of the ship rising and falling , slicing into the dark blue waves. Above that the masts with their perfectly set sails, bellied out in the steady trade winds, a soft golden colour in the light of the dawn. The jibs curving up from the jib boom to the fore mast the black lines of the stays arrow sharp in the clear air far overhead. A beautiful image that will stay with me for a very long time.

The rest of the watch was otherwise uneventful

We will be having a Celestial Navigation class today which will strt to discuss using the stars to take sights. This should be cool.

More later…

Jut got off of our evening watch which was very uneventful. The winds have really calmed down, they sre still steady but only about Force 3. We are sailing at 4.5 knots under all sails but the tunsls which are stored in the hold at the moment.

We are currently 550 miles from Grenada with no estimate of arrival since the winds are dropping. Ah the joys of sailing ships

On the plus side doing celestial navigation using stars instead of the Sun is actually easier but it takes a bit of advance planning to do it properly. Looking forward to trying it out soon.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Thursday Feb 19,09 Day 12

The winds picked up a bit during the night but we are still sailing at only about 5 knots over the ground.

I helped Gary do some star sights this morning and I did a lunar one. Taking them is easier than doing Sun sights actually because, for stars at least, there are no edges to worry about. Also there is no need to worry about the shades you can of course look at stars and the moon directly without getting blinded. So findig the object is as easy as setting the sextant to zero and pointing it directly at the star or moon.

The proper way to do it is to set the sextant to the approximate altitude for the star from the almanac then when you aim the sextant at the horizon beneath the star it should be there within a degree or so.

I have been reading a fascinating book I borrowed from Kolin called “Celestial Navigation in the GPS Age” by John Karl, ISBN 978-0-939837-75-5. This book is not only a useful introduction to navigation but it has some very good procedures and things to watch out for. One of the cool things is that it has written out the formulas in such a way that you can do sight reductions with a scientific calculator, no tables or plotting needed.

A good book to add to the Xmas list of all those budding navigators out there

More later…

The Captain made a presentation on the islands we will be visiting in the Caribbean shortly. Very interesting and just enough info to get us excited. I was on helm during the presentation which was on the quarter deck. A big squall was building upwind of us and we had to shorten sail. The squall blew in with a much stronger wind and driving rain. Once the rain stopped th wind continued ad we are now sailing along under all squares at 7 knot over the ground.

We should make Grenada in a couple of days at this rate.

We will be going to an island off Grenada first called Caricou, the only island that still has it’s original Carib name. The name means “island surrounded by reefs”. Hmmm…

If we get in there by Monday we will be in time for Carnival which would be really cool!

I’m on galley tomorrow. Man that week went by pretty fast! I get to sleep in an extra two hours plus one more because we shifted our clocks back one hour.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Friday Feb 20,09 Day 13
Last night the wind picked up to Force 5 gusting to 6 with a big swell from the nE.
Sometime during the night they took in the t’gallants so we are now sailing along under courses and topsails only. We re making a good 6 knots though rolling quite a bit.
The sky is fairly clear with the Sun shining down on the massive waves. The ranks of white caps spreading out to the horizon are an intense white against the dark blue of the sea.

Gary and I finally got our calculations done this afternoon for the star sights we took yesterday. I am very encouraged, for the first time I actually got a fix between two sights! My fix is off by 30 miles or so, which is not very good, but at least I got one.

This afternoon the 12-4 watch had to send down the Fore Upper Topsail as it had torn it’s leech out. They had the spare bent on and drawing within an hour! Apparently long passages like this with variable conditions is most likely to be when sails are going to fail. That is why, traditionally, Cape Horners sent down their heavy sails and sent up older lighter ones as they got into these latitudes so that the heavy weather sails didn’t suffer in the Sun and variable conditions around the Equator.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Saturday Feb 21,09 Day 14

Had two big squalls roar through on our night watch just as dawn was breaking. One of them I was on helm for which made for some “fun” steering.

Luckily I had my fowl weather jacket on already so didn’t get too wet.

We should be at the island of Caricou tomorrow morning sometime. That would mean that we should be able to see their Carnival festivities whoich will be cool. We will go over to Grenada on Wednesday and the plan is to stay there for a week and a half or so.

More later…

Just got off the afternoon watch and Veronica confirmed we will be in Carricaou tomorrow morning.

The wind is blowing really hard Force 6-7 with 10-15′ swells. We are sailing under reduced sail to slow down so we don’t arrive at midnight. There are reefs and rocks around this island so we definitely want to be there in daylight.
I was on lookout during the daylight and it was fantastic. The ship rose and fell in these big swells with the wind whistling in the rigging. The sea is bright blue with long serried ranks of whitecaps all the way to the horizon. It made me want to do a big Yeee Haaa! every time.

Later I was on helm which was exciting in these conditions. Looking towards the bow was disorienting as the relative motion between the bow and stern looks extreme! Then just after it got dark the light in the binnacle became intermittent with a loose connection. Kolin had it fixed in a jiffy but trying to steer by the clouds and stars when the bow is swinging through 30 degrees up and own and side to side was “interesting”.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Sunday Feb 22,09 day 15

We sailed into the harbour of Carricaou at 9:30 this morning. We dropped the hook without usig the engine again. Our passage from Fernando was 2200 miles from hook to hook without using the engine at all!

The harbour is fairly open and windy but it does have that lovely blue that Fernando had. There are a lot more palm trees here than in Fernando courtesy of a guy by the name of John Caldwell who planted many of them after WWII.

The Captain has gone ashore to clear in. Being Sunday that may not work but if it does then my watch will keep the deck but then we wil get two days ashore!

More later…

Note this post is continuous so read down for the latest entries.
KJ
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Monday January 26,09

So we are off across the Atlantic Ocean at last.

We hoisted anchor and “sailed off the hook”, ie we didn’t use our engine to get underway, around 1:00pm this afternoon. We are now headed to the WSW under topsails, foresail, inner and outer jibs and main topmast staysail.

The weather is fabulous with bright sunny skies, deep blue seas and steady force 4 tradewinds blowing in exactly the right direction.

The Captain says we have the makings of a good passage as long as we are sharp on our sail handling so he can keep the t’gallants and royals set longer. The crew is in favour of that so we should have an interesting passage.

I’m back on the 4-8 watch for this passage so I will have to get re-orientd sleep wise again. I put on the seasickness patch last night so I’m hoping I can avoid arepeat of the last passages “flux”. My back doesn’t hurt and I’m feeling good to be heading West towards my lovely Lady so far away in cold and snowy Calgary!

I’ll be updating this post as we go along so you will be able to follow how I’ve made out by simply reading below. You already know I made it because if I didn’t you won’t see this So consider this a message from the past to all you fine folks following along at home!

Thanks for reading
KJ

Tuesday Jan 27,09
Had a good night watch, we’re still sailing along with Royals set making 6-7 knots.
We will be having the first formal celestial navigation workshop today which should be interesting.

Just finished the first of our Celestial Nav (CN) classes. The class was held on the quarter deck. There is something really cool about learning navigation when you are actually at sea. I’ve read a lot about navigation and all the math etc necessary to do it but actually doing it on a ship is a good way to make it real We will be having these classes every day now and although optional I think I will try to stick with it for a bit.

I’ve downloaded some pdf files with CN info so I have some references to use s wll.

Also started my “ditty bag” which uses all the same techniques as Buddy the sailmaker uses to make the sails for the ship. Most of the crew have theirs since they started back in May but I and the other new(er) trainees got started today. the weather is fabulous with steady force 4 trade winds and bright blue skies with only a few puffy white cumulus clouds hurrying downwind.

When I came off the afternoon 4-8 watch the sky was ablaze with stars some of the brightest I’ve seen so far, the night watch should be good.

Thanks for reading
KJ

Wed Jan 28,09
Night watch was fantastic, the stars were amazing and for most of my time as lookout there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky. I had first lookout and fourth helm so I was on the helm at the end of our watch from 7-8am which was also when the Sun was rising. As the sky brightened the sea changed colour from almost black to dark grey and then various shades of grey and silver to the blue it has during the day.

A flying fish landed on deck and Sophie, second mate on the Bluenose who is getting sea time with us on the crossing, found it under the coffee rack on the Aloha deck. Had agood look at it, Their wings are long tapered fins almost as long as their bodies.

Today will be our second CN class and we are supposed to get a chance to work with a sextant which will be cool.

More later…

It’s later and there was no CN class today as everybody was deeply involved in rigging up th stunsls (studding sails). We also had a class in different kinds of sailing rigs and why our ship was rebuilt with the barque rig. Very interesting on both fronts.

There was one hiccup during the stunsl rig down when a wind gust pushed the ssspar hoding the peak of the sail right through the upper topsail! That means we have to unbend the sail and replace it with an older sail from storage. I guess that will be on the agenda for tomorrow.

We are now 760 miles from the equator and I do believe that Neptune’s “minions” are about their preparations. Or at least they want us pollywogs to think so

Thanks for reading
KJ

Thur Jan 29,09
This morning I was on lookout as the Sun was rising. It is amazing to see the waves change colour as the light grows. Thy start out almost black then as the light grows they get silvery grey highlights. Soon they take on a polished steel colour and then finally as the Sun breaks through the clouds, that are almost always on the horizon, aluminous deep blue.

I’ve tried to take pictures of the Sea to capture that colour but it doesn’t do it jutice.

After breakfast I laid in with the crew switching out the damaged upper topsail. The sail was switched out, re-rigged and set in about 1.5 hours.

Later we had our CN class and actually got to play with sextants which was very cool. Then it was time to try and set the stunsls again. This time a wind gust caught the middle one and flipped it up over the boom which promptly speared the sail and ripped the sail across. So we down rigged the whole shebang. Buddy has his work cut out for him wth two sails to repair now.

More later.

An email from King Neptune was posted on the scuttle today. It was very interesting and basically warns that he will be visiting the ship when we cross the line to deal with the infestation of “odoriferous polliwogs”. It also asked the Captain to pass greetings along to “Queen Chibley”

We are only 550 miles from the equator so another 4 days or so.

Night watch was OK very warm but mostly cloudy. I tried to do some astronomy, identifying the 57 “fixed” stars used in navigation by comparing the star charts in a book with star maps but there were just too many clouds. I found a planetarium program on my little laptop which allows me to set the date time and lat long and it shows what the sky looks like. I even took that out on deck and oriented it with the sky which worked OK too.

We adjusted our clocks back one hour last night since we are moving West slow but sure so now it is ight fr most of our “night” watch. This means we will start to have shipwork of sorts to do at the end of the watch.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Fri Jan 30,09

Did my first noon sextant sight today! I’m fairly happy with the results. My calculations were 10 minutes of arc off from the sight taken by the first mate, whose sight is of course considered authoritative

The calculations are not onerous and with current tables take maybe 5 minutes if you have to do interpolations , which we didn’t.

The next clases will be on lines of position and plotting which is also cool.

We had a workshop on anchoring today. The Picton Castle has anchors and anchor chain sufficient for a 500 ton ship which is nearly twice our size. We actually have 4 anchors on board, the 1500 lb port fisherman’s anchor and the 1200 lb stbd navy stockless. In the hold we have another big fisherman anchor and a 200 lb danforth kedge anchor. The anchor chain weights a ton per shot which is 90′.

In modern maritime circles anchoring is considered more as an emergency tool rather than a standard mooring. That is because most ships go alongside now rather than anchoring out. The Captain prefers to anchor out as it keeps the rats and cockroaches (both two legged and multi-legged) away.

Night watch was uneventful and cloudy so no star identifications for me.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Saturday Jan 31,09

We are currently sailing SSW with the spanker and gaff topsail, all square sail, the mizzen staysail and the flying and outer jib set. We are making 5.5 knots and the tradewinds are much warmer now, as is the sea which is 25.5 C currently.

There is much speculation about what kind of ordeal us polliwogs will be forced to have when we cross the line. I do know that we are keeping all food waste aboard until then which doesn’t bode well.

We should cross the line late Tuesday or early Wednesday at current speed , however the winds may drop before then as we hit the doldrums (also known as the “intertropical convergence zone”).

Bruce, Rich and I are on solo galley duty tomorrow which will be “interesting” as none of us really cook. I suggested a couple of things that I have actually done and promptly got elected as “boss”, lovely.

More later…

It’s later. We are now sailing as before but we have the two remaining stunsls set. It didn’t seem to mess up the steering too much which was good.

Bruce and I have a plan for the cooking tomorrow which has reduced the anxiety level a whole bunch. At least for me

We will be getting up at 5:30am to get rolling and I’ll let you know how it goes.

Thanks for reading
KJ

Sunday Feb 1, 2009

Well we survived our day on Galley.

Our objective was to have simple, plentiful and timely food today and we achieved it with clockwork precision, thanks to Bruce and Rich for keeping things rolling. Having a plan worked wnoders and giving ourselves a little extra time in the morning meant we weren’t starting behind the eight ball.

Sundays at sea are pretty relaxed with no shipwork. This means that if you aren’t actively doing anything while on watch you can work on projects read or just hangout.

We also had a workshop on opening and eating coconuts followed by a “Farewell to Africa Marlinspike” so everybody was dressed up in all their Arabic and African finery.

We reset the repaired topmast stunsl so we now have all three drawing although the wind has dropped and we are only making 3 knots. We are at 3 Deg N so we will hit the doldrums anytime.

I expect we will be visited by King Neptune and his cohorts within the next couple of days so stay tuned!

It’s back to work for me at 4:00am so I’m off to hit the rack.

Thanks for reading.
K

Monday Feb 2.09

Happy Candlemas, Groundhogs Day, St Bridget’s day to all!

I hope Balzac Billy didn’t get to see his shadow so that Spring will arrive sooner rather than later for you.

The 12-4 watch took in the stunsls just as we were coming on deck last night. There was a rain squall approaching on radar and the wind was becoming quite variable. The rain wasn’t too strong and the winds didn’t pick up enough to force us to take in the royals.

We found a bottle hanging from the transom with a 2 page missive from the “Shellbacks”. Warning about the coming cleansing of the polliwogs. There are 28 polliwogs aboard including the 2nd and 3d mates! The note mentioned hairbrushes and “eating below in our own filth rather than in the clean Sea air” which has led to much speculation amongst us polliwogs as to what the punishments might entail.

Just as we were going off watch we reset the stunsls and we are now sailing along at 4 knots SW by S.

More later…
Just got off of the evening watch.
It is warm and hazy with a misty grey sky. We have had steady winds all day with the occasional rain shower from a passing squall. Pretty much like it was last night.

My noon sextant sight showed us at 2 and a half degrees North so we will be crossing the equator tomorrow afternoon at this rate. There is still much discussion and anxiety amongst the polliwogs as to what the shellbacks have in mind for us. I don’t expect that it will be too bad, unpleasant perhaps but not much worse than a typical high school hazing. But then what is a “rite of passage” without some kind of ordeal anyway. No matter what happens it is a link with the thousands of sailors from the past, present and those yet to be born. It is a significant ritual, juvenile and silly as it may be, and as such it has a deeper meaning for the participant who chooses to find it.

At least that is what I keep telling myself

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Tuesday Feb 3,09

We ran smack into the Doldrums around 5:00am this morning.
The wind dropped and then began shifting around for a half hour oor so then droppd to nothing by 6:00am. So we took in all sail and fired up our “iron topail” and are heading South. The Captain expects to get back into winds later in the day.

Veronica says we expect to cross the line tomorrow sometime depending on how long we have to motor today.

The Sun is out and it is suddenly very hot, even Bruce is beginning to get a shine
I’ll have to come up with a mounting for my fan tonight I’m thinking.

Later…

We motored for about 6 hours or so then set all sails except stunsls in what looked like the same conditions as we took them in. Sure enough within the hour we got some wind and rain squalls and we are now sailing along at about 3 knots. The sky was really beautiful with all different kinds of clouds some looking like mini thunderstorms others like small chinook arches and even fluffy summer clouds.

A school of small tuna came leaping by the bows of the ship while I was on lookout. They jump almost straight up in bright silvery blue flashes. I even saw one do a back flip!

After dinner all us polliwogs got together for a “before” picture and after the ritual we will do an “after’ one as well. I’m resigned to loosing my pony tail not sure how I feel about potentially loosing the beard and everything else though :-/

Tomorrow may be the day we are now less than 60 miles from the line.

Wish me luck.

Thanks for reading
KJ

Thursday Feb 5,09

We crossed the Equator at 1:45pm GMT yesterday, February 4, 2009 CE!

At about 2:00 pm local time a great hail came from below the bowsprit asking the Captain’s permission to come aboard.

As we mustered midships we saw the Captain standing on the bridge, dressed formally in a crisp white shirt, navy blue epaulets with 4 gold bars and an officers peaked cap with the Picton Castle surrounded by gold laurel leaves on the front.

“Captain Davy Jones you are welcome aboard!” he says calmly but in a voice capable of being heard in a gale!

There then appeared from over the focsle rail an apparition, a haggard and ragged seamen draped in rusty chains and tattered canvas with strands of oakum in his hair, great dark circles beneath his eyes and the look of one who has seen many gales and hurricanes in his time.

The Captain greeted Davy Jones and offered him a cold beer served in great china tankards with Sailing fishing boats on them. It was 30c under bright Sun and fairly calm so the sight of two frosty bottles being opened and poured was like watching gold being poured into those tankards!

There followed a very interesting conversation in which the Captain apologized to Davy Jones for taking so long to arrive at the line this time. (Normally they would cross the line much sooner on a World Voyage). Davy Jones fixed us with his baleful stare and sniffed dramatically saying “You have a lot of smelly pollywogs here how did you stand it?”.
“With great difficulty” said the Captain, “They are making progress however they are not all hopeless. I should mention however that there is a new concept called Mercy that needs to be kept in mind.”

“Mercy? What be that?” says Davy Jones with a laugh.

Not a good sign thought I

After much such banter back and forth the Captain orders the ship to be hove to to receive Neptune and his retinue.

We back the main yards and hove her to and then there arises a great shout from the focsle and the Shellbacks dressed in various costumes herd us all below into the salon and close and lash the hatches.

What followed I am oath bound not to reveal to non shellbacks (as befits all such powerful rites) and so alas I cannot give you the gory details however I did escape with my pony tail, beard and hair intact

I am now part of a tradition handed down ship to ship since ships first sailed out of sight of land. The Captain says that he has traced the way we do it back Captain to Captain, all the way to the Captain of a full rigged Royal Navy ship who fought at Trafalgar!

While each ship has unique elements and the events are personalized for each polliwog the core is as it was done to the Captain on his first crossing and his Captain’s first crossing and so on back up the line into the past.

I am now the member of a community of seafarers that stretches back in time but also encompasses all those who sail the seas now and who have crossed the line in both civilian and naval vessels. It also encompasses those who will follow in the future. It is like a four dimensional club.

It is also very cool that I actually SAILED across the Equator in a Tall Ship powered by canvas sails and manila ropes. The number of Shellbacks who have done it that way and are alive today are a significant minority I suspect!

It took two hours to get the ship, and us, to rights after things were done and Neptune had returned to his watery kingdom

We had a small marlinspike in celebration and then a simple dinner of pasta and fresh bread on the hatch under the evening sky. The sky was an amazing range of colours. There were high white clouds and lower grey ones in many shades of blue to almost black. The sky itself was bright blue and the sea that amazingly luminous dark blue that seems unique to equatorial waters. Sinking in the West was a bright golden equatorial Sun, a bright silvery half moon was high in the sky above us.

I had the helm at the end of our watch and as I steered the ship in the moonlight I felt a great sense of contentment and connection with the sea and it’s traditions. I am no longer a smelly pollywog but a true oak shellback!

A fine rite of passage indeed.

Thanks for reading
KJ

Friday Feb 6,09
Yesterday we fired up the engines after takig i all sail about 7:00am.
We motored to the South West for most of the day until resetting sail about 5:00pm.

I went aloft to the main topgallant for the first time after we reset the sails. I was told to “overhaul the bunts”. This means to pull extra line through the blocks so that the buntlines and leechlines (which pull up the foot and leech of the sail when it is being furled) from going tight under their own weight and distorting the set of the sails. Easy to say but that meant I had to climb up higher than I have ever been before!

As one climbs the shrouds get closer together and the ratlines eventually become only about as wide as my foot! Also as the shrouds get narrower they start to twist when one is climbing. That takes a bit of getting used to. The ship motion is much greater up there but not as bad as I expected. I don’t think I’d like to be up there in a gale just yet.

We were braced fairly sharp on the port tack so getting out onto the yard on the port side looked pretty tricky to me so I went down to deck and told Veronica that I couldn’t do it.

“Go up and try it again. If Suzy can do it you can.” Suzy is 5′ nothing! So up I went and sure enough when looked at more calmly there was no problem. Amazing what a change in perspective does.

Night watch this morning was uneventful until about 6:00am when we broke back into the Trade winds and spent the last two hours setting all sails. We are now sailing SW at about 6 knots and should reach Fernando de Noronha tomorrow morning.

Thanks for reading.
KJ

Saturday Feb 7,09

We have sailed the last 24 hours with all sails set with the steady Force 4 SE Trades blowing us along at 6-7 knots!

As the Sun came up we could see the island of Fernando de Noronha off the bow.

At 8:30 and we took in most of our sails except for the spanker and the topsails preparatory to our arrival. After 1400 sea miles, and the crossing of the Equator, we have crossed the Atlantic Ocean and arrived at the first green island I’ve seen.

Later…

We anchored without using the engine. We used the sails to back away from the anchor to set it and pull out the required scope of anchor chain. Since we sailed off the hook in Cape Verde when we started this passage it made for a nice symmetry.

The Captain went ashore to get cleared in and once the decks were cleared up and everything coiled down and made neat and tidy the “swim call” rang out and over the side we went. The water was a beautiful blue and was about 26C and crystal clear. That is the first time I’ve been swimming on this trip and it was nice to do it in such an exotic place.

Word came back that we were cleared in so everybody but the 8-12 got to go ashore.

First item of business was to get some Brazilian Reals to spend which meant atrip to the airport which is in the middle of this 5 mile long island. Once that was done we went Internet access hunting without much success. We did find two Internet providors but neither had a working wifi system. This was frustrating because the signal strength was actually the best I’ve seen so far!

Well without wasting any more time on Internet stuff, we rented a dune buggy, headed to a market and bought, munchies, beer, rum and coke. Then we headed out to the nicest beach on the island as recommended by the buggy rental guy.

He was right! The beach was fabulous and very isolated. To get to it you have to climb down two 30′ ladders inside the 50m cliff that surrounds the bay. There were even a few coconut palms to confirm that we were indeed in the tropics.

After a few hours of drinking “Cuba Libres” and letting the massive surf wash around my legs David and Gary and I hauled ourselves back up the cliff ladders and then headed in to the village to a restaurant also recommended by the buggy rental guy. His recommendation was fantastic again. We had a very fine dinner and then wandered back to the port to catch the 11:00pm skiff run. A fabulous day ashore on the first landfall on the West side of the Atlantic!

Tomorrow we head back to sea for our passage to Grenada. This will take 14-20 days depending
on the weather. Unfortunately I couldn’t send this to you all before we have to leave so you will probably get to read this once we arrive in Grenada.

Thanks for reading
KJ