Reunion

Approaching Reunion Island from the Northeast

Our passage from Rodrigues to Reunion had pretty light winds most of the way and we had to motor for about 16 hours to keep moving along.  We arrived in Reunion on Saturday, 12/6 on a lovely, sunny day.  Reunion is a roughly circular island with a diameter of about 36 miles.  It is part of France and has been since the late 16th century.  Being part of France allows the island to have first world infrastructure so they have great roads and lots of traffic.  The current population is around 900,000.  There is an active volcano in the Southeast so that area is not very populated.  The larger cities are around the coastal areas with many smaller villages scattered through the interior.  They seem to have some tourism, mostly from France but it's not a particularly easy island to get to.  Most of the tourist area is along the west coast.  The island is volcanic and at one time had a large number of volcanoes that have collapsed over the centuries, leaving a unique and remarkable landscape.  I've tried to get some photos but, once again, the pictures don't come close to the reality.  I have really enjoyed our week here and I'll be leaving tomorrow thinking that I will need to come back one day and finish exploring this amazing place.

From the sea you can get an idea of the mountainous nature of the island.  These raviens and hills are the defining features of the island and this is a very small example of one.  The towns are usually on the high ground with reviens on each side.

At the base of these cliffs is the highway that leads from Le Port to St Denni, which is the capitol.  It's a lovely drive and I imagine the homes on top have a great view.

This is the other end of that 8-10 kilometer long cliff on the East side of Le Port.  There are 2 ports here and we tied up in Port O'est (West).  There are no good natural harbors on the island so all of them are very nice man made ports that are very well protected from storms and high seas.

I went in with some shipmates and we rented 2 cars and drove up to a village in the interior called Cilaos.  As the crow flies the distance from the coast to Cilaos is about 8-10 kilometers but the road up the mountain is 36 kilometers and you can't go more than about 20 due to hairpin turns.  It took us a couple of hours to get there but we stopped a few times and took pictures.  Fortunately they drive on the right side of the road, which is good since I did all the driving.

Here is where we started to climb into the mountains.  The valley is very wide with a flat rocky bottom and there is a very small stream, maybe 10 feet wide, in the center.  We pretty much followed this valley all the way up.  The highest point on the island is a little over 3,000 meters, so a little over 10,000 feet.  That's quite a bit of altitude to cover from sea level at the cost to 3,000 meters in about 10 kilometers.

This should give you a sense of the road.  It was in excellent condition and quite steep.  The red sign you see is actually a bus stop.  Yes, they run busses up and down to all of the towns in the interior.  It costs 1.5 Euros to take the bus from the coast to Cilao.  Just to the right and on the outer edge of the turn you can see 2 posts.  This is a marked hicking trail that descends into the valley.  Reunion has hundreds of kilometers of improved hicking trails all over the island, many with cottages spaced a day's hike apart.  One trail makes a complete circle for over 100 kilometers and takes about 17 days to hike.

This is more than half way up the mountain at another bus stop.  Unfortunately the higher elevations are frequently shrouded in clouds but, if it were clear we would be able to see the sea in the center.

Steep, beautiful country.

This tunnel is about 300 meters long.  You're running along on the nice two lane mountain road and you turn into the tunnel enterence to find that the tunnel is only one lane wide and the inside of the tunnel is unfinished, bare rock.  They did put a wide spot in the middle so cars could get around each other if they meet.  There were a few tunnels like this but this one was the longest.

Near the top is the very French village of Cilaos

This is the view back from that church above.  The mountains are kind of lost in the haze, but they're there.  The village was pretty much closed by the time we arrived so we just walked through and admired how beautiful it is.

I have made a point of stopping and smelling all the new flowers that I see.  I was able to smell these flowers before I got anywhere near the trees.  There were namy of these trees and they were very fragarent, with a sweet scent similar to lilacs.  This bridge crossed a water run off canal, which was empty except that the flowers were falling from the trees like snow and the canal was coated with them.  Below the bridge, beside the canal was a littly grassy park.

There is one more interesting tidbit about Reunion.  There is a great deal of shark activity along the west coast.  Yes, I did say above that the west coast is the tourist area.  The beach that I stayed at had and area that had reef of on two sides and a shark net along the seaward side.  This area was also patrolled by jet-ski.  Swimming was only allowed in that small section.  The rest of the beach was posted as a No Swimming area, due to sharks.

Phosphorescence

There is an organism, in most of the world’s oceans, that, when disturbed, briefly emit a greenish-yellow glow; very similar to fire-flies or lightening bugs.  I don’t know if they are algae, plankton or some more simple organism but they are very small and one really only sees them when they phosphoresce.   The phosphorescent glow only lasts a few seconds; however, when there is a large concentration of these organisms it can be a spectacular sight.  My first experience with this phenomenon was in the Atlantic when Lugnuts did the Newport-Bermuda Race.  There were large quantities of them so that, at night, the wake glowed with thousands of points of light.  It is a beautiful and mesmerizing sight.  I have been quite surprised by the lack of phosphorescence that in the Indian Ocean.  I had assumed that it would be the same everywhere as I had seen in the Atlantic.  In the Indian Ocean most nights we only see the occasional glimmer of phosphorescence.  The most we’ve seen was on the first couple of nights after leaving Bali, which brings me to my story.

One of the really great things about sailing, whether it be on Lake Michigan or in the ocean, is that it puts one in places where there is great potential to see wonderful and amazing sights.  As anyone on the Lugnuts crew can confirm, we have seen the most remarkable sunsets and sunrises, storm clouds, lightning, calms, stars and falling stars, among many other beautiful sights.  We often remark, while in awe of some remarkable sight, that many of these sights can only be seen from the deck of a boat.  I was pretty confident that, during 8 months at sea, I would be seeing some more amazing sights.  Little did I know that one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen would present itself on my very first night watch at sea.

We left Bali at about 1400 on Sunday, October 26^th.  When we went to sea the crew was divided from 2 shore watches into 3 night watches and I was placed on the 12 to 4 watch.  Leaving port we were “all hands” until around 1800 so my first official watch was from midnight until 0400 on 10/27.  During the night watches, one of the duties we share is forward lookout, where for one hour shifts a crew member stands at the bow and keeps a sharp eye out of any hazards or other traffic.  I had my first turn on lookout from 0200-0300.  The moon was either new or waning very small that night so it was pretty dark and the stars were amazing and there was a moderate amount of phosphorescence in the water.  I was trying to remember to keep looking around for hazards and not just gaze at the stars when I noticed a strange light in the water near the bow.  When I looked for it I thought that it must have been a whitecap that I saw glowing a little but then I realized it was turned in the wrong direction so I started watching more closely nearer to the bow.  I saw another long slash of phosphorescence going at an angle to the wake of the ship but this time I was watching and it turned out that I had a small pod of 5 dolphins swimming in and around the bow wave of the ship.  It was so dark that I would not have been able to seem them at all if not for the phosphorescence but the darkness made the phosphorescence that much brighter to my eye and make the whole scene truly amazing.  The phosphorescence glowed from the nose of each dolphin and all around their bodies and then left a glowing wake behind each one for about another length of its body, so that a 4 foot long dolphin swam in the front half of an 8 foot long torpedo of green light.  The phosphorescence was bright enough that I could clearly see the entire length of each dolphin, in detail, as they swam in and out of the bow wave.  It appeared to me that they were taking turns getting into the best part of the bow wave and then veering off to circle back up from behind the bow and wait until the spot was open again.  I had the privilege of being able to watch them for about 10 minutes before they swam off.  I was absolutely spellbound the entire time and my turn on lookout ended just a few minutes after they left.  They came back (or more showed up) about 10 minutes into the next watch and I was told they stayed and played for about 20 minutes that time.

When I was relieved at lookout I excitedly told my relief about the dolphins.  My relief was Emile, a 21 year old Dane who sailed previously on the Denmark, and he was not impressed at all.  He said, “You’ll see so many dolphins on this trip that you began not to notice.”  I found I had to go find Turi, our watch’s other new trainee, just to find someone to share my excitement with.  Since that first night, I’ve seen dolphins one other time in the daylight and that was very brief.  There have been a couple of times that crewmates have seen whales breathing but I have not seen that yet myself.  I can’t imagine that I will ever find seeing these animals in their natural habitat to be a mundane sight.  I would love to be able to show you pictures, although I doubt pictures would do the sight justice, but there was no way I was going to walk away to get my camera while the dolphins were there.  That day I started my journal entry with the statement, “I will probably repeat this phrase many time here but, I saw the most amazing thing today!” 

Rodrigues

I have a dilemma.  This is a wonderful island and I would love to write an extensive blog post about it but, if I do that, I will be sitting inside at my computer instead of out there enjoying the wonderful place.  That being said, I've decided to write a quick post now and then try to write a better on when I'm on the way to our next stop at Reunion.

Rodrigues is a small volcanic island with a large limestone plain on the west side.  It's roughly an oval about 10 miles long and 4 miles wide.  It has rough mountainous terrain, with some mountains about 1,200 feet high.  The higher elevations are tropical rain forest and the lower elevations are more dry.  The population is about 38,000 spread pretty evenly across the island, with the lower west side being a little less populated.

Approaching Rodrigues from the Southeast

A 70 year old Tortoise and me having a chat.  I sat down about 10 feet away from him and he came over to let me scratch his neck, you know, after he bit my knee to see if I tasted good.

They have ENORMOUS spiders here.  It's hard to get a perspective without something else in the picture but from this guys let tips, front to back he is every bit of 6 inches long.  These are the only spiders I've seen here and there are quite a lot of them.  I asked a women what they were called and she said, "Spiders".

This place is beautiful.  It's clean, the people are friendly, their homes are nice, all with lovely gardens and flowers everywhere.  Most business are only open from 9 AM until 3 PM, then everyone goes home to their families.  I've been staying at a B&B for $35.00 US a night and a good steak dinner costs $10.00 US.  A great, grilled lobster dinner costs $65.00 US for a 1 kilo lobster...it was spectacular!  I will try to post more but now I'm going on a hike before this day gets away from me.

The Crew

I had promised a post about the crew.  Maybe it’s best that I waited until now since I’ve gotten to know everyone much better.  We have a large crew, very close to a full complement of 48.  We have 46 and one more is joining in Reunion.  It’s a very diverse group both in age and nationality.

Denmark:
Caroline, Laura, Anne-mette, Morton, Magnus, Christian, Nicholai and Emile.  All have sailed previously on the ship Denmark, except for Christian, who has worked on the Denmark when it was in port.  Christian and Nicholai joined in Fiji, all the rest joined in Bali.  All are leaving in Cape Town, except Nicholai and Emile, they’re both on for the rest of the voyage.  Laura, Anna-mette, Morton, Magnus and Emile all sailed together on the Denmark and all about 20ish.  Nicholai is in his mid-20s and Christian is 32.  Laura, Nicholai, Magnus and Emile are all on my watch.  Nicholai is also the assistant engineer aboard.
Sweden:
Elsa, Amanda, Elvira and Elias.  All have sailed previously, Elsa has sailed pretty extensively and has joined the sail maker on this voyage, instead of standing watch.  Elsa is 26 and the others are around 20. The area of Sweden where they’re from has a high school that has its own sail training ship, the Gunnilla.  They have the option of taking a track of classes that includes the sail training.  Elvira took marine science while onboard the Gunnilla.  They spent 4 months sailing around Europe and the Mediterranean; what a high school!  All 4 joined in Bali and will be leaving in Cape Town.  Elvira is on my watch.
Norway:
Turi – 29.  Turi is new to tall ship sailing.  She joined in Bali and is for the rest of the voyage.  She was working in Dubai for the 3 years before joining the ship.  Turi is on my watch.
Lithuania:
Monica – 34.  This is Monica’s first tall ships voyage but she is an action seeker who likes mountain climbing and para-gliding.  She says it’s funny that she is a mountain climber because the tallest mountain in Lithuania is only about 100 meters high.
Germany:
Axle and Jennes.  Both are in their mid to late 20 and both are experienced tall ship sailors.  Axle is the mate on my watch and Jennes is also on my watch.  Axle went to the German Naval Academy and then served in the Navy before working on freight ships for a couple years.  This is his first voyage in Picton Castle and he joined in Fiji.  Jennes joined in Bali and is leaving in Cape Town.
Bermuda:
Erin, Dekembae and Simon.  This is Simon’s first tall ship voyage.  He’s 56 and joined for the leg from Bali to Cape Town.  He owns businesses in Bermuda and England and is a small plane pilot as well.  Dekembae is an experienced tall ship sailor, having sailed on the Spirit of Bermuda as well as sailing on the Denmark at the same time as the group of Danes that all sailed together.  He’s in his early 20s.  Erin is the ships Boson, responsible for the maintenance of the ships rigging.  She is 25 and has sailing extensively on tall ships.  She joined in Fiji and will be on board beyond the end of this voyage.  Dekembae also joined in Fiji and is on for the whole voyage.
Tonga:
Via – 20.  Via joined in Tonga while the ship was sailing around the South Seas.  She is an experienced sailor, because of her time aboard but she mostly acts as Dawson’s nanny now.  (see below)
Great Briton:
Bob (Kate) – Mid-twenties, Terry – 57 (He’s actually from Wales) & And Amy – 30ish.  Amy is an AB and is the lead seaman on one of the other watches.  Terry has sailed on a couple of tall ships before but more as a passenger than as crew.  He’s on from Bali to Cape Towne.  He’s great because he’s very laid back and doesn’t take anything too seriously; something I’m working on.  Bob is the ship’s purser, which means she takes care of all of the administrative work for the ship, like clearing in and out of customs, etc.  She has been on the Picton Castle for about 3 years but all is smaller chunks of time.  We call her Bob because when she boarded her first tall ship as a trainee, they asked her for her name and she said Kate.  The captain said, “That sounds like a girl’s name and everyone knows it’s bad luck to have girls aboard ships so we’ll call you Bob!”
Canada:
Captain Moreland, his wife Tammy and their son Dawson.  Captain Moreland holds a USCG 500 ton Master Unlimited ticket, the highest captains rating the US Coast Guard issues and he’s 62.  He’s been sailing for 42 years and he bought the Picton Castle in 1993 and put together the consortium that maintains her today.  He designed the rig when she was converted to a tall ship as well.  This is the homeward leg of his 7^th circumnavigation aboard the Picton Castle.  Tammy is the sail maker aboard and is in her mid-40s.  Dawson is the ship’s boy.  Dawson is around 27 months old and has been living aboard the Picton Castle since he was about 2 months old.  Imagine learning to walk on the deck of ship at sea!  In addition to the boss and his family, we also have: Travis, 36.  This is his first tall ship voyage and he joined in Bali for the trip to Cape Town.  He spent the last 3 years teaching at a school above the Arctic Circle in Canada for first nation’s students. 
Fiji:
Joe – Mid-forties.  Joe is ships carpenter and he joined in Fiji, this is his first tall ship adventure.  I have been working with him some and he’s a really nice guy.  I asked what he thought about his new job and he said he loved it, he wants to stay on the Picton Castle the rest of his life.
Grenada:
Donald – Late-forties.  Donald is the ship’s cook.  He has been with the ship for 6 years now, the longest of anyone, except the captain.  He’s an excellent baker and a solid of somewhat basic cook.  He worked as a cook on Caribbean cruise ships before joining Picton Castle.
Australia:
Mark – 49.  Mark is an experienced tall ship sailor and has sailed on the Picton Castle before.  He was promoted to Able Bodied Seaman (AB) after we left Bali, when they made Erin the Boson.
USA:

John – 52, Kurt – 54, Bruce – 67, Nichole – 43, Aaron – late-twenties, Alex – 29, Russell – 26, Matt – 32, Nathanial – 26, Peter – 26, Nick – early 30’s, Billy – 42, & Me – 52.  John is an experienced tall ship sailor and is a sail maker for this voyage.  He has sailed on the PC a few times before.  Bruce is also a PC veteran who hails from Chicago and has raced a few Mac races.  He is spending most of his time perfecting his celestial navigation skills and plotting the ships course strictly using the sextant and tables.  Kurt is an experienced sailor and has sailed on other tall ships as well as commercial ships.  This is Nichole’s first tall ship voyage but she’s “all in”, having joined in Fiji for the entire voyage.  She is a published author and may or may not write about her experiences.  Aaron is also sailing for his first time and also on for the entire voyage.  He’s an army vet who worked in explosive ordinance disposal in Afghanistan and Iraq.  He joined the voyage shortly after being discharged.  Alex is the AB of my watch.  She has been sailing in tall ships for 13 years and has sailed in a great many of the ships that sail in the US.  This is her first time on the Picton Castle.  She is a great sailor and a great teacher, very calm and patient.  Russell is the mate on one of the other watches.  He won a scholarship to a maritime academy out east after doing some tall ship sailing.  This is his first time on the PC as well.  Matt holds an official USCG Able Bodied Seaman’s card from working aboard freight ships.  He’s travelled and worked on ships all over, including fishing and crabbing in Alaska before it was on TV and working in Indonesia on a freighter, so he knew the language in Bali.  This is his first time sailing on a tall ship and he’s on from Bali to the Cape Verde Islands.  He’s originally from Waukesha, WI.  Nathan is another first timer on from Bali to Cape Towne.  He’s also a newly discharged army veteran.  He was a first lieutenant in the first cav but was not deployed over-seas.  He joined in Bali one month after he was discharged.  Peter is a tall ship veteran, having sailed in the PC and on the Brig Niagara before.  He could be an AB but he’s color blind so he can’t get is certification.  He’s on from Bali to Cape Towne.  He spent 6 months, before joining the ship, in India teaching yoga.  He’s also an EMT.   Nick is our ship’s Doctor.  He’s an ER doc from New York and is on from Bali to Reunion, where he’ll be leaving a little early but I understand there is a new doc coming aboard.  He’s sailed in some Schooners before but never in a square rigged ship.  Billy is an experienced tall ship sailor; however, he is the chief engineer.  He’s sailed on PC before as well as on various other ships.  He’s an American but his wife is from the Netherlands and they live there.  He had to leave for a week, when we were in Bali, to get his Visa for the Netherlands extended.

We also have 2 eight month old female cats, named Suva and Fiji.  I believe that covers everyone.

Out to Sea

Time and bad internet in Isla Rodrigues are working agianst me getting a post from here but here is something I wrote on the passage from Bali to Rodrigues:

We left Bali’s Benoa Harbor on October 26^th, shortly after lunch time.  We motored out of the harbor and then dropped anchor again so we could ‘cat’ the port anchor.  That means we pulled the large anchor aft and up and then tied it securely to the cat head and the top edge of the foc’sle head.  There wasn’t any wind for the first two days so we motored but, on the third day the wind started to pick up so we hoisted all plain sail, shut the motor down and began to sail.  If you’ve ever been on a sailboat, you know there is something magical about that moment when the noise and vibration of the motor stops and the wind takes over; it’s a beautiful thing! 

The weather has been perfect and very consistent throughout the voyage.  The wind varies in strength from time to time but it’s consistently from the east or southeast and blowing from force 3 to 5 (from about 15 knots to 30 knots).  The days have all been mostly sunny and warm, but not hot.  There are always clouds on the horizon, all the way around, but overhead we just get scattered clouds blowing quickly past.  The nights have been cooler and we’ve has some light rain on several nights but those are usually 10 minute light showers.  The ocean is the most amazing shade of blue!

We’ve been at sea for 27 days as I’m writing this and the scuttlebutt is that we’ll sight the island of Rodriguez early tomorrow.  We’ve had a couple of changes in our itinerary.  We’re not going to visit Madagascar or Mozambique; Madagascar because of civil unrest there, and Mozambique because of tricky navigational issues.  In addition to those stops being dropped, the captain says that this has been the best Indian Ocean passage the Picton Castle has ever made, so we’re ahead of schedule to get into Cape Town.  The captain has decided to stop at Rodriguez for a few days before we go on to the scheduled stop at Reunion.  There are 3 islands east of Madagascar, several hundred miles, which had been claimed by the French; Rodriguez, Mauritius and Reunion.  The British captured Mauritius and Rodriguez around 1800 and have held them since.  The captain doesn’t like Mauritius so we’re not stopping there.  He tells us that Rodriquez is a little more third world but; if you’re reading this, they must have internet.  I’m not sure how long we’ll be staying.  Reunion is still a French protectorate and is more modern.  It’s about 400 – 500 miles west of Rodriguez.

We got wind of a tropical disturbance, forming several hundred miles north of Rodriguez, which was predicted to head south, toward us.  The captain decided to turn south away from the possible storm and to put us well ahead of it, in the event that it turned into something.  It did turn into a named tropical storm and it did track pretty much as expected.  Rodriguez did get hit with the weather on the southern edge of the named tropical storm before it turned west and then dissipated.  Our course continued to the south until the storm actually turned west.  The captain pointed out that we could have turned back toward the island based on the storms predicted track but that was always a gamble because the predicted track was always just an educated guess.  Storms have been known to take unexpected tracks and catch ships by surprise.  The detour caused by the storm added about 6 days to our voyage but our weather stayed very fine.

Life aboard a sailing ship at sea becomes routine pretty quickly.  I stand watch from 12 – 4 twice a day, so the midday and midnight watches.  My watch has 10 people, including the mate and our AB (Able Bodied Seaman).  The watch would be like our manager and our AB would be our supervisor.  When on midday watch we work on ship’s maintenance unless sail handling is necessary; generally it wasn’t.  On the midnight watch we do small housekeeping, that can be done quietly, and keep watch for hazards. We also rotate hour long turns at the helm, steering the ship.  We sailed the first 25 days on port tack so the only sail handling was setting or taking in sail when the wind strength changed.  Some days we didn’t touch anything.  We certainly do a lot more maintenance than sail handling.  We also have training clicks most afternoons before supper.  We’ve learned sail making basics, along with more advanced seamanship type skills.  I have also been learning celestial navigation, which is awesome. We’re taking sightings of the sun at local noon and learning how to calculate or latitude.  Next we’ll be learning how to determine our longitude.  On the midnight watch we’re learning the constellations and the names of the stars.  The night sky is amazing, especially the last couple of nights, with the new moon.  We also do safety drills for fire, man overboard and abandon ship.  The advent of the storm gave a timely opportunity to talk about preparing the ship for rough weather preparation.

Food aboard is pretty basic.  Donald, our cook is a great baker though so we have fresh bread on most days.  The food is good enough but there is not a lot of variety, except when we catch fish.  We had a couple of days when we caught some fish, which is pretty exciting.  We caught one wahoo that was big enough to feed all 46 of us for one meal.  The next day we caught 2 smaller wahoo and then a couple days later we caught a mahi-mahi.  All were excellent eating.  I do believe I’ve lost a little weight.

In all I would say that the trip so far has been about what I expected.  I did expect to do a lot more sail handling but much of that is dictated by the wind.  I still have a lot more time to work on those skills.  Everyone is pretty excited about making landfall.  The first thing everyone mentions about landfall is what kind of food they want to find… 

Hopefully the internet at out next stop will be more reliable and I'll be able to add some more pictures.  Our next stop will be the island of Reunion, about 5 or 6 days of good sailing from here. We should be there sometime during the first week of December.  I will post more then.

I wish everyone a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm headed to Sea

This will be my last post until I reach Reunion Island, east of Madagascar.  We are weighing anchor on Sunday to sail away from Bali and cross the entire Indian Ocean.  We've been working hard to get the ship ready and to learn the ropes and we're all pretty excited to finally get sailing.  There will be much more to learn once we're under way.  The trip to Reunion is expected to take up to 35 days so it will be a while before I post any more updates.

Bali has been an experience.  It is a place of great contrast, on one hand there are crowded cities and the chaos that goes with that and incredibly beautiful countryside. The people are very friendly and very spiritual but they will take advantage of you in a heartbeat if you're not a strong negotiator.   My biggest disappointment is that it's such a beautiful place but it's covered with litter.  I have seen some amazing places though.

This is the Southern shoreline of Nusa Lembongan island, east of Bali

I'm sure I'll have a few stories to tell after spending 35 days at sea.  So far my longest time at sea has been 5 days doing the Newport to Bermuda race on Lugnuts.  Look for new posts in a month or so. Until then, farewell!

A Tour of the Barque

Back in the age of sail a ship was a vessel that had 3 masts and carried square sails on all 3 masts. The Picton Castle is a Barque, which is a vessel that has 3 masts but only has square sails on the Fore Mast (the front mast) and Main Mast (the middle mast) but no square sails on the Mizzen Mast (the back mast).  I still haven't managed to get a good picture of the ship itself, but I will.  I wondered around the other day and took a few pictures on deck so you could get an idea of how much space I'll be living in for the next 7 months.

Here is the bowsprit, the yellow part, and the jib boom, the brown part.  The 2 sections are called the head rig and hold up to four head sails, although only 3 are rigged right now.  The head rig extends about 25 feet from the bow.

This is the fore-castle deck, pronounced foc'sle deck by sailors.  The round red thing in the middle of the deck is the capstan, the only winch on the ship.  It's used to haul fore tacks when trimming the sails or for hauling dock lines tight for the bow.  Behind the capstan is the windless (red and green).  There are 2 handles that attach, sticking out to port and starboard.  5 people on each side pump the windless up and down to weigh the anchor(s).  Each up and down cycle hauls in about 6 inches of anchor chain, which you can see running on both sides of the capstan.  For a bit of scale, each chain link is about 6 inches.  As you can imagine, it takes a lot of work to haul in the anchor.  The windless is, physically, the hardest job on the ship and the captain has ordered that anyone over 50 is not to work the windless because he's afraid we'll have heart attacks...

This one is standing at the edge of the foc'sle deck ladder looking aft.  The fore mast is the large yellow spar on the right and the main and mizzen masts can be seen as you move aft.  This gives some sense of the rigging.  In the lower center are the starboard clothes lines.  They are permanently rigged since we will have to do our laundry on board while we're at sea.

Here we're looking down the port foc'sle ladder at the bottom of the fore mast and the fife rail.  The fife rail holds the belaying pins for about 1/3rd of the lines for the fore mast.  The open hatches behind the mast allow some air and light into the salon, which is below this deck.  This area of the deck is called the well deck.  The wall behind the open hatches is the forward wall of the galley.

Now we're standing to the right of the galley, looking forward toward the fore mast and foc'sle.  The open door leads into the carpenter's shop, which is just a bit bigger than a closet.  There is a berth to the right that the carpenter and cook share and then forward of there is where the professional sailors bunks are.

This one is a shot of the main mast and yards, taken from the foc'sle deck.  The mast is 100 feet tall. I'm not sure if that is measured from the deck or from the water.  The yards are the horizontal spars and they hold the square sails.  The bottom one is the main yard, which holds the main sail.  We have split top sails so the 2nd one up is the lower top'sle yard and the 3rd is the upper top'sle yard, then comes the t'gallant (top gallant) yard and top one is the royal yard.  That one is call the royal because, back in the day, only royal navy ships used that sail.  The sails are all named for the yard from which they hang, hence the upper top'sle yard holds the upper top'sle; however, this doesn't apply to the royal, which is just called the royal, not the royal sail.  I'm not sure why on that one.  The lower 2 yards are fixed at their hight on the mast and we drop the sails from the yards.  The upper 3 yards are raised and lowered on halyards (haul yards).  We drop the sails first and then raise the halyards for those sails.  The bottom 3 yards are steel and the upper 2 are wooden; all are heavy.  You may have noticed that I'm using sailor abbreviations.  That is not to prove how cool I am.  I called the t'gallent the top gallant once and I was laughed at because, I guess, us sailors don't talk like that!  I have loosed and furled sail as high as the t'gallent but I have not been up to the royal yet.

This is a bad picture of the galley but folks were making dinner so I couldn't really ask them to leave.  All 3 of these guys are on my watch and in my division while at anchor.  While on shore our cook has had some time off and so crew has been taking over the cooking quite a bit.  It's been fine but there has been a lot of good natured kidding around about it.  As you can see, the galley is not very big but we have a nice big LP stove with 2 ovens so it's pretty good for cooking for around 50.

Here I am standing at the companionway to the salon, looking aft.  The green area is the cargo hatch and this area of the ship is called midships.  We muster (gather) here whenever the captain or mate want to talk to the crew on board.  The captain says, "Muster midships" then everyone who hears him say that calls out the order and everyone who hears that calls it out, so that everyone gets the order and reports.  This shows a lot more lines along the starboard pin rail, all of which are duplicated on the port side and forward as well.  The ladder goes up to the quarter deck.

This is just below the quarterdeck on the main deck.  This area is called the breezeway and runs down both sides from midships to the stern, or back of the ship.  The room in the center is called the deck house and part of it is 2 stories high.  From midships to the door you see is the chart house and captains quarters.  The door leads to the engine room.

Following the breezeway back we come to the Aloha deck.  This is where dinner is served when the weather is fine.  The water jugs are usually in a holder right about where I was standing when I took this picture but it was being painted.  We scatter all over the ship to eat when the weather is fine but a lot of crew eat here as well.

Lastly on the main deck level is the scullery.  We have a rinse sink outside on the rail so everyone rinses their own dishes in salt water, then we wash our own dishes in soapy fresh water.  Then we rinse in fresh water with a little bleach and then a clean rinse.  When you're assigned to scullery you basically wash the dishes used for food prep and keep the water coolers full and help the cook when needed.  Scullery also sets up the buffets before each meal.

Moving up to the same side of the quarterdeck you can see yet more lines on pin rails.  The closer lines are halyards for the main mast and farther back, unseen are more lines for the mizzen mast.  The door here is to the upper level of the chart room where all of the ships electronics are and where the rough log is kept.  Aft of that is the ships office.  The white barrels are life rafts that will deploy automatically if the ship sinks (don't worry!)  On the far right is our longboat, which we've been using almost every day to work on our rowing teamwork.  I believe my division still holds the speed record for rowing a set course in the harbor.

Turning to the left from where the last picture was taken, we have the bridge deck.  This is off limits and is the captain's alone, unless he invites you.  As is the case with most of the deck house.  Under the white cover are the engine controls for when the ship is running under power.

This was taken with my back against the mizzen mast, looking aft on the quarter deck.  I didn't take a picture of the mizzen mast because it's down rigged at the time this picture was taken.  You can see the spanker boom along the left side.  Everything is out of place as much work was being done.  On my last workday me and 3 others oiled the entire quarterdeck with linseed oil and put everything back where it belongs.  It looks really nice.  The hatches let air into the captains mess forward and the scullery aft.  The silver dome is the binnacle, which holds the ship's compass and then, of course, the wheel.  On the right, under the white cover is the ship's cannon.  It's quite small and, I hear, is never fired.

Administrative stuff

Hi everyone, it has been brought to my attention that many readers have had trouble leaving comments on my posts.  I  believe this was due to a setting on the blog that has now been updated. This blogger thing is new to me but I believe this will open up the comments so that anyone can post comments.

My Ship Has Come In

Picton Castle entering Benoa Harbor, Bali

The picture above was taken from very far away as the ship was motoring into the harbor.  I joined her shortly after and I have been living on board when I'm duty.  We have 46 sailors on board for this leg, which is only 2 people short of a full compliment.  In contrast to the leg they just completed from Fiji to Bali, when they had 25 people on board.  I understand that this upcoming leg is unique in that we have a very high number of experienced tall ship sailors on board.  The full compliment of trainees is 36, we're 2 short so we have 34 but only about 8 are first time trainees, like me.  All the rest are apprentice sailors, who have at least 6 months of previous experience on tall ships.  Some have as much as 24 months of previous experience on Picton Castle.  I think it will be a good thing for us new trainees as there are lots of people to give us pointers and help us learn the ropes.  Since we're in harbor, we've been divided into two watches, Port and Starboard, and each watch is divided into two divisions.  I'm am currently on Starboard watch, division 3.  This helps make it quick and easy to assign work tasks.  The salt water is very hard on the ship and maintenance is extremely important so, while in port, we are cleaning up all of the rust on the ship and repainting the entire thing.  The high temperatures have been around 84 degrees but the humidity is high and, because we're about 8 degrees South of the Equator, the sun is very intense.  Our schedule is setup so we work on ship maintenance in the mornings and then sailing training after lunch, which breaks up the dirty mundane but necessary work with the more fun sail handling training.  We worked for the first 4 days on board and then each watch got a day off.  Now we work 2 days on and get 2 days off, which I think will be the schedule until we leave.  This allows everyone enough time to explore Bali.  When we're on duty we rotate galley (helping the cook), scullery (washing dishes) duty and 1 hour anchor watches at night so they're keeping everyone pretty busy.  I'll try to get a better picture of the ship when she's "ship shape" and ready to sail.  It's amazing how many saying have nautical origins...

My bunk in the salon, lower with the grey pillow.

My bunk is about 6 1/2 feet long and maybe 3 feet high, not quite high enough to sit up in.  It's in the main salon, which is where everyone eats if the weather is bad, which explains the table.  I have a couple of small shelves near the head and then I have a storage area in the bench on the bunk side of the table.  Not much room but enough.  It's comfortable enough as beds go but there isn't much air moving around below deck so it's very hot.  I've been sleeping there but many people sleep on deck at night.  I bought a battery operated fan and brought it with.  It lasted one and half nights and then died. I'm adjusting to the heat and humidity though so it doesn't seem to be a problem.  I'm living bare foot on board and it hurts quite a bit going up into the rigging, which we've done a few times now.  The decks that don't get shade get insanely hot, which my feet have not adjusted to yet, but they will.

All in all, things are going exactly as I expected and I'm having a great time.  I'm afraid it's checkout time so I have to post this and vacate my room.  Next time I'll fill in some details about my crew-mates.

First Impressions of Bali

My first sunset, Kuta beach, Bali

Hello everyone.  I arrived in Bali on September 28, 2014 and the ship arrived on October 2, 2014. Things have been very busy and there has been some adjustment to sorting out limited Internet access and things of that sort.  I'm going to break this post into two parts, this one will be about what I've seen so far of Bali and the other post will be about what life aboard the Picton Castle has been like so far.  This is just first impressions of Bali because I've only been able to see a very small part of the island and I'm not done exploring yet.
The area of Bali that I am familiar with so far is the large metropolitan area north of the Airport.  It's really 4 or 5 cities that are all right up against one another.  I can never tell when I cross from one into the next.  I've been staying in Kuta when I'm not on board.  Kuta is the primary tourist area and has a large beachfront and is crammed with hotels and shopping.  Bali has about every big name chain store, restaurant and fast food joint you can imagine in the cities, and it's crowded.  This is Australia's version of the Caribbean and there are a lot of Aussies as well as many Asian tourists.
They drive on the left and there are millions of scooters.  They only have traffic signs on their most major roads, when you're not on those you're on your own.  No speed limits, no stop signs, no controls of any kind at intersections and the street names, if they're there at all, are very hard to find and there is no uniform, consistent sign.  So getting around on ones own can be a real challenge.  That hasn't stopped me from walking all over though and I'm starting to recognize my way around.  There are streets, similar to our 2 lane streets and then there is a network of what we would call allies.  The allies are narrow and lined on both sides with stalls of people selling stuff.  All of these allies are only wide enough for a small mini van but most all of them allow two way traffic of scooters and cars. The locals are masters on their scooters and they load them up with stuff and people.  One of my crew-mates said he saw a family of 4 riding together on one and the mom was nursing the baby at the time. I've seen 4 teen age girls on one.  Often the small children stand in front of the driver so I imagine they're pretty comfortable with the rules of the road, or the lack thereof,  by the time they're 10 or 12.  Surprisingly the process works much better than one would expect.  There is some beeping on horns but it's always a quick beep, more to say, "here I am" than to say get the hell out of the way.  I'm pretty sure in the US it would be total chaos but somehow it works here.  Crossing the street can be a bit frightening though.  One thing that is pretty cool, along the major roads and at round abouts there are great statues.  Most are cultural and or religious and they can be pretty spectacular.

Detail of the God

A God standing on the backs of horses

A major round about sculpture, about 60 feet long and 20 feet high

Sorry, I didn't write down the name of the God that this statue represents.  Most Balinese are Hindu and they have many Gods.
The people are very nice and friendly.  The vendors can be pretty aggressive and I can't count the times I've been offered Viagra and Cialis...I'm a bit offended by that but, evidently I'm in the target demographic for that stuff.  Bargaining with vendors is expected and I've been taken advantage of several times.  After a few days I had a conversation with an Aussie expat who gave me some good advice and I've been doing better since.  Service at restaurants is pretty slow but the prices are very good, with lunch including a soda easily had for about $6.  My hotel is awesome, with 2 pools, lovely gardens with fountains and statues.  The rooms are simple but they have WiFi, refrigerators, safes, air conditioning and hot breakfast every morning.  My room is in the mid price range for this hotel and it's $25 and change a night.  The staff is great and very friendly.
My goal is to get out of the city the next time I am off duty so I will be able to report more about the "real" Bali.

You Don't Have To Go That Far

Mount Hood from the train

.I'm already having trouble finding time to blog.  I find that it's pretty easy to find more interesting things to do, especially when I'm in Portland.  I had a wonderful 10 day visit with the 3/4th of my kids that live in Portland.  I took the Amtrak Empire Builder from Chicago to Portland and it was a new experience for me.  One of the things I was looking most forward to was the trip the train takes through Glacier National Park.  I have never been there and I expected the train's route through the park to be amazing, which it may well be.  I can't report on that because we went through the park in the middle of the night.  It seems a bit strange to me that Amtrak doesn't schedule the trip to go through the park in daylight.  I did get to meet and visit with several fellow passengers and that ended up being the highlight of the train trip.

We didn't do anything touristy in Portland, just visited and ate...a lot.  The weather was outstanding for most of my visit, highs in the 90s and lots of sunshine.  Last week it got more cloudy and rainy for a few days but it was sunny and beautiful again before I left.  One thing that is a great comfort to me, every time I visit, is all of the kids have great friends in Portland. I have had the pleasure of meeting and hanging out with many of their friends and they are a really great bunch of people.  It was probably good practice for me to spend some time with a bunch of cool young adults, as that demographic will make up a large portion of my fellow sailing trainees.  I did learn that, including me, there will be 26 people joining the ship in Denpasar, Bali and that we are currently scheduled to leave Bali on October 20th.  They also informed us that, while the ship is in Bali, there will be a file crew aboard to film a pilot for a series about the Picton Castle.  Things just keep getting more and more interesting.

For the record, this post is coming to you from Taipei, Taiwan, where they are beginning the boarding process for the flight to Bali at this moment.  It's 7:00 PM on 9/27 there but it's 10:00 AM on 9/25 here...strange concept for me.  I fill in more details about that part of the trip in my next post.

(Yes, I'm very excited!)

I've Passed My First Test

I've been planning for what to pack on this little trip for quite some time now and the plan has been revised many times.  Most of what I'm taking is required and then I get to fill in the excess room with cloths.  I still worry that I'm taking too much but I've pared it down as much as I can.  Here are the results:

Before

I am packing many of the smaller things, like spare batteries and shampoo in Ziploc bags, mostly to make them more pack-able, than to protect them from the elements.  The picture is not quite complete, it doesn't include any electronics and their respective chargers, like my laptop and Kindle.









After

Two big duffel bags and a backpack. That is the sum of my worldly possessions for the next 9 months.















I will be departing Chicago this Saturday, 9/13/14, for the first leg of my journey.  I'm taking the Amtrak Empire Builder route to Portland to spend some time with 3 of my kids.  I've spent the last couple of weeks saying good-bye to people and, of course, the trip to Portland will be the last set of good-byes before I leave.  As excited as I am about the trip, it has still been sad saying good-bye to everyone especially my grand kids, since they will change so much while I'm away.
The next update will be from the train, if I can get wireless somewhere, or from Portland!

What a Day!

I had the good fortune to be the recipient of a tremendous outpouring of love and support from all my friends at USG.  Everyone was so nice and they really gave me a great last day.  I even scored some home made baked goods, which happen to be awesome.  I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

We Always Have Options

Somewhere along the line I lost track of the idea that we always have options.  It's something that I've read many times in self help books and inspirational blog posts.  Most of my life I've thought, those words don't really apply to me.  Maybe there were times when I didn't really have any viable options.  Maybe I'll never know.  Over the last eight or nine months, I have been thinking a lot more about the idea that I have options; and now I find myself taking my first step down a brand new path. 

The option I have chosen is to change my life so that I can work doing something I feel passionate about, sailing.  Specifically, I will be sailing on the bark Picton Castle, from Bali, Indonesia west around the Cape of Good Hope and North to Savannah, GA.  That's just about half the way around the world; hence the name of my blog, Halfway Scott.

Tomorrow, August 28, 2014 is my last day at work, after 28 years with the same company.  I'm much too young to retire but I have decided that if I wait any longer I might not by young enough to learn to sail a tall ship.  I'll admit it's pretty scary, walking away from a relatively secure job and income to try something so completely different, but it's scary in an exciting way.  I will try to share my experiences, with words and pictures, here on these pages, updating the blog when we make landfall and I can find an Internet Café. 

Come and join me on my trip halfway around the world, it's sure to be an adventure!