Atlantic

The North Atlantic is a cantankerous old bastard. Its predisposition to defy most meteorological norms earns it the respect of many a seafarer and its behaviour is a contrast to the gentler conditions we will become used to during our time in the Tropics. Our voyage began with a traverse of its shores from Nova Scotia to the Caribbean and although our initiation into the ways of the open ocean was by no means thwart with life threatening dangers, this vast stretch of water certainly had a few tricks up its sleeve to put our hitherto flourishing sailor’s nerve to the test.

Our final days in Lunenburg were spent readying the ship for departure and getting those last minute must have items that would serve us well during the impending weeks away from civilisation. The weekly lottery draw for the ship’s galley duties led to yours truly, along with a couple of other shipmates, Georgie and Alex, being rostered for the Sunday before our scheduled departure. Usually, galley duties involve helping out the cook with the preparation of food as well as cleaning up after each meal. However, Sunday is the cook’s one day off each week. This means that those unlucky enough to be on galley duty on Sundays have the mammoth task of cooking all meals for the entire ship on their own.

Not one of us on duty could cook for one person, let alone fifty one. To remedy our feeling of helplessness, we devised a strategy for the day and got up early on Sunday morning to implement it. Breakfast started with a quiet confidence and a glimmer of hope on the horizon, but it was clear after a short period of time that we were way out of our depth. Georgie burnt the porridge and in the ensuing excitement managed to burn her hand by grabbing hold of the hot pan at the base. Shortly after, I contributed to the great breakfast fuck up by slopping eggs all over the floor. The unfortunate chain of events continued when an extremely hung over Alex, in a moment of madness, woke the entire ship up half an hour early, omitting to give the correct time as she did so. As we giggled at our own pathetic demise before the day had even begun, another shipmate, Leonard, recognising our muffled calls of distress, came to the rescue and saved breakfast. Thankfully, lunch and dinner followed a little more smoothly. Alex’s mum prepared lunch and the frozen pizzas we were given to reheat for dinner proved not too far beyond our own abilities.

The following day was our official day of departure from Lunenburg. Finally, the moment had arrived. We were going to sea. Passing tourists, residents of Lunenburg, local dignitaries and friends and loved ones of the crew gathered on the dockside to bid us farewell. Many tears were shed and in the surrounding hubbub I felt a little more emotional than I imagined I might. It was our big day. The dock lines were cast off and we motored away from the harbour shortly after 9am waving goodbye to wellwishers, land and civilisation for the next twenty days.

Sadly, about three miles into a voyage of thirty thousand, our great maritime adventure was cut short. The ship’s two radar systems were both curiously not responding in spite of having been fully functional the night prior. We had no choice but to turn back. Many of Lunenburg’s residents were somewhat confused to see the ship once again anchored in the harbour barely an hour after saying goodbye for what they thought would be fourteen months. The radars were eventually repaired that day but due to the fact we had been cleared out of the country by Canadian customs, we were unable to return to dry land.

We finally left Lunenburg successfully on the second attempt the following morning. In contrast to our first departure, we would execute the second by sailing off the hook. This meant we would turn the ship around and manoeuvre her out of the harbour under sail only. Such an exercise had never been conducted with a completely fresh crew before on the Picton, and although many of us felt as at ease applying ourselves to the task in hand as we would applying grandpa’s haemorrhoid cream, as orders were spouted out to ease, haul and tend lines, in the end, we pulled it off. The ship sailed majestically out to sea and the call for all hands on deck was withdrawn at midday in time for the 12-4 watch to take to the helm. The honour of standing the fifth world voyage’s first ever sea watch was in our hands.

Standing watches is at the heart of the ship’s 24 hour routine but at odds with any schedule I have hitherto encountered. The nature of the 12-4 watch (to which I belong) is a four hour afternoon watch during which ship’s work such as painting and rustbusting takes place and a 12-4 night watch where crew stand by on deck for commands to manage the sails. There are two other watches stood by the other two thirds of the ship’s crew, namely the 4-8 and the 8-12. At all times, a member of crew must take the helm and another must keep a lookout for other vessels and potential hazards. Between 12-4 day and night, a member of our own watch is assigned to each of these two tasks for one hour at a time on a rotational basis.

Getting acquainted with standing night watches was a pretty awesome experience. Stepping out on deck with the ship minimally lit was like stepping into a different world. We would learn that artificial light would be kept to a minimum in order that our night vision be optimised to move around the ship without our eyes continually having to readjust. Although foreign at first, I felt at ease with the ship in the dark in no time at all. The stars were brighter and more profound than I had ever known before and the sweeping silhouette of the square sails against this starry backdrop almost made it worth me dragging myself out of my bunk into the bitterly cold temperatures each night. I started to learn the ship’s lines by touch for we would shortly be setting sails without the benefit of sight. Indeed, the dark would also mean no exception to performing certain tasks aloft. I am very much looking forward to unfurling sail up in the starlight, but one step at a time for now.

On our second night watch, the ship had temporarily stopped pending more amiable winds to progress on our set course. Bobbing up and down in a gentle and almost silent Atlantic swell, a pod of dolphins surrounded the ship from varying distances. Their calls to each other echoed and radiated through the air as if they were calling to and teasing us back on deck. As I looked overboard, blue fluorescent sea creatures lit up brightly as they washed up against the ship’s bow. It felt almost ridiculous to be in the midst of this strange new world.

The phosphorescence in the ship’s wake while she is underway is almost hypnotic. On one night watch a wave of water washed a bright blue glowing jellyfish onto the deck. As a shipmate darted over to remove the hazard by kicking it back overboard, the entire creature exploded on impact and sent a magnificent bright azure ripple across the deck like the defiant dying salute of a hell bent kamikaze. There may be many wonders of nature, but exploding fluorescent blue jellyfish are surely up there with Siberian tigers and Rwandan mountain gorillas. I often find myself lurking near the scuppers on deck in the middle of the night in the hope that I too may sample the immeasurable pleasure of bursting the next luminescent blighter to wash aboard. Cruel, perhaps, but I figure anyone who has been stung by one of these little bastards would be by my side doing it with me in spirit.

Somewhat averse to anything I might previously have conceived, I recently noticed that, in some respects, sailing can be a lot like sex. Doing it rough, while disconcerting at first, had the potential to be a lot of fun. You just had to explore your boundaries, be at ease with it and, perhaps most importantly, hold on like hell for leather and enjoy the ride.

Our first night of rough sailing took me somewhat by surprise. Although a prior warning that we were heading for a storm was dispensed to the crew the day earlier, subsequent gossip and hearsay led to a common belief that the storm had passed in front of us and we were out of harm’s way. In reality, this insider info proved to be about as reliable as a British railway line with a snowflake on it.

I received my usual wake-up for the 12-4am night watch later that evening at 11.30pm by a shipmate on the previous watch. “It’s cold, it’s wet and it’s rough out there” he boomed at me as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and savoured the dying moments in the warmth of my bunk. “Put your foulies on. You’ll need them.” Expecting another fiendishly cold night, I put on four layers of clothing with my waterproofs on top. I stumbled up to the deck as the ship listed jerkily from side to side with intermittent explosions from waves crashing against the starboard bow.

It turned out that we hadn’t missed the storm after all. The next 24 hours would be spent enduring its wrath of Force 8 gusts and six to seven metre waves. On a brighter note, however, the bitterly cold sea temperatures I had begrudgingly become accustomed to had dissipated in spite of the wind and rain now being lashed upon us by the storm. Shortly after 11.30pm, the ship had passed into the Gulf Stream. A vast oceanic conveyor of warmth and nutrients from the Caribbean which Western Europe has to thank for its mild climate, our embracing of its boundaries led to an increase in water temperature from a chilly 11c to a positively balmy 23c in a matter of minutes. Any concern at the brewing storm and accompanying choppiness out in the abyss was tempered by elation at the sudden warm temperatures outside. We started to boil under all the layers we had just donned.

As the night elapsed, so the wind and surge from the storm intensified. The first seasickness casualty in our watch heaved his dinner up over the port side of the ship not long into the session. Another shipmate was not looking too good. We stumbled across the ship and waded through the waters that washed over her lower decks as if we were on some crude cocktail of tranquilisers and alcohol. Although I would be lying if I said my stomach didn’t occasionally put my own knot tying expertise to shame, I was mercifully unafflicted by strong feelings of nausea. I felt slightly guilty for getting a masochistic kick and sniggering to myself as I was tossed around the ship in the swell like a silver bearing in a pinball machine. I was having the time of my life while others around me painstakingly revisited what they had eaten for breakfast.

At 2am I was put on helm. At this point, the storm really did start to kick in. The helm is positioned to the aft of the ship on the upper deck where the pitch and roll are at their most prominent and the open deck is most exposed to the wind. I found myself frantically turning the wheel to maintain our course and holding on for dear life as the ocean threw the ship around like a child’s bath toy. I wrapped myself around the helm and gripped the wheel pins tightly as the ship listed and pitched like an out of control fairground ride. At times, I wanted to scream in exaltation at the feeling of guiding her carefully through the madness of the crashing waves and swell. It truly was an unforgettable hour of fun. I loved every minute.

After being relieved from the helm, I joined Niko and Nadia, two of my watchmates, in the galley. They were in the midst of preparing hot water and coffee for the next watch by boiling kettles on a propane heater. Both had resigned themselves to the relative safety of the galley entrance coamings upon which they could perch while securing themselves against any fixture they could grasp. We grinned and chuckled exchanging anecdotes of the ongoing storm. As we plucked up the courage to get up and fetch the hot water from the stove, a sudden jerk threw Niko comically to the ground. Nadia and I couldn’t help but giggle at Niko’s impromptu gymnastics, but in doing so we were left temporarily off our guard and another jolt dealt us a similar (and admittedly deserved) fate. Reattempting the failed mission a few moments later, I ended up square on my ass once again while Niko held onto a kettle of hot water for dear life as the ship jigged around like a hyperactive child. We stood for a minute and reconsidered the tricky and hazardous task. “Fuck the coffee” we concluded leaving the galley while we were still scald free.

Overall, the first week of sailing was a mixed bag of scenarios. We had made good headway both under sail and by engine when the winds were not cooperating. At times the ship was reaching speeds of up to 9 knots under sail. Even at the height of the storm, we were pulling upwards of 6 knots under the engine and storm sails combined. By the second week, it was a different world. The Sunday after the storm was heralded by rich blue skies and warm sunshine. Our arrival in warmer climes was compounded as a whole family of sea turtles swam gracefully alongside the ship.

Monday was Norway’s national day. With two Norwegians on board, the Captain felt it appropriate that the entire ship celebrate the event together as a whole and the crew in its entirety were advised to muster amidships without exception at 5pm in suitable Norwegian attire. Having only a couple of days to conceive an outfit, the 12-4 watch clubbed together to present an array of things all Norwegian. Grabbing my red foulie pants, a white T-shirt and a blue sheet to use as a cape (the colours of the Norwegian flag), my pitiful King of Norway costume was set off with a broom I picked up and used as a sceptre and some beer glass themed shades, similar to those worn by any self-respecting Norwegian monarch. Other costumes included a Neutrogina girl, Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” painting and a Norwegian man with a noose around his neck labelled “so dark and cold I feel like dying” in celebration of Norway’s suicide rate as being the highest in the world (a fact proudly brought to my attention by a Norwegian shipmate). Nordic celebrations commenced with a potato and spoon race and culminated in a tense tug of war finale. It was definitely the most random and intimate of events for an average day in the Atlantic Ocean and we certainly did Norway proud.

As the second week progressed, the weather remained hot and humid but turned squallier. Having never experienced squalls at sea, I was served a true education into their ways as one after another struck the ship during my watches. On lookout, I was treated to the sight of an ever increasing number of flying fish buzzing along the top of the ocean like dragon flies, sometimes for twenty metres at a time or more. One even flew aboard the ship both captivating and scaring the living crap out of a few trainees on deck not otherwise anticipating its arrival.

Towards the end of the week in yet another squall filled watch, I decided to bite the bullet when the opportunity arose and climbed aloft as far as the topgallant yard. Until now I had worked aloft in the relative sanctuary of the lowest three yards out of the five which span the length of the masts. The highest of the lower three is roughly 15m off the ground and all of the lower yards are quite bulky with a lot to grab onto. The footropes also hang low enough to support and balance one’s weight easily.

The topgallant yard, on the other hand, is much higher up at around 30m off the deck. It’s a smaller yard with closely trimmed rigging. When laying out for the first time, I suddenly found myself standing on a footrope with only my shins resting against the yard for support and, most scarily, absolutely nothing above to hold onto. Yet again I began to curse myself for not being 3ft tall. Almost instinctively to bring myself back to the level of the yard, I spread my legs and contorted my body so broadly along the footrope, I was practically wearing my testicles as earrings and by bending my head down just a little, I could see the sun shine out of my own ass.

Needless to say, dangling and contorting off a footrope thirty metres in the air is not for the faint hearted. I shat myself at least seven times on the way up alone. Getting this high involves following ever narrowing shrouds which sway increasingly due to the ship’s broad roll the higher you climb. The roll wasn’t all bad. On the route up there are two sections of rigging which actually jut back out in an overhang, known as the futtocks, before returning to relative normality. I often wondered whether these buttock clenching overhangs were actually placed in there deliberately as part of some kind of elaborate practical joke to fuck with our minds. In any case, if you time your passing of these overhangs correctly, you can climb them relatively smoothly and horizontally while the ship lists in your favour. Time it wrong and you feel like you are hanging off them almost upside down.

Perhaps the greatest surprise of all on the voyage so far is the lack of seasickness amongst the crew. Only one crew member has suffered with continuous bouts of the affliction and even at the height of the storm only a handful of people were struck down. Dubbed “Atlantic Bulimia” due to the victim’s inability to keep any meal down for more than a few minutes, it does wonders for the waistline but any sufferers planning a night out on the town would be well advised to avoid wearing green to prevent any embarrassing clash with the face. Indeed, some very fetching avocado cheek hues have been on display intermittently amongst certain shipmates. For those of you looking forward to hearing colourful stories of relentless suffering and spewing on my part, however, I’m afraid I have to disappoint you. I remain a regurgitant free zone. A small part of me feels a little sad that there will be no opportunity for me to develop a kindred camaraderie with fellow newbie sailors hanging their heads over the side of the ship and retching for hours on end. I thought that perhaps being prone to emptying the contents of my stomach at sea might actually mean membership of a rather exclusive club. I mean, what better way to consolidate a new friendship than to pat each other’s backs empathetically during a harmonious session of mutual vomiting into the ocean? Perhaps I should be careful what I wish for.

Life at sea has already given me a new perspective on the world. As we received steady updates of our exact location from the Captain, heading south from Lunenburg and in turn a few hundred miles due east of Portland, Boston and then New York City, I found it difficult to imagine bustling cities going about their day to day business beyond the horizon. Before me I saw just an endless ocean, swelling and pulsating, so vast and consuming it was above and beyond any of man’s activities. I felt isolated and disconnected from civilisation and yet completely at peace in being so. I had not foreseen such enrapturement until now.

As time goes on, so we edge ever southward and the temperature and humidity steadily rise with it. Only 10 days ago, I shivered profusely in my bunk and now I lie wearing nothing but a thick layer of sweat as I fruitlessly try to nod off in the heavy heat of the forepeak. I trust the human body is an adaptable beast and I will be a seasoned man of the Tropics soon enough. I fear, however, that pale skin and red hair are not really designed for temperatures above 10c and anything more than an overcast wet day.

But I should not complain. I am sailing an amazing ship through the Tropics and it feels great. I feel I know what I am doing more and more each day. Lessons in celestial navigation, sail theory, rigging maintenance, chart reading, sail making and much more will all be forthcoming in due course. I can already tie over ten knots with my eyes closed. A month ago, I could barely tie my shoelaces. The notion that I will be an accomplished sailor six months from now seems only too achievable.

I was somewhat disappointed to be missing out on spending time in the Caribbean during the first leg of the voyage. Our schedule, and the fact that the ship would spend ample time in the area on the fourth and final returning leg, meant that we would head due south from Canada and bypass the Caribbean completely by heading directly to Panama. Despite being a mere whisker from its sandy shores, I would sadly not set foot on a Caribbean island on this occasion. But evidently all was not set in stone. On Saturday morning some unexpected news was relayed.

After an excellent but strenuous passage across the Atlantic, the ship would put in at Anguilla for a few days. We would, after all, feel Caribbean sand between our toes and have some time to sample the famed local tipple. The winds between Anguilla and Panama would not be favourable in the coming days so waiting a while on the picturesque island was deemed the best plan.
So this message of news from the high seas wings its way to you, somewhat unexpectedly, from the banks of a palm tree encrusted islet in the heart of the Caribbean archipelago. After two weeks of being surrounded by nothing but ocean (and the occasional marine critter), a tropical paradise had finally edged its way onto our horizon. “Land two points off the port bow!” came the exclamation. Oh happy day. Our first stop, after almost two thousand deep blue open ocean miles, was in sight.


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Make it fast

“Fire in the paint locker!” boomed the tannoy across the ship with a cool and measured urgency. Funnily enough, this was the fifth fire on the ship in less than a week and, of those, already the third to have self-ignited in that death trap known as the paint locker. If this wasn’t bad enough, we had also lost so many men overboard that a very well attended impromptu open ocean pool party might well have already been underway out at sea. In contrast to this, given the frequency and toxicity of my cabin mate Dave Farrell’s farts since Sunday morning, the frequent orders we had received to abandon ship were not met by too much surprise or indeed horror by those on board. Perhaps he’d been letting rip in the paint locker too.

Aspects of safety have quite literally been drilled into us over the past week. I didn’t quite realise the irony in how dangerous safety gear can be until I managed to slice open both my finger and the top of my thumb while retrieving the fire extinguishers during a fire drill on Tuesday followed by some admirable grazes on my shins from slipping into a life raft box while releasing the rescue boat in a man overboard drill on Wednesday. This was, nevertheless, outweighed by the joy of kicking ass at pulling off the exercises competently by working quickly and effectively as a team. Ordered chaos is a beautiful thing. Safety is a critical feature on any ship, however after the loss of a rather prominent Canadian’s daughter on the Picton a few years ago, a highly critical eye is cast over its procedures and controls by the viewing public and it undergoes a voluntary safety check once annually by the powers that be in Canada. This took place on Wednesday and the ship and its crew (including me) all passed with flying colours. Even the ship’s cat, Chibley, who has sailed on all of the Picton’s voyages since its inception in the late 90s, was found and rescued on every occasion. Although in the photo below, the man overboard looks somewhat like a drunk dude passed out in a trolley, it is actually a safety drill dummy weighing in at 160lb. The crew’s quick actions and response to the situation allowed us to retrieve it from the water using a rescue boat in just over 2½ minutes. Go us.

But before we congratulate these endeavours too heartily, let’s take a step back to the start of the week. After spending practically all of last Sunday scratching my head, rubbing my beard and staring at the wall in contemplation of my intellect’s return after the excesses of Saturday night, ship work recommenced on Monday morning at 8 sharp. The day wasn’t overly burdensome. I spent the morning sorting out flags for the places the voyage will take us before an afternoon of practical safety training involving life jackets, life rafts and immersion suits.

What I didn’t mention in my post last week is that we had already attempted the training session at a pool in Lunenburg the previous Tuesday. Our group was greeted by some distinctly murky looking water of which the bottom was all but invisible to the untrained eye. The curious looking liquid was indeed so green that it would have put an algae infestation to shame.

Assuming that all nonetheless was well, and that strangely green and opaque swimming pools were merely an unspoken feature of quaint Canadian fishing villages, we persevered with the training and donned our immersion suits. These effectively are thick jump suits which cover the whole body, keeping it free from water and in the process helping you to stay alive in colder climes for substantially longer than you might otherwise (see photos below). They are a pain in the ass to get on, and even worse to take off. Your face and hands are still uncovered, and after one of us jumped in the pool wearing the suit, the proprietor wandered over and asked nicely if we could keep our faces out of the water during the session while they tried to determine the source of its somewhat abnormal properties. Needless to say, the ship’s boson stepped up a gear on hearing this and instructed us all almost immediately to take off the suits and prepare to leave. The poor bloke who jumped in was advised to get out promptly and shower thoroughly. Luckily his face and skin has not detached from his body in the days that have followed so we may have been safe to do it there after all.

This week we instead took a van to the nearby town of Bridgwater (the other pool was still out of bounds) and knocked the training on the head there. Floating around in the pool in immersion suits and dragging ourselves into a life raft was a hoot. One does, of course, hope that we will not need to do it again any time soon. On the plus side, the immersion suits come equipped with an inflatable pillow at the back which, quite frankly, would be more comfortable to sleep in than my bunk. The life rafts are cosy but practical and I noted they have interesting fixtures to capture rain water and can detach and self inflate from the ship if it sinks too quickly for someone to release them. The trainer told us stories of mariners who had lasted months at a time waiting to be rescued in these things, including a Japanese man who endured 180 days. I think I would have gone well and truly mental by then perhaps thinking, due to the life raft’s shape, that I were really an Inuit living in some kind of floating fluorescent igloo.

On the request of a shipmate celebrating his birthday that day, we later headed en masse to the town’s bowling alley for a spot of ten pin smashing fun. When we arrived, however, we were surprised to discover that the setup there was just a little out of the ordinary. The whole thing appeared to have been designed with midgets in mind. The lanes were shorter than normal and the scores were tallied with pen and paper like in the good old days. The pins looked like they had been fashioned by primary school children using balsa wood, Tippex and red marker pen and the bowling balls were so bizarrely tiny, they wouldn’t have felt entirely out of place in an average gent’s scrotal sack. I had personally never seen anything like it before, but was helpfully advised by a Canadian friend that this curious genre of bowling was not all uncommon in the country and quite popular with local people.

Many of the town’s folk were in attendance cheering and playing in the first match of a seasonal tournament and in keeping with the hallmarks of real men’s sports such as pool and darts (bowling being no exception), crumb laden facial hair and T-shirt stretching beer bellies were on full display for all to enjoy. In our own match, the girls were unstoppable and put all us lads to shame. “We’re well equipped to deal with smaller balls” said one of them cheekily to me when I asked what their secret was.

The following day I was invited to participate in an interview with an actor on board with us who is filming a documentary of the voyage. He is in the midst of tendering the idea to TV networks in Canada and beyond, so fingers crossed I may get my mug on a telly near you some time soon, although knowing my luck I will most likely be caught green faced and/or hanging over the side of the ship barfing my lunch up after failing miserably to attain my sea legs. The bloke filming the documentary, Ollie, had actually been to the Isle of Man and stayed at the Grand Island Hotel in Ramsey. He described Ramsey’s only hotel (which has since closed) as the Manx equivalent of Fawlty Towers. I personally had never thought of it in this way, but to be honest he really hit the nail on the head! He was on the island as he had a starring role in the movie “The Brylcreem Boys”. All you guys on the Isle of Man will recognise this as the movie that essentially kickstarted the island’s film industry after a sixty year moratorium. Small world.

I continue to enjoy a steady flow of new injuries on a daily basis working in and around the ship. Indeed four lumps appear to have become a permanent feature on my head from where I continually bang it while moving around. I am starting to believe that the Picton might just have been designed by the same midget lovers who conceived the peculiar bowling alley we encountered on Monday night. For the first time in my life, I find myself cursing my height and wishing I were a foot or two shorter. The lumps occupy consistent but spaced out positions on my head and each corresponds to a different part of the ship where my noggin gets a pasting in passing. Each lump usually has enough time to heal and recede at least a little until I come a cropper and reperform the injury yet again (usually first thing in the morning). Said mishap is almost always announced by way of a loudly broadcasted expletive greeted by unsympathetic giggles amongst my shipmates elsewhere on board.

For working aloft, we have to don a harness and I also wear a belt containing a knife to cut rope and something known as a marlinspike (the derivation of the wacky attire alluded to in my previous post). The knife admittedly has its uses and I have since shortened the lanyard to which it is attached noting the possibility after a few near misses of it falling directly onto my toe. The marlinspike does have its own uses but my own personal endeavours have thus far led it no further than stirring the sugar into my coffee each morning. I like to think myself resourceful at least for this.

The continual banging of the head, slicing of flesh and accumulation of splinters are slowly hardening me into the able bodied seaman I am destined to become. Sometimes I feel like I only have to scratch my backside and I am greeted by seventeen new splinters on my hand. Not that my rear end is laden with unsanded wood, but splinters are just a big part of life on the ship and are found everywhere. I must have suffered a hundred of them already, but I am grateful to be blessed with a trusted shipmate with long finger nails who is shit hot at removing the most cumbersome of the blighters.

On Wednesday, we broke into watches which will remain in place for the next four weeks at least. The crew of the ship is split into thirds and assigned to sit a watch between certain hours both during the day and at night time. I have been assigned the 12-4 watch meaning that I will be on duty both from 12am-4am and from 12pm-4pm while we are at sea. The time in between is my own. The great thing about being on a 12-4 watch is the fact that getting up early in the morning ceases to exist. Also when performing ship work such as painting and varnishing, which follows standard day time working hours (i.e. 8am-6pm), it means the crew before you set everything up, and the crew after you pack everything away. You just do it without having to clear up any of the mess. Watches also entail taking the helm of the ship and keeping a watch for anything in the ocean. You might remember those two guys in Titanic freezing their asses off and keeping watch pretty badly right before she struck the iceberg. Good job we’re heading straight to the Tropics.

While in port, each of the three watch groups actually works full days to maintain the ship and alternate so that one watch covers each day. This means that you have one day on and get two off. So two thirds of my time in port will be spent doing landlubberesque sightseeing. Sweet.

Thursday was spent loading the ship. Excuse the French, but it was fucking hard work. One hundred 50lb sacks of cement, two spares of each sail on the ship (i.e. a lot of sails) and enough books and school supplies to keep half of French Polynesia happy for the next few years were lugged into the hold before being stuffed into any and every gap we could find. Sweating my ass off in the midday sun carrying this crap around, my only solace was found in the fact that it was inevitable I would soon find myself built like a brick shithouse. Bring it on.

The departure date set is looking increasingly likely in spite of the fact that the beautiful weather we enjoyed earlier this week is unlikely to hold on till the weekend. All being well, the ship will leave in the presence of the town’s mayor, local dignitaries and well-wishers from near and far at 1400 on Saturday. Our scheduled time of arrival at the much famed and anticipated Panama Ship Canal is early on May 28. We can’t be late. We have our spot in the queue booked and I hear these babies are more sought after than doughnuts at an obesity convention.

For now, at least, settling down in my bunk at the end of each day laden with cuts, bruises and splinters underlines the hard work I am putting in and leaves me with a masochistic sense of battered satisfaction before I close my eyes and promptly drop into a deep sleep. Blood, sweat and tears. But the more my time here passes on the ship, the more I realise that coming on this voyage is up there with the greatest decisions I have ever made in my life. I am immensely happy and feel privileged to be a part of this. A few days from now, I will be unfurling sails with nothing but the sun, the wind and the ocean to keep me company. Incredible. See you in Panama.




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Up and stow

“Jimmy!” came the rapturous welcome from a mostly unknown complement of crew, in the midst of dangling off the ship’s yards unfurling sail, as I dragged my two bags onto the dock where the Picton was berthed. This was a call sign, unbeknown to me at this point, that I would get to know quite well. Regardless of the anxieties of the previous week, I had made it to Nova Scotia on the flight I had originally booked – on time, in one piece and according to plan. Smiles all round.

As one of the latest new arrivals on the ship (the other trainees had already been on board two weeks), I had unwittingly already made quite a big impression on my fellow crew members, especially on the guys with whom I would be sharing a cabin in the fore of the vessel (known as “The Bro Cave”). It turned out that Jimmy had already been living on the ship for some time in the form of a strangely true to life red drawing of a stick man attached to my bunk. During this time, he was toasted to on a regular basis and blamed for just about everything, good and bad, that happened on the ship. Both a messiah and a scapegoat I now had the tough job of living up to the prohibitively high standards my red stick man predecessor had set before me. Practically everyone excitedly shouts out Jimmy at least once every five minutes or whenever something gets lost, broken or stolen. I require no introduction for my name precedes me always. Nonetheless I’d be lying if I said I didn’t kinda like it.

My initial thinking that I would at least meet a couple of people who would irritate the shit out of me more quickly than a laxative infused vindaloo, seems at least to date to have been unfounded. The crew and trainees really are composed of a whole spectrum of people from all walks and stages of life. The professional crew on board have the requisite patience to cope with the stupidity of a completely new recruit such as myself and inspire a culture of continuous interactive learning and practice. This is paramount to the progress of those signing up into the maritime ways of tall ship sailing. It is a steep but rewarding learning curve. And we are all in the same boat together. Sorry.

The other trainees each have their own unique stories to tell. Mostly North American with a spattering of people from Europe and South Africa, some are dab hands at tall ship sailing while others, like myself, have absolutely no experience whatsoever. The trainees include recently graduated uni students, a shop owner from the West Country, a Canadian paramedic and even a scientist (-cum-primary school teacher) who was once stationed at America’s South Pole research base in Antarctica. By some strange twist of fate, a fellow red headed Brit is on board the ship and, like me, on a career break from KPMG. We get around. Many of the shipmates are young, but some are in their 40s and 50s and still only too keen for that ultimate adventure. I am very much enjoying getting to know them and am impressed and inspired by what many have done with their lives.

The work on the ship is hard but enjoyable. I wake up every day at 7 to start work at 8. Those of you who know me will realise what an achievement getting up at this hour really is for me. I have been tempted more than once to switch my watch back to UK time (4 hours ahead) to ease the pain. Indeed on my first day where I was required to get up at 6 to provide help to the ship’s galley, it was only after I woke up and started getting dressed that I realised that it was actually 2am and I had forgotten to set my alarm clock to Canadian time. Like a bear with a sore head, I staggered back into my bunk only partially in touch with my own sanity and consciousness.

So far my duties on board have been varied. All the work is manual labour and I am finding it strangely therapeutic. Although I managed to last until Thursday without doing any painting, while waiting for the toilet on Monday I sat on a freshly painted red rail which has left a nice fat mark on the bottom of my coat. This is now brought to my attention continuously even by random passers by on the street. Yes, I know I have a big red mark across my ass. I did it a week ago. Thank you.

Other than painting, I have helped clear out and organise the hold with all the goodies one might require on a world voyage. I have also helped to package books we will be donating to under privileged children in many of the destinations on the voyage. I have taken photos of some of the more interesting items for your viewing pleasure below.

There are around 140 lines on the vessel which I am learning slowly but surely. Every day as I get more acquainted with the ship I am definitely feeling less and less stupid, but I still regularly find myself doing idiotic things, which are usually met with the usual animated shout of “Jimmy!” spreading across the ship like a Mexican wave. I have also already been working aloft a fair bit. It was not as much of an issue as I thought it would be. The ship’s boson did the “up and over” test with me and was very matter of fact about the whole thing to the point I hardly felt nervous at all. The test effectively determines whether you are competent and confident enough to work in the rigging. Unfurling sail aloft in the wind yesterday was both exhilarating and at times slightly terrifying. Good job I packed lots of extra pairs of underpants.

Although working aloft has its moments, I have spent a significant amount of time working in the ship’s head rig. This is an area to which four sails are attached at the fore of the ship and which you reach by climbing out on rigging nets directly over the ocean. The rigging itself is made up of tarred ropes netted in roughly 30cm squares. I have already missed placing my foot on the ropes a couple of times, and although I am not concerned about falling in, slipping on these things could do some serious damage to a bloke’s dangly bits and dignity, the thought of which makes me wince even now. I’m sure it will happen at some point. I will scream like a girl. And probably sound like one for the rest of the week.

Yesterday was my best day on the ship so far. After a morning of sail and emergency drills (I am official fire extinguisher retriever and rescue boat releaser in case of a fire and man overboard respectively) we were invited to attend the wedding of two previous crew members on the ship. Buddy, who I met on the ship in September, was marrying Nicky, who I met the weekend before. The wedding was unconventional in every respect and was one of the best I have ever had the pleasure of attending. In spite of a continuously wet and cold week preceding it, the ceremony took place under glorious blue skies.

The official attire was marlinspike. The first marlinspike event on the voyage, the trainees threw themselves into the spirit of things with a gusto that is to be admired, myself included. Marlinspike comprises basically anything which looks strange, wacky, naff or just plain crap. Weird hats, psychedelic shell suits, bin bag dresses and tin foil hats were all welcomed on the day and proved great for shits and giggles. Many of the photos below give you the idea.

The wedding itself may have been unconventional in many ways, but it certainly didn’t defy convention in terms of drinking. We all more than lived up to the drunken sailor label partying all day in numerous locations around Lunenburg. Although I had only known my shipmates a week, we were all getting along like one rather large happy family. I made some great memories, although they are a bit sketchy beyond 10pm. Indeed we were trying to piece the end of the night together this morning and failed dismally.

True to form (particularly while I am overseas and drunk), I lost my wallet and a packet of cigarettes. On this occasion, however, my luck was in as both were found and returned to me the following day. Although I am famed for being a complete dick head with my own belongings, I feel as though I am with kindred spirits on the Picton as people seemed to be losing their belongings left right and centre all night. It was brilliant! Someone who temporarily lost their camera had it returned to them only to find a picture of another dude’s ball sack on it. Someone else lost two pairs of shoes (don’t ask me how). And another chap lost his dignity as he stumbled off some steps like an elephant on an escalator giving himself a black eye in the process. Whoops! It’s all good fun until someone… well you know the rest.

Many of you will know that I learnt about this adventure during my time in Russia. Every Friday night I would watch a TV show called Tall Ship Chronicles providing an account of the Picton’s voyage around the world in 2000. It was only after watching five or six instalments that I did more research into doing a voyage such as this one, and discovered that I could actually join the Picton on its voyage this year. The show’s presenter was in attendance at the wedding and I was privileged enough to spend some time with him and bombard him with questions about the ship, the show and life in general. I was ever so slightly star struck.

The voyage departure date has been put back to 8 May which is next Saturday. I am excited by the thought that this time next week I will be bobbing about somewhere in the North Atlantic. I am also looking forward to the temperature rising as we edge nearer the Caribbean. Getting up at 7am hurts, but getting up at 7 when the temperature is hovering only just above freezing is a whole different kettle of fish. The next week will be spent on final preparations for the voyage and I will be applying myself solidly to learn the ropes and the lingo so that I won’t be a total disaster area when we set sail on Saturday. Avast!


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