More Posts!

I added more today, slipping new entries into the dates in which they happened, to keep things simple and in order. I've got it covered to about the 13th now, although I still have some work yet in order to properly convey the Quarterdeck-Dance-Party that broke out. More later! :)

Updates!

Ok, I was super-lazy and didn't have much of a chance to update much while aboard, but most of my good pictures are on my camera anyway. So! I've made a bunch of changes, and will continue adding new posts (in chronological order) and pictures all this week.

Home!

Well, Seatac. In an hour or two, I'll be home for reals!

Last Muster!

Aww, my last night on the lady, and therefore my last muster :sniff:. A good day, a fantastic sail, and an unbelievable two weeks! Oh! Happy burfday Stan!!

Pinrail!

We now have a ship's cat! Or brig's cat? Anyway, he wandered aboard from the Saucilito dock, and we've since been keeping him on a beer and pizza ration.

Catching up!

So i've been a bit weak on updates the part week, due to my floating around 20 miles off the west coast. But now that we're back for some R and R and day-sailing, i can try to catch up on it all! Much more to follow, although so much has happened, it'll be a little out of order till i get home.

Saucilito!

Transit is over, and we're safely moored just outside San Francisco! We made it in a record 4 days, 21 hours, so we've got a few days to celebrate AND sober up!

Avast Ye Lazy Gawping!!

The entire crew is either sitting sitting or sleeping on deck, and there isn't a bloody thing the bos'n can do about it, because he's lashed himself to the starboard channels to do some foot-dipping. And the Bos'n's Mate is keepin' him company (har har, but these people *are* sailors, after all!).

This is the Day that Never Ends..

But in a good way!

After struggling through my morning watch, I grabbed a couple of hours in my rack, changed and came back up to enjoy the day. And by God, WHAT a day! Not a cloud in the sky, a stiff breeze & following seas; which by now are nice, 20' slow rollers.

Every contour, every wrinkle in the water sparkles and glistens in the sun, blending into a blinding carpet out to the horizon. All hands lay about the deck, draped over every sunny surface and each other (whether tarred or not) updating journals, reading, sleeping, etc. I caught up on some journal entries, and then devoured some chapters of O'Brian's Ionian Mission while laying out on the bowsprit (the jibboom makes a comfy pillow, even with the promise of certain destruction should something go wrong).

That's right, reading a Jack Aubrey novel on the bowsprit of a square-rigger under full sail on an ocean voyage.

It seemed perfectly natural at the time, but that stolen moment between watches is one of those things I'll think about when taking my last breath.

..And there was Much Rejoicing

After a long, painful stagger to the quarterdeck, I came to the slow realization that we're all still alive! The hull is intact. Everyone is either safely tucked in their racks or blearily looking about on deck. Aside from some grumbling, my stomach is even content!

The stars are amazing. We've been stuck in yucky weather for so long (a whole .. 20 hours?) that I've forgotten that stars arranged themselves into cosmic patterns. Between sweeping stares along the horizon, we glance upward and point out The Guy with a Belt, The Angry Cow, the Conjoined Twins, etc. Good times.

And then the sun had to go and ruin it all. By blazing a path like I've never seen before.. it was though half the sea caught fire and jumped up into the sky. Then again, I was blinking through eyes that had given up 12 hours ago.

Of course, none of that matters, because our Nor'Westerlies are HERE!! With much Huzzah!!ing and deck-pounding, the diesels are off for a much-deserved nap.

And the Fun Stops.... .. Now.

No real meaningful wind yet, but we've finally got those 20' swells we kept hearing about on the radio! All at oncelike, too. Here we were, minding our business, finishing up evening watch, and then Otis had to go tell a story about a dream he'd had that had involved extricating an albatross from a block & tackle. And *just* as he was starting to describe cutting its wings off with his rig knife, we got hit HARD on the aft starboard quarter. Hard enough to slam the watch on the weather side into the binnacle, and hard enough to fling Rob and myself over the lifeboat and onto the lee rail (baaAAaaalance!). Then we got another one. And another.

So! Great watch, good luck guys, we'll see you below. Good times.

I headed down to the hold, climbing down the fore & aft safety-line the whole way, made sure that the hatch was secure and that the (tarp) cover was nice and tucked over it. I bounded down and into my rack before turning completely green.

I didn't realize how much worse that weather could feel when you were below and couldn't see it.

Then again, I could see it fine when waves began CRASHING DOWN INTO THE HOLD! There's a cutout to the starboard side of the hatch, which leaves exposed about a 1'6" gap, starting 1-2' above the deck. The waves that were breaking over onto the deck were easily clearing this, soaking those of us below.

The first few waves caught me square in the face, since my rack is on the port side, near the galley. I'd been oriented that way to keep my head away from the galley, what with all the crashing noises that go on in there (which was now crescendoing into an Animal-Drum-Solo of pots and pans). Time to change my strategy. I reoriented my drenched head and pillow to point aft, up against the bulkhead and galley.

Meanwhile, while us lubber folk were panicking, Annie and Beth were busily jamming a fitted chunk of plywood into the hatch cutout. Waves were crashing all around them as they worked, but after much heroic effort, it slid home.

And then the next wave broke over *that.*

Not much to do after that, except pray to the Gods of Electric Bilge-Pumps, and get what little sleep we could.

Which got trickier, once the COFFEE-MAKER slipped her moorings, bounced off the bulkhead, and exploded into a million pieces. All of which unloaded their cargo of lukewarm coffee and grounds into my faceand down into my sleeping-bag!

For the next drenched, violent 8 hours, I convinced myself that we were done. With every swell, I was sure that we were broaching, and that was it. After all, in the Forester and O'Brian novels, the Frenchies have had it when water starts blasting down into the hold, right?

After making peace with the world, I finally collapsed into sleep.

12 minutes before Maya politely came down to wake me for morning watch.

Binnacle!!

Ok, so I wasn't the only one whose mind was completely blown by that stupid squall. Sometime during the hilarity on deck with the setting and resetting, a little songbird came falling out of the sky, and flitted about on deck. According to John, he's a Gray-Throated Blue Warbler. Or maybe Blue-Throated Gray Warbler? Anyway, he was a tired little critta, having been blown 20+ miles offshore with weather obscuring the coastline.

We set a bird-watch, in order to keep track of each new hiding place he hopped over to, and kept quiet, so as not to alert the crew and spook him.

Eventually though, he got pretty friendly, and he popped over onto the quardeck to meet each of us. He even took a spell at the helm, although Swab helped him out a bit.
Eventually he had enough of all the hard work, and hopped up into the binnacle to nest amongst our coffee cups, candy-wrappers, etc. Holding that tiller on course is pretty tough work, after all.

Jake, the False Prophet

So Jake got tired of the Easterlies, and asked the Gods for our bloody Nor'Wester. And got it! For 30 seconds.

Mad joy and panic ensued, as I and the other rookies present (oh wait, it was just me) still had no experience actually *sailing* the brig. I'd arrived just in time to fire up the diesels from Westport, and I'd had yet to pull on any lines save the flag halliards.

So while we frantically adjusted the Stays'ls, tacked the Fore-Course, and performed other sundry nautical functions, I was basically playing "Stay-Out-of-Me-Way-Mate!" until I was smart enough to follow someone around and haul on whatever she pointed me at. A sudden shower opened up, and getting across the slippery, heaving deck was more a matter of hand-over-handing down the fore & aft lifelines than it was actually walking.

And just as we got a chance to return to the quarterdeck to proudly enjoy our newly set rig, the wind changed. Yup. Easterly. Dammit.

So picture the same events as above, but reversed. And then repeated *again* forwards as the wind switched back to Nor'West. Rinse and repeat 2 or 3 more times.

Turns out we were in the eye of a cute little squall, about the Nth time of setting for East or Nor'West (I'd long since lost track), the wind mostly died altogether and the showers cranked themselves up to 11. Jake's eyes were glowing red by this point, and he barked out for us to furl up the whole damn thing as he sent Rob below to fire the diesels back up.

Leaving 4 of us on deck. Leaving 2 per yard.. meaning.. gh! I had to lay aloft! It'd been what, 4 days since my first and only climb?

The weather, hot rain-gear and whacky swells stirred up by the squall had left me a bit green, but aloft I went. Real slowlike. I wound up on the starboard side next to the bunt, opposite Annie, and with Beth further out to my right. After a few frantic questions, Annie got me started on the process ("Lie on the Z, grab armfuls of canvas and swipe at the dangly-thing?"). I only caught glimpses of deck and see below since I was so busy, and the only fear *this* time was not heaving onto said deck or into the sail I was furling. Thankfully, I got the job done without leaving any me-shaped dents in the deck, and as I lay low I heard someone murmer: "Wait, has he had his aloft-training yet?"

SAaaaaaaaiiling!!

We're SAAAaaaaaiilling! Ok, not so much. Kinda though. After days of motoring into Southerly winds, we've finally got a manageable wind from the East, and so with time to spare (Capt. Jake has already determined that we were a day ahead of schedule), we've killed the diesels and are limping along with some headrig, fore-course (mostly for show), and stays'ls. The Norwesterlies are due today/tonight, so hopefully we'll get a little bit of a head-start on 'em!

Waking the Sleeping Giant..

Ok, so there's been this ongoing thing with waking up JB for morning & evening watch. A lot of people have gone down to his stateroom to wake him, and most of them have either been eaten, flayed or flash-frozen. Some of the more notable attempts ranged from waking him 5 minutes early, to bursting his door open, yammering "20-minutes till watch! Omigod don't kill me!", banging the door shut (but not latching it), letting the next swell open it back up so it can bang shut *again*, and then frantically running up the stairs before he can eat you.

Tonight was my attempt.

Which went suprisingly well. I've got all my limbs and everything! Just a gentle door-open, a quietish voice, and then meekly latching the door *before* frantically running up the stairs. Good deal. I'd bring him Ramen or something, but with my Haida Curse (more on that later), I'd probably stumble in the dark and send the noodles flying into his rack.

But then..

..that means that we get to play with radar! Which of course, is awesome.

I'd seen the whole green-glowing display in the movies and on TV, and hell, I even know how it works, but I'd never actually played with it before. Or *ahem,* checked it in a professional and seamanlike manner.

Anyway, just like in the movies, there's a like circular screen with the brig represented in the middle by a white blotch, and a fuzzy line radiating out of it that sweeps around (clockwise?) pick up other boats, or "contacts." If anything is found up, you get to run to the quarterdeck and say something sweet, like "Contact bearing zero-three-zero at three-zero miles."

At which point the Officer of the Watch says "No, that's a building ashore." And then you feel like a doofus.

Cold Soup!

Whoa! On the topic of environmental wonders at sea, today I also discovered mist! Not the streetlight-diminishing kind at home, where sound is deadened a little bit and you need to jump into ditches to avoid being run over.. but the rolling, pillowy kind from where Fire-Vurms slither. The sun vanished altogether, and 360/bow watch is next to irrelevant, since you can't even figure out where the horizon is, let alone where other boats are. The mist settled around 5-6ish, and the ocean swells sloooooowed down, got disjointed and weird. Apparently we'll have 20-footers coming soon, but for now the ocean has decided to play with syncopation. I don't see how we're still generally upright, as we don't roll the same distance one way before rolling in the other.

It's AlIIIiiiiive!!

It's amazing how able and willing a man is to navigate his head all around a head-sink in order to wash his hair after 3-4 days at sea. Ok, not so amazing. Still satisfying, though.

The Film That Shall Not Be Named

Some of us did a Very Bad Thing. I won't name names. But Swab, Topher and Otis are all nicknames anyway. Anyway, after enjoying the outdoors wore off (3 hoursish), we huddled in the dark of the after-cabin to take notes on how Mr. Depp and Mr. Bloom managed to handle our boat all by themselves. I'm still not sure, but after watching the first few scenes, it's clear that Depp has a strange wind-pattern forming around his head, maybe that's helping him out some. He can stand atop a mast, and while his hair blows back, the sails below and flags above billow forward. So he's got that going for him, which must be nice.

Anyway, lots of fun. I've never watched a film *from* the set before, that was pretty sweet, even given the amount of shame that watching it incurred. Still, Evil is Fun, so I can live with it. I wonder where the hatchet-marks are on the starboard rail? It seems odd that the movie-studio could falsify 24-pounders and an entire gundeck, but found it easier to just chop holes in the actual rail. Somebody tell me this isn't true!

Sunshiney Day

A gorgeously warm, sunny day. I grabbed a few hours of rack-time after morning watch, and when I came back on deck, everyone was up to enjoy the sun. Sun! It'd been wet, and wet, and wet the past couple of days, and wandering around on deck without foulies was a little unnerving. Ok, it wasn't quite *warm* per-se, but it was cool and not quite chilling. Wander-around-in-a-couple-of-sweaters-but-not-your-coat weather.

The sunshine was as mind-altering as the stars have been in early-morning watch. It just illuminates everything, and the differences in temperature in and out of shadows is perceptible. It's almost how you'd imagine that astronauts would feel between sun and darksides in space.. well, if they weren't wrapped up in climate-controlled ships and spacesuits. Crap, nevermind. And each little ripple in the water catches the light and rafracts it deep into the back of your eye, which blinds a little bit and all blends together into what looks like a dewy spiderweb blowing in the wind on some spring morning. In the distance, the ripples mesh together, and so about halfway to the horizon, the sea is just flickering sunlight.

Anyway, after mindlessly lazing around on deck for awhile, I decided to catch up on some log-writing, O'Brian-ing (Ionian Mission), etc. The book makes for an instant conversation-starter, though. I chat it up with a couple of other crewmen that are Aubrey-fans (go figure?), and suddenly, I realize that I'm home. Not *at* home, with the bills, work and broken house-bits, but where I'd most like to be. I can comment about O'Brian's character X in chapter Y of book whatever, and can easily debate it with 3-4 different people. I can lie down in the sun. With nothing to do or worry about for 6 more hours till watch. And aside for some grindey diesels, utter peace. I hear that we'll get our Nor'Westerlies in the next day or two, maybe peace will come with 'em!

Thermonuclear Cocktail Whales!

After my morning dash to the rail, I came face to face with a glittering, sparkly dolphin. Regular dolphins had been playing in our bow-wave the day before, but apparently now they've learned how to sparkle!

By means of explanation, my watch started at 4am, when the bioluminescent critters are at their happiest, and the dozen or so dolphins swimming about in them were churning them up. They rocketed back and forth across the bow, and took turns torpedoing the side of the brig. Each time they dashed by, they left streamers of glowing green twinklies.

I can't believe that after the past few days, I almost started this entry with "Nothing much happened today."

Meep-meep!!

They let me drive the boat!! On our evening watch, I was feeling good enough to take a turn at the tiller, and after 30 or so minutes of Crazy-Ivans, I finally got her on a reasonably straight course. I've got nothing on Swab's tiller-sitting technique, and certainly no aptitude for Annie's artistic (and distracting) tiller-dancing, but at least I didn't crash into anything!!

(Annie recovering from all the gyrating)

Stargazing

After some (legal) chemical fortification, I was finally able to get down to the business of sailoring. Which was brilliant!! We were on the 4-8 "C" watch (AM & PM), and we were treated to the brightest and most vivid display of stars I've ever seen. The only light obscuring them was the moon, and .. other stars.

Just before passing the torch to the "A-team," we gawked through a CAPITAL(!) sunrise, which flung reds, pinks and oranges across half the horizon and totally blinded my camera. So no pictures. :(

Bless You, Sir

Woke up somewhat better! I'm almost 24 hours into the pain and suffering, and the Great-and-Salty-JB has reassured me that after 48 hours I'll be reasonably healthy. I've been surviving on Saltines and water (mostly so that I have something to heave when 2-6ing over the rail), but I'm starting to hold onto some of it, and the shakes are dying down. Still shaky, queasy and miserable, though.

And then someone produces the sweet hookups. After a hit of Bonine, I'm good as new!! John, I want to have your aquatic sea-babies!!

(to the Browncoats among you..)

(sigh) Ok, so I heard that bit about love in the film Serenity. In reference to spaceships. But it's true, dammit!!

Ok, one more note..

Somehow in the depth of my misery, I got to know the Lady a bit. I've heard that a ship requires love to sail true, and I think I saw a glimpse of that while lying slumped on the quarterdeck (thank you Rob!!). We had some racous Irish folk-music wailing away, and while looking up at the masts, I realized that we were swelling in time to the music. When the rhythm changed, eventually so did the roll of the brig. She was dancing!!

HEeeaaave!!

Aside from some brief moments of stupendous glory, our first day at sea was a miserable shambles and therefore all record shall be stricken from the books. Suffice it to say, I've never been so painfully sick and I did some ad-hoc repainting of the hull.

9 times in the first hour. That's all I'll say.

BAAAaaaaab!!

To celebrate our impending voyage, a number of us had one last huzzah at the local dive, and among the other Star-Wars-cantina-types was Crazy Bob!! The Bob that suckered me into this thing and then ditched me at the last minute to go pick cranberries!!

Ahem.

Good times had all around. During the festivities, Bob took me aside, uttered some strange salty phrases in my ear, and then wandered off to harrass the ladies. I wonder how handy they'll be?

"There's one thing: the Brig. That's it."
"The Brig is the ship, and the crew. Love them both."
..

Um, there was other stuff. I think? Maybe Bob can post some feedback and remind me as to the rest. At the time we were busy refilling each other's glasses, and a lot of it is a haze. I tried to give it all a good ponder while in the head, but when I came out, everybody had vanished, to go move a dishwasher or something. So I was distracted!

Aloft!

My first visit to the tops'l yard was deliciously uneventful, in that I came back down without much crashing or screaming. Nate (our acting bosun) took us last two volunteers up for aloft training, and "Scary" has now been officially redefined for me. Spiders, Deadlines, IRS, Avian Bird Flu.. eh. That's mildly alarming. Getting up the futtocks the first time is scary. To clarify, to get from the Main-Course/Crowjack (lowest) yard to the Tops'l (middle) yard, you need to climb up the shrouds to a wooden platform (the main-top, right?), and then *out* around the main-top in order to run up the next level of shrouds. And by out, I mean about 6-8' at an angle of 45-degrees away from the mast. With nothing below you except sea, a hard rail, or if you're lucky, some crunchy channels below to break your fall. And from there, you can't see the next set of shrouds leading up. The ones you need to frantically grab when pulling yourself over. And all this happens what.. 30' above the deck? Which is hard and wood. Far harder than my soft-pink landsman's body. Or my brittle little white bones. And it's not just me.. Forester's Hornblower crawled up into a fetal position and wept like a schoolboy his first time, too. And *he* had a Lubber's Hole to sneak through when nobody was looking!

Anyway, with a lot of patience from Nate (who was standing ON the Crowjack while I was clinging to the futtocks and pondering the afterlife), I got up and over. Afterwards, he was even decent enough to show me the safety-line I could have clipped onto!

The going was a bit tougher for Julia (the other new volunteer), though. She's sized a little closer to the sailors of yore (4'-something). She couldn't reach over the main-top at all, and could only cling below it. So after much coaching from Nate (and clipping into the safety line I didn't know about), she took the "normal" approach of running up the futtock shrouds, flinging herself out into the air as she reached the Main-Top, and catching hold of the next set of shrouds before falling. Leap of Faith. After seeing that, my route was cake.

After that was a quick dash to the tops'l yard, a bit of looking down and getting quesy, and then a run back down in time for lunch. Ah, sweet merciful deck!!

And lo, I have birthed a monster!

Ya know those flashlights that turn on fine, but die when you point them at anything? Yea, due to my meddling with the lens, one of those monsters is all that stands between me and midnight aquatic oblivion. Excellent.

I pulled on a thing!

Ok, so you can't see it from here, but I learned how to run up the flags! Right-side up even. Ok, not that interesting, but now I've got a job more important than 'Get out o' me way, mate!'

2-6!

Purely for the sake of meeting my new mates, I tagged along with the crew to tour Westport's drinking establishments. I'm the newbiest volunteer on the brig, so absolutely *everybody* looks salty at this point. I met Otis within 10 seconds of boarding, and have kinda glommed onto him at the moment. He gets along with everyone, has an interesting and educated opinion on most topics, is Irish-American, and appears to know every square-inch of the brig. And he's as crass as can be, so we get along pretty well. The evening goes spectacularly, and the pints eventually calm my nerves and I'm able to join in and do my bit.

Afterwards we hit the local Kareoke joint, where Otis shows off his Elvis chops, and Maya pulls off a wicked ACDC rendition. Personally, I'm too tired & not drunk enough to participate. I should brush up on my Social D and Johnny Cash for the next time around..

Afterwards, I'm still a little nervous about using the marine heads aboard, so I have to run the quarter-mile to the shore heads. About 7 times. Gh!



Happy birthday, JB!!

All Aboard!!

She really came back to port, so I'm off!! All the passengers came off the boat looking pretty green and disheveled. Wonder what that's about? Anyway, my gear is stowed (foremost rack on the starboard side of the hold, that means I'm close to food, right?), and I'm off to start meeting folks! The transit to California starts tomorrow, and I've been informed (with a lot of leers and eye-glinting) that I'm going to die of seasickness tomorrow. So I guess I'll be reporting back from the afterlife?

Welcome, but Please Bugger Off?

Not much to report yet today. We drove down to lovely Westport, WA in order to meet up with the Lady who had just arrived from Aberdeen. It was fairly long drive down from Seattle, but this was her last stop before the transit South to warmer climates. We arrived about an hour before my required 1:30pm report, but after a brief "Who are you??" and a panic, I was then (politely!) informed that the boat was overcrewed and the day's sail was overbooked. Could I (please) bugger off for a few hours? So we watched her sail off, and I spent the day enjoying the numerous sights and sounds of Westport. SOoooo.. lots of looking at deserted fishing boats and peering through the windows of closed businesses. Sweet.

(BTW, I've never been asked to bugger off so politely, or in such a friendly fashion!)

Tomorrow...

Tomorrow morning I sail out from Westport, Washington, as a volunteer crew member aboard the Lady Washington, a replica 18th century brig and Washington State's Tall Ship Ambassador.