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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