"Thanks for coming aboard!"

Capped my last day aboard with a few hours of docksides, and I left around noon. It already felt like I was gone, and had some difficulty connecting with the visitors. Enjoyed myself a bit anyway though.. and finally (after a lot of procrastinating) said my goodbyes. I've got to wonder if anyone remembers us Topmen that only show up for a few weeks a year, but at the time it felt like a heartfelt parting. I'll definitely miss this Crew, but am already looking forward to meeting the next one.

How many days of vacation do I have left this year? Hrm....

LAAaaaaast Sail

Otis called sail tonight, which was exciting for him I'm sure, although despite his best efforts, there wasn't much wind to catch. One of our passengers certainly put forth a good-faith-effort of mast-scratching and whistling, though!! Even so, I felt good.. It was my last sail, and I performed as well as I wanted.. even claiming fistfulls of chocolate during our Find-the-Line antics (gotta entertain the passengers one way or another!!). And cast loose the (uselessly becalmed) fore t'gans'l all by myself!

Broke my Vow of Temperance and went out with the crew afterwards for a pint (and 5 pints of water). Listened to some sea stories, and realized that this crew was tighter than I could remember from last year... and it dawned on me that maybe there aren't All-Star crews. Crew is crew, and whether I know them before climbing aboard, they'll be shipmates by the time I leave.

Or maybe not. Maybe some of them suck!

Eggedy Eggedy Eggedy Eggs!

Everything I know is wrong. Matter is actually controlled by little gremlins after all. SoaP really *was* the best movie ever, and Santa Claus is the Tooth Fairy wearing a fat-suit.

And JB is waking me up for breakfast. Or at least.. I think he is. Someone's chirping wierdly in the foc'sle, and said that my wife is hot. Yeah, that's JB.

Whiskey.. Tango.. Foxtrot?

JB awake before noon is like the sun misjudging the horizon by a few inches during sunrise. He makes good pancakes and eggs, though!!

*EDIT* Oh! I suppose I should point out that the aforementioned "JB" is in fact, the captain. The respectable one. The Man! The guy whose tiny statue makes the Earth shake so long as the Earth concerns the Lady Washington, or whatever other boat happens to be his dominion.

Definitely not my Best Day Ever..

I'm dead. And posting this from beyond. That's all the explanation I can give you. Smee's scotch killed me. Or rather, drinking almost all of it killed me.

Missed reville. Did my best, but my efforts at getting dressed and leaving the hotel for morning chores and tours consisted mostly of groaning painfully and pulling more pillows over my face. I'm over. Roll credits, recognize the gaffer, and send Special Thanks to the destillery that made this specatular train-wreck possible.

And then our Tour-Princess charged in and announced that with someone else kicked off the boat (a volunteer with a free-flowing mouth managed to get himself demoted to "Scab," and put on permanent bilge-detail until he could catch a flight home), naptime was over and it was time for work. "Sweet. I can do this. I actually feel pretty good, considering!" So I hopped up, brushed my teeth,propped my eyelids open with matchsticks and proceeded to hobble across the park back to the brig.

And got about halfway there before realizing that this *wasn't* going to happen. Not now, and maybe not ever. Or at least until my corrupted, zombie-body rehydrated a little. I did my best brains-craving-zombie-shamble in a wide arc around a playground that was in the way, and made it to the dock before I started feeding poison to the fishes. I lay there for awhile, thinking about how warm and comfortable (and mind-splitting) the sunny planks were, and how much more fun being dead would be before hobbling up to the gangplank to get to work.

But then instead I hobbled *past* it and plopped down near the bow to 2-6 off the dock some more. Ya know, just to be spontaneous. And it felt like the right thing to do just then. Concerned shipmates brought me pitchers of water and I did my best to keep the rest of my brains from squeezing out of my eyes and ears.

Finally I cracked my eyes open, and saw a dusty black Carhartt standing next to me. And inching my gaze upward, I saw a scraggly hand clutching a smoldering half-finished cigarette...

..Aw hell! Busted by the Man!

Looking up at Captainface with the sheepiest look I could manage through the agony, I mumbled an apology for my uselessness, before he pointed out that although crew weren't permitted to shirk their duties just because they'd poisoned themselves, I *was* supposed to be going to the dentist that day anyway. "You'll learn a lot about yourself in a dentist's waiting room while that hung over!"

SOOooooo we packed me off to the dentist. With some hydrating I could finally hold down the meds for a migraine I was juggling with the hangover, and was starting to feel better. Caught a cab to a real-life medical establishment (I'd figured that a walk-in dentist would be in the back of a warehouse someplace presided over by Doctor Viktor Ivanovich the Eviscerator) and got some plastic bondo smeared over my dented tooth.

Later I was directed to spend the evening un-destroying the hotel room, where I also washed some Sorry-Laundry for drinking all of Smee's nasty axle-grease.

"Here's to Herpes!"

So apprently I loudly toasted this later while finishing off most of Smee's lousy 4-year old Scottish engine-degreaser. Horrible stuff, but I could smell it and therefore it had to be consumed. The floor of the hotel bathroom made for comfy sleeping, afterwards.

(No, I am not, nor was anyone in the room at the time afflicted by herpes. I don't remember the actual circumstances leading up to this particular toast, but I presume that it was one of those random things that suddenly needed to be said.)

Not my Best Day Ever..

An embarrassing sail started badly and got worse as I made mistake after mistake. Real landsman stuff.

I'd started the day on to a GREAT start as Wifeyface came to visit again, bringing along the in-laws, and we had some fun meandering around the deck during dockside tours. Gave them the tour-shtick, keeping the lies to a minimum ("See those fuzzy things in the rigging? Those are hemp-nests.. little seeds grow in there, and then gestate into line after we incubate them in the cable-tiers!"). I introduced them to my shipmates, and reconciling the worlds between and outside the yellow rails was a little surreal.

So I'm glad that they didn't see me sailing that night. Hitting my head again on a 1200lb anchor would've improved things, honestly. I did get mooring right for the first time though, so I had that going for me. Which was nice.

Brig 1, Doug 0

It's amazing how a blackened anchor-fluke can disappear against a pitch-black deck at night. Coming in from an evening sail, I was watching over the bow from the pin-rail and windlass (what is that rail called, anyway?) and noticed that nobody was tending the bow mooring-line when the Mate called for it to be sent. It'd been nicely flaked out, but was totally untended. So, in a moment of inspired panic, I dropped down about 4' off the rail to heroically take care of it.

But at the last minute, I apparently decided to have a nap instead. Halfway down to the deck I saw a BRIGHT white flash, and woke lying on the chains and swearing. Dunno how long I'd been there, but some hands got me down to the hold and got some frozen lima-beans over my swelling forehead. No apparent brain-damage-amage-amage-amage judging from my super-dialating pupil-powers, so aside from some lumps and a chipped tooth, no lasting wreckage. Yay boat-scars!

Yay Wifeyface!!

Lani came to visit this afternoon, although we couldn't get her aboard for a sail. SO, I took the afternoon off, and we enjoyed dinner in the park, watching boat-groupies follow the brig around the harbor. <3

Bittersweetness!

*Sigh* Mark, Joe, Elmo and Crystal all disembarked today. M & J both successfully completed their 2-weeks Before the Mast (not bad for an old guy, Joe!), along with Elmo who spent an extra week as a Topman, and Crystal is returning to the world outside the yellow rails for the first time in over 8 months!! Best wishes to all of you!!

I guess the family never loses members (or almost doesn't), since everyone comes back eventually. Even seasick, Haida-cursed, moose-knuckled t'weekers blinking away coffee-grounds can't stay away for too long.

Oh! And welcome aboard to our shiny new T'weekers Erika ("Baxter") and Hannah!! And welcome back Maggie! :)

Here's where Cameron Goes Berserk!

Big charter cruise tonight!! Loads of casino high-rollers looking for a good time on the high seas. Their caterers brought aboard a MOUNTAIN of food and beverages (Sometimes during tours we refer to shipping 100 tons of cargo. This looked about right!). Including a protected case of "good stuff" wine (A caterer babysat me while I hauled it aboard).

And then the sail. The Lady Shuffle (also knows as "Git outta me way, Mate!") was in slow-motion as we desperately avoided spilling drinks and topping old-people or scratching 200-carat glam-watches. Everyone had fun, and there was a minimum of rail-usage.

And then they left! And more importantly, left all their uneatens/undrinkages down below for us. Yaaaaay!

Think dance-parties on the hatch over the hold. And a purser loudly announcing himself as the "hardest working man on the boat!" And someone else presiding over it all in his captain-suit. And me dancing at some point. Erm.. moving on..

Good times. Lots of rehydrating, and we quietly buttoned it all up at 1am so we could work in the morning.

No. Johnny Depp is not aboard, Ma'am.

Or at least you probably don't want to see his effigy hanging in the hold. Can you tell that tours went on and on and on? Seven hours, followed by a sail. Wonderful weather, and it IS a day spent aboard a tall-ship, but it was still kind of a grind.

We had some "cosplayers" aboard (kind of like furries, but in Pirate outfits instead). One had the Jack Sparrow look down, although he was pretty timid for the role. Some of the other crew had some real problems with these guys, but I got to know them a little, and they were nice enough people. I had no issues till one bellowed that they were taking over the boat. Fingering a belaying pin, I suggested (loudly) that he could try, mate!

Kind of Hating Tacoma

Just now I heard a couple of crack-heads threaten to shank each other. Locals, I mean.. I'm long since desinsitized to gang-shankings among the crew.

ANYAY.. earlier I was noticing that the poo-gas from the head smells is detectible all around the boat. And on deck. And on the dock.. and a block away.. .. oh. Right. Tacoma. And then we heard over the scanner that there was a gang-fight in progress a few blocks away from our moorage.

I'm pretty sure we weren't involved with that.

Hilariously bad form.

TWO battle-sails today! I haven't sailed ONE before and now I get TWO! Amazing Grace had some trouble with her insurance, so instead of splitting the passengers between us and having one go, we'll take ALL of them aboard the Lady and go through it twice.

Kinda. There wasn't a lot of wind, so our opponent (brigantine-turned-schooner-stepchild-thing ) elected to cast loose her dies'l and motor around us in circles. She also decided that it was just a lot easier to leave all the canvas up between sails, and moored without furling. How clever!

So not our best performance ever. Particularly when the Gunner's Mate accidentally blew loose powder charges through the swivels (there wasn't a rammer in the swivel kit, and the debris in the back of the chamber built up so that the primer powder just filled up behind the charge and blew it out like a projectile). Thankfully we're lousy shots, and the flaming packets of explosive missed both the Grace *and* her jolly-boat and splashed harmlessly into the sea. Hilarious, but bad form. That ain't friendly, kid!

Slowly.. falling.. apart

Ripped open another big hole in my palm, same as last year. Hopefully this time I can cowboy up and just cope. Instead of playing around with friction-tape and broken bits of superglued skin, I think I'll just give it some bag-balm and keep tuggin'.

I've got a ridiculous butt-cramp that won't stretch out, and a nice latticework of cuts and bruises all over. The cramp probably has something to do with Bob putting a curse on the funnypants I'm wearing, but the rest is a mystery.

But at least I got to see an old guy fall into the Sound. Old + Beer + Water = Hilarity. Instead of climbing into a boat with his friends, an old drunk decided that he'd just fall into the sound and let them pull him aboard the boat instead. A bunch of us were sitting down in the hold when Boy Genius whispered "Man Overboard... I.. think?" through the emergency-hatch. We BOLTED out of there and ran onto the dock to assist, but the old guy was already being fished out by his family/friends. So we did the decent thing and stood around laughing.

I have HAD IT with these mofookin' holes in my mofookin' funnypants!

So... I might've gone crazy with a cool locking stitch that Beth showed me earlier. Sewed a bunch of patches of a "cute" pattern (not my intent at the time) over my knees and butt, trying to repair all the blowouts. And after dubiously glancing through all 14 colors of broken thread in the exploded inseam, I viced it closed with some waxed sail-twine. The rest of the material may wear away to nothing in the next few weeks, but THIS seam is gonna hold!

Otherwise a quiet transit to Tacoma. Mooched food from a nice wooden-boat-building society, met Elf (or Darryl, our Lady historian), discovered that there were SIX Washington/Lady Washington privateers in the Revolutionary War, and shooed drunks off the companionway before settling into my rack.

Return of the Moose-Knuckle!

Or not, actually! Esther rigged up a bosun's chair this time for tarring the backstays, but I was *just* able to stretch out my creaky-lawnchair frame so that I could lean off the shrouds to do it. Some spots looked pretty bare, I wonder how many times it's been done since I was last up here?

Spent the evening after the sail enjoying frosty beverages provided by our hosts at the dock authority. They've been taking GREAT care of us, whether it's food, showers, shore-heads.. Brownsville is my favorite harbor ever (plug plug)!

I've heard a couple of times that people are "really glad to see me back." As though I wasn't coming back. Hah! One silly Haida Curse isnt' enough to keep ME away! For reference on Haida and their cursing, see my entire sail last year. It was just dripping with bad ju-ju.

Best Sail Ever

Today was a double-header sail day, so we went RIGHT back out again, and I rode the high from that morning. Everything went *almost* perfectly, right up till I lay aloft to furl the t'gans'l for the first time. I lay over to leeward and glanced across the yard, to find.. a t'weeker that had never furled anything in his life. And was looking down wide-eyed at the deck.

Uh-oh.

What followed was some hurried "Ok, here I think.. no wait, do this thing over there. No that.. that's not right. Actually, you know what? It's fine. Perfect. Go ahead and lay low, I'll just .. clean up.. here." So we rolled up a bunch of dead-babies, and it just HAPPENED to stay that way all the next day through tours.

*EDIT* Le'Argh. I looked all over the web for an official reference on the term "Dead Babies," but no luck. It's a square-rigger's term referring to bunched up bundles of canvas rolled together when the sail is furled. When I can download images off my phone I'll post an example, but when a furled (rolled up) sail looks like it might have something stuffed inside in the areas between the gaskets (lines tying the sail to the yard), you've got "Dead Babies." As though there are dead babies rolled up in the sail. It's SUPPOSED to look even and flat, like a perfectly rolled up.. er.. cigarette sitting on the yard.

Yeah, square-rig sailors are kind of messed up. But I'm not arguing that with you!!

Worst Sail Ever

And then the best one. But the worst. Or at least for a long while. Didn't remember anything. Consistently ran to the wrong place. Caught a passenger with a fluttering t'gallant brace as it was easing. And my incompetent vibes were apparently infectious, and a lot of other crew were fumbling too. Finally, after a travesty of a tack and after JB had thrown his hat overboard (ok, maybe not quite), Rob called us together for a family meeting. I was assigned to shadow along with the t'weekers (ouch, but I needed it), and then I followed Beth and Otis around the deck for a bit. Suddenly.. it all came back. After a few questions ("Wait.. Rise Tacks and Sheets means.. right?"), and some pointing and mumbling to myself, the whole deck popped back into focus. Braces. Gear. Spanker-stuff. Ok, I can do this. Apparently everyone had the same epiphany at once, as we grabbed the boat by the scruff of her neck and whipped her around on the next tack. Rob round us all up again with a sigh and a "Thank Gawd!"

UGH.

Exausting day. I have so much catching up to do, it's pretty discouraging. I hope I can get myself together! I'm so lost on deck that I'm starting to wonder if I ever knew what I was doing during my last few days t'weeking last year. I did, right?

Right??

Holes, Sea-Cadets Tribesmen and Frosty First-Mates

Gh. Still no funnypants aboard that fit. SOoooo it's back to the Bob-pants that I accidentally stole last year. Ripped knees, blowouts and all. I guess this is kind of appropriate, given how ragged and useless my sailoring is right now. I can't tell a Clew from a Brace anymore.. thank gawd their insurance-company insists that I go through aloft training all over again. Good excuse for a brush up on gasket-coils and all that.

But in contrast to my general wretchedness, today we had some Sea-Cadets aboard for the transit to Brownsville! Lots of smartly dressed little ones that will someday fill the belowdecks of something steel and gray in the Persian Gulf. We had them swab the decks, which they enjoyed FAR too much for their officer Den-Mother's comfort.

Going through the locks was interesting, and a little unnerving, as the freshwater drained out and we lowered down, the big slimey walls climbed up higher and higher and higher towards our stiffly braced crow-jack (that big mainmast yard without any sails on it), we all started getting a little nervous, and started glancing skyward for shearing noises and falling blocks. But Rob (Mate) was frosty and it all went fine. Later he admitted that he'd panicked a little too when they went UP into Lake Union.

Later we met the Suquamish and asked permission to enter their waters. We and the Cadets strung together bead offerings and traded with some tribespeople rowing along side of us. It almost felt like we were clearing the air, and attempting to make up for past transgressions (a legacy of the original Lady, maybe?).

And.. then the suck. We went sailing, and I don't remember a damn thing.

Friendly Boat-Faces!!

Ok, so I spent the day panicking for no reason. Expecting a whole new crew and a whole new plethora of weird inside-jokes, I awkwardly made my way toward the majestic wooden boat floating in Lake Union..

Only to be greeted by FIVE familiar lady-faces! Almost everyone that I'd desperately missed, and although a year older, not a day different. Well, aside from some enormous Otis-hair.

After a rousing round of welcomes and hulloos, I tagged along to the local pizza-dive for some Mac & Jack and How've-You-Beens. We capped the night off aboard by giving each other the High Hat in some Screens'l theatre.

Eeeeeeeek!!

In an hour and a half(ish?) I'll be leaving for my second cruise aboard the Lady Washington. I'm so skeered!! It's been almost a year since my last time, and I remember less than nothing about what to do, where to be.. I'll be just as green as before, but now they'll expect me to actually contribute. NOOOOooooooOOoooo!! :/

*panic*

I'll be updating from my phone again (sorry about the annoying Cingular ads) until I get back, at which point I'll fill in the rest from what I've written in my pencil/paper journal.

SOoOoo.. yeah

I haven't forgotten to finish the story, I've just been frantic about preparing for another ocean cruise! This one's a bit more modern, though. Dunno if I'll get any sea-time for it either.

Anyway, I'll add what I can during the next few days, and then finish up the rest when we get back!!