21/06/2010 - random panamanian fishermen

This morning’s watch was interesting, the fishing boats we had seen on the previous watch were back in force and we received a message over the radio referencing our latitude and longitude.  I was called to communicate with the mother ship who was surprisingly courteous and had a clear and intelligible voice without much of an accent who wanted to know our course as he couldn’t see our nav lights (strange as we had just passed him), when we confirmed he let us know that his fleet was fishing with long lines and to pass to the north if possible, but if we were under sail, then no problem.  I confirmed and we closed our conversation with a “Buenas noches”,..  It’s nice to feel useful! J

Paul almost went over in the exact spot I did the day before on the quarterdeck and I also learnt that Sophie took 3 tumbles the day before and one nasty one in particular exactly where I had gone down, so we decided to wash the quarterdeck down with soapy water,.. nice to know I’m not the only clumsy bastard!

Juan Pedro the Booby has disappeared,… hope Donald hasn’t put him in a stew!!

On lookout today I decided that flying fish fly in a swarm, not a flock! (see 28/05/2010).  Shawn disagrees as he considers this too “insecty”,.. but that’s exactly what they look like

We discovered that we are making almost no headway and are heading almost exactly west, so all sails were taken in and we motored for a large part of the day, however this afternoon we set all sails and our course was “full and bye” once again,… who knows when we are actually going to arrive in Galapagos,.. I’m guessing Thursday…

So yet again Neptune’s revenge on the pollywogs has been delayed… George is also trying to figure out ways to get the shellbacks back… not sure she’s going to get anything though!  Maybe we’ll cross tomorrow,.. but at the current heading, I doubt it!

 

20/06/2010 - Getting Nervous,.. 0º is getting close!

I was woken this morning to find “He knows where you sleep” written on the mirror in the bathroom,… Neptune fever has gripped the ship as random and sinister messages from King Neptune have been found in a number of different areas on board,.. even in Georgie’s bunk, “snip, snip” (in relation to her hair, which she is terrified of losing) was written across the top… either the pro-crew have way too much time on their hands or King Neptune really is very determined and has the combined forced entry abilities of Father Christmas, the tooth fairy’s ability to get really close to you while you sleep and Freddie Krueger’s Malhumour and evil tendencies!

We should have reached the equator today and had the “crossing the line” ceremony, but as it happens, the wind didn’t turn as we expected and instead of being able to maintain a steady south westerly course we were forced to head west as we were sailing instead of motoring.

Early this afternoon we picked up an unlikely hitchhiker, Juan Pedro (or Bobby for short) the Booby,.. he seems very at home perched mere centimetres from people and unlike our other hitchhikers, actually seems quite healthy,.. he has been seen fishing and flying so hopefully he is just catching a lift to the galapagos, and will not go the way of Barry the Bat, Dave the bird and the other bird who disappeared before we had a chance to name him!.. Juan Pedro does have red feet though, so probably not a blue-footed booby!  Booby jokes have abounded today!

A small pod of very large pilot whales passed our stern today, their short stubby noses and curved dorsal fins were instantly recognizable and reminded me of my time with Proyecto Ambiental Tenerife when I was studying their behaviour and building a photo library to identify the different individuals… these Pacific guys were significantly larger than the ones I used to study though!

A brief workshop on sail theory taught us about how square rigged sail ships could head up to wind, close haul and the closest that they can sail is “Full and By”,.. i.e. making sure the sails are full of wind and by the wind and heading up just before they luff.

Fell over again this morning,.. wasn’t even hurrying,.. my feet just slid out from under me…. God knows why!!!  I think Neptune is just playing with me.

Fingers crossed we will reach the equator tomorrow,.. hard to believe that we are this close to the equator and it is relatively chilly, had to wear a shirt today for the first time sailing since before panama!  If we reach the equator then we will have the “crossing the line” ceremony for sure,.. I really just want to get it over with now,.. getting bored of all the hype!!

People are rebelling against the shellbacks, this afternoon, they all came out with protective masks on,… in an attempt to make them look silly, I then found the stash and painted amusing faces on them,.. let’s see if we can get them to wear them!

Jehlie wants to start a rebel movement,.. and there was a bro-meeting to evaluate the proposition,.. Bro-words invented so far: (any of the vaguely homosexual-esque words are made immediately manly and hetero by the mere addition of “bro” anywhere in the word.

Brobation: When you are on probation to become either a Bro or an honorary Bro ej. Jehle is still on Brobation

Brocabulary: Verbiage used by and in relation to “Bros”.

Broment: A moment of intimacy between two or more bro’s. Ej. Dan and Liam shared a broment over a beer

Brotograph: A photo of bros

Bro-date: Often comes before a broment, normally in a bar or pub

Brodeo: A bro-meeting normally organized in advance

Bromance: When 2 bros get close

Bromittee meeting: A meeting of Bro’s normally in the bro-cave

Brodacious: When something is awesome

19/06/2010 - Ridiculous facial hair

Good nights sleep,.. not raining as I woke up!

Holy stoning,.. Leonard wondered if the way you holy stoned in any way reflected the way you had sex, both Leonard and I were slow and methodical covering a larger area, whereas Fred used very quick short strokes… honestly, I hope I never find out!!

Since we figure we’re going to get shaved tomorrow anyway, some of the guys decided to have a “ridiculous beard” contest,.. I had only not shaved for a couple of days, so mine wasn’t nearly as impressive as the others, but you can judge for yourself by the photos!

Everyone sick with “panama flu”,.. George was apparently the first to get it (we assume off some dodgy Panamanian fella!) and it is now doing the rounds, the ship is a virus’ heaven, lots of hot, sweaty, damp, moist people within spitting distance of each other 24 hours a day…  fingers crossed I avoid this particular sinus bug!

Donald’s birthday today, so he was given the day off,.. the girls on galley came through and created a great lunch, dinner and baked enough birthday cake for Donald to sate 52 appetites,.. go bat girls!

We took what could be potentially the last foto of all the bro’s with hair,.. new word: brotograph!

During captain’s workshop on long splicing (which we all got wrong!) there was a shout of FISH ON!! I legged it to the aloha deck where Mate Mike had just got to the rod before me… get the Gaff he shouted, I grabbed the hook and waited to see the enormous fish that the bent rod indicated was thrashing about on the other end!... from the distance it was hard to tell what sort of fish it was, it didn’t seem to give much of a fight and actually seemed to skip along the surface,.. it was yellow and seemed to be already dead… get Shawn to bring it in, they yelled,.. Shawn reeled in the strange animal and as it got closer, it was easy to tell that it wasn’t actually an animal, but a canvas bag!  It appears Neptune has sent us a message!!  Shawn reeled it in and opened the sand filled bag.. (input message).  We are 1º 45’ from the equator, it appears that Neptune has something horrible planned for us pollywogs…. Tomorrow we’ll discover our fate!!

The trainees are all gossiping about what will happen tomorrow… some of the girls are terrified, others indifferent, the guys are mostly resolved to accept whatever fate King Neptune bestows upon us!

 

18/06/2010 - Healthy living and a note from Neptune

I Didn’t sleep as well last night and so wakeup this morning was a little less welcome.  As with the previous day the first few hours of our watch were pretty quiet, but then we started sailhandling… Nadja explained that this really is the sail handling watch as if we are going to set or furl sail we are liable to do it before it gets dark – so it will be our watch to do it, and as soon as it gets light sails are often set again so that’s us as well… looking forward to learning more about sail handling.

Dr. Gary was checking out another crewmember’s blood pressure and while he had the monitor out I asked if I could check mine too, especially since the doctor in Spain had told me to keep an eye on it, amazingly my heart rate was 116 over 67 with a bpm of 53,.. this was quite a change from my previous average of 140 over 87!  Just shows you what a couple of months of sea air and (relatively) healthy living can do for you!!! I was pretty surprised!

I heard a shout of “acrobatic dolphins off the starboard beam” and ran on deck to see some very dark dolphins with a very narrow caudal peduncle jumping just a few boat lengths from the ship, they were really going for it and looked like they were having a lot of fun!

We also received a letter from Neptune today printed and posted on the scuttle door (apparently King Neptune has email!). It shows his disdain for “Pollywogs” i.e. people who haven’t yet crossed the equator, and his respect for “shellbacks”.  We are presently at 4º North, as each degree is 60 miles, we therefore have approximately 240 miles before we cross the equator, at 140 miles a day we should arrive somewhere around Sunday.  Now the details are purposefully hazy, but as I understand it, Neptune comes aboard and judges each pollywog who then has to undergo an initiation,.. in the past this has been anything from being covered in slops, to having their heads shaved, to going aloft naked….  Who knows what they will come up with this time,… all the girls are terrified of having their hair cut off and there are some who really won’t enter into the spirit of it… I am expecting at the very least to have my head shaved, quite looking forward to seeing what my scar looks like after all these years! (I had a pretty serious SCUBA accident when I was younger and took a chunk out of my skull leaving a pretty impressive scar under the hairline) And if I have to get covered in slops, well I’ll just shower afterwards and if I have to go up naked,… well, I’ve got nothing to hide or be ashamed of!!  I’ll let you know what happens on Sunday, or probably Monday as it is also rumoured that everyone gets shitfaced too!  Quite looking forward to it… hope it doesn’t rain!

The weather slowly worsened as the afternoon wore on and manropes were put out in case it got any worse, at a guess I think the winds reached 25mph with a swell of about 12ft, so not much in the big scheme of things!  I was on lookout and the bow was being inundated as she buried herself in the big swells, apparently one of the pro-crew had her porthole open and got soaked!  Fred and I were ordered out to the headrig to lash down the outer jib,.. we got some fantastic footage, albeit a bit dark, but it was great fun watching the ship plunge in and out of the waves from way out in front of her!

Big swell, man ropes up and me n Fred out on the bowsprit… got a good video!

 

15/06/2010 - Calamari .vs Chicken

Today was really hot, and I ended up being on galley, we spent the morning preparing the food for lunch as Donald was away on a purchasing trip.  Tammy and I decided on Chicken Curry which should have been easy to make, especially since I had found a freezer bag full of what seemed to be pre-prepared chicken strips.  There was something slightly not right about the chicken and so I asked at least 4 people what they thought,.. .all seemed convinced that it was chicken, so I set it to defrost in a large pail of water in the galley.

Every time I checked it, I tried to ascertain that it was chicken, but until some parts of it were totally defrosted it was impossible.  An hour before lunch was meant to be served a section was sufficiently defrosted for me to check it,.. yep, you guessed it, we had an hour to prepare the chicken curry and I had successfully defrosted a huge bag of calamari!! Unsure as to whether calamari would go with the veggies we had prepared I frantically began ransacking the freezers for pieces of chicken, however I was only able to find quartered chickens, which, as luck would have it, hadn’t defrosted yet so I set about stripping them of any meat I could find and Tammy began braising like never before.. we were 20mins late n the end, which as it happens was fine as another truckload of provisions had arrived and no-one was ready to eat!

It was sweltering on board and the frustration of being able to see the pub from the ship, but being unable to go there was tangible to everyone, so we were consoled with a power shower on deck just before dinner… the evening was topped off with a screening of The Usual Suspects, and another night was spent on the hatch dreaming of my soft hotel bed and cool air conditioning.  Chibley stepped on my face once or twice, but you get used to that after a while!

 

17/06/2010 - First day on the four to eight!

My first 4am wakeup,.. not too bad as I slept really well last night.  The sea temp has cooled down and with it the temperature of the salon has dropped.
The first couple of hours of the 4-8 watch are pretty quiet as it is pitch black,.. sunrise was at 05.58 this morning and luckily I was sent aloft to loose the t’gallant, quite an experience watching the sun come up over the horizon from a vantage point of 30 metres up, dammit,.. forgot the camera on deck!  Once on deck again I encountered Brad who despite looking pretty chirpy informed me that he had yet again vomited, and this time he didn’t even make it to the side, but upchucked on deck!  Days since Brad has vomited: 0 the countdown begins yet again!
I find that the first couple of days I feel a bit queasy in the evenings so take a tablet just until I get my legs back, but he didn’t seem to want to..
Once the sun comes up we have a number of different responsibilities on this watch, the most important one seems to be a full deckwash with salt water and a rinse down with fresh water (aka Sujeing), however another element is the “Holy Stoning”. Now Holy Stoning is basically the precursor to sandpaper and consists of throwing sand down on deck, covering the area with water, kneeling down and scraping a 2by4 covered in canvas across the deck.  The previous 4-8 watch managed 1m2 in a month,.. Hopefully we’ll do better! I have to be honest, we could be so much more effective with a scraper and some real sandpaper, or god forbid an electric sander, but on the plus side this is a fantastic way of getting my oblique’s and triceps trained up for surfing in Bali… positive mental attitude is mandatory on board, especially when manpower is so abundant and cash so scarce!
We went through man overboard procedures, abandon ship and fire drills with our new mate and professional crew and there weren’t many differences so that was good .
I was put on wakeups this morning, and was surprised to find that mate Mike needs at least 2 if not 3 wakeups at regular intervals,.. although I guess it’s easier for us to wake up given that there are others getting up all around us!
The new watch seems to be a good mix, there are always those who are more adept than others, but everyone appears to want to take part and jump in,.. so I think we’re good!
The Afternoon watch could be summed up by the word “Huge”, we discovered a huge moth in the scullery, a huge fish grabbed one of the lines, zig-zagged in the wake of the ship and then broke the hook and we had a huge squally bit (apparently I am the one who they follow as now the old 8-12 watch hasn’t had any!).  Now this was a squally bit to end all squally bits and the torrential downpour was associated with some pretty high winds.  We were worried the terrapins on the galley roof were going to drown, but luckily someone had put some canvas down over them.  Nadja suddenly ran past me and yelled to collect the rainwater,.. now since Chris the engineer had stated that we were using too much freshwater, this did not seem strange to me!  However when I was told it was purely for the 2 wooden barrels, I was a bit put out.  We had brought 2 wooden barrels from Lunenberg, but didn’t realise they had to be kept moist and so needed liquid in them otherwise the wood would begin to become permeable.  However, there was rain enough to fill the barrels and keep every other container on the ship full with water and could be used for washing, sujeing and showering if need be!
Even with the squall, we still had a significant amount of sail handling and it is clear that by the end of my time at this watch I’ll be a lot happier with my lines and a more competent crewmember.

16/06/2010 - Leaving Panama

Today we are leaving Panama, I can’t say I am disappointed to say goodbye, I am sure I would have enjoyed Panama more if I had had a chance to escape the city and tour around a little.  It is a shame I never got to see the rainforests and the surf beaches, but who knows, maybe I’ll be back one day!  I certainly won’t miss the big city though, although the Casco Viejo will be the place to visit in about 10 years. 
Can’t wait till the Galapagos, but I have to manage my expectations carefully. The image I have in my mind of the Galapagos islands is of a tropical unspoilt biological paradise where flightless birds and iguanas stroll about nonchalantly in the lack of direct predators and where I can picture Darwin developing his theories and suppositions.  I know it isn’t going to be like that now, but I don’t want to be disappointed so I am trying to convince myself that it is going to be a built up metropolis,… hopefully it will be somewhere in between.
This morning was a lot of “hurry up and wait”, we had to wait for immigration to clear us out, wood to be delivered, more food and various other bits and pieces.  I honestly can’t believe how much this ship can fit, we have loaded up with 52 people, food for a small army for 6 weeks, and a huge amount of supplies for Pitcairn.  The hold is filled to the brim, and the breezeways are now little more than minute shafts due to the amount of wood stored there, but somehow there is always room for more! 
Our watches have been changed and I am now on the 4-8 watch.  Looks like a good mixture of people and I have a few from the old 8-12 watch to keep me company.  I think we are going to managed in a different way from how Sophie and Katelinn managed us, but it’ll be interesting to see how we develop as sail handlers as this watch is allegedly THE sail handling watch and I desperately need the practise.
Sophie told me she almost cried when Jo asked her if she could still come and see her for a motivational morning speech even though she isn’t on her watch anymore… aaah.  Although I’ll miss those little speeches and associated arm swings too!
We finally moved away from the dock at about 3pm and the captain called a general muster to explain the situation; we were now in an area that is known for its light changeable breezes so we would be motoring for the next few days, especially since the prevailing wind is from the south, which is where we want to go.   We should hit the doldrums (also known as the inter-tropical convergence zone) in a day or two and the Island we would be visiting in the Galapagos is San Cristobal.  The Islands are approximately 850 miles away and we have to make a slightly curved trajectory so we should reach them in about 8-10 days.  Before then however we will be crossing the equator so by the time we arrive we will have been converted from “pollywogs” to “shellbacks”.
He informed us that over the last 2 days we had taken on 20 tonnes of food and 10 tonnes of fuel, this had caused us to drop in the water by about 2 inches!
Looking at our aloha deck it could well be true, it looks like a jungle, with bunches of bananas, pineapple and mangos hanging from every beam!
There was absolutely no wind as we left port and schools of bait fish could be clearly seen on the surface of the glassy water, Paul was getting excited as we passed between schools and rightly so, in the space of an hour we caught 3 fish, 2 tuna, and one Spanish mackerel, unfortunately we only discovered it was a mackerel after trawling through his fish book and so it had already been thrown back as it was too small, one of the tunas was deemed too small as well, can’t believe I was on helm again and so couldn’t see any of this!
As with most first days back at sea I began to feel a little seasick as the swell increased and I took a pill just to be sure.  I am still surprised that after sailing my whole life and never being seasick I still feel nauseas, bit irritating really as it really does affect how you behave on board if you are not feeling 100%.  Everyone was absolutely exhausted and despite the excitement on leaving Panama and heading for the Galapagos the atmosphere on board was muted and became more so as the evening matured.
After first watch I was in bed by 20.15 and was out for the count until my wakeup at 03.30.

14/06/2010 - The Ruins

Went for breakfast in my hotel and looked over the balcony, for a second I thought I was back in Barcelona, the view looked just like Tibidabo from my flat there.

I was back at the ship for about 9am as there were murmurings about going surfing and I really had the urge to get out of Panama and a surf trip was the perfect excuse.

I bumped into a group heading off for breakfast and internet and jumped on the bandwagon, we found a bar on the dock not far from the ship and sat there internetting (yes I think it is now a verb!) and chatting about plans for the day.  I understood that Rebecca was leading a surf trip at so at 11pm so at 12 I was back at the ship and ready to go, only to be told by Rebecca on her return that they were going tomorrow instead,.. damn, damn, damn!!

So instead I hooked up with Niko (accident waiting to happen) and Fred (Mike) and we decided that we wanted to go to the ruins of Old Panama, which was the old Panama city ransacked and destroyed by pirates in (can’t remember when exactly!).  We managed to get a cab there for 4 dollars only to find the place was closed on Mondays,.. typical!  However, there were people wandering around inside and we were advised by a random worker there to ask the security guard and see if he could let us in.  On asking him, the guy explained that he was just kicking some people who came in over the fence on the other side, with a wry smile I told him that we could have come in over that side and he could kick us out in 40mins if that would be ok.  He agreed for 10 dollars for the 3 of us!  Result!  So we dashed him the cash in a surreptitious handshake and were swiftly ushered through the gate in the understanding that he never let us in!

The ruins were fascinating, but they were just that; ruins, and there wasn’t too much information available outside.  There is a museum there too, but I think it would have been considerably more complicated to bribe our way in there than the outside ruins!  If anything it gave us the opportunity to feel like we had left the city as it really was a very lush area and as long as you ignored the skyscraper landscape towering above the treeline, you could almost feel like you were on the outskirts of a rainforest!

We managed to hail a cab from outside the ruins and discovered we were passengers in the cab of a policeman who moonlighted as a taxi driver.  Now this guy was the epitome of everything a policeman shouldn’t be, we asked him if he could recommend a bar where we could get something cold to drink and he immediately tried to convince us to go to a bar he knew where you could get girls to do anything for you, at a price…  he even decided to pick up a girl who looked like she was heading into the centre and herd her into the cab with us, so that we could have some female company, she was about 14!

We managed to discourage him from taking us to a whorehouse and he dropped us at a bar not 5 mins walk from Fred’s hotel which was perfect, a typical Panamanian bar, football and booze everywhere, and we sat and enjoyed a couple of bottles of beer before Niko and I decided we should get back to the ship to find out what the plan was for dinner.

On returning to the ship there were a group interested in going to the Casco Viejo for a final meal and we headed out en masse to find a place to eat.  In the Plaza Mayor we discovered a nice restaurant with a large outside table and installed ourselves.. the food was good and reasonably priced, but the tasty jugs of sangria jacked the price up unbelievably as 10 jugs at 20 dollars a pop really make a difference!

I don’t know why, but people were exhausted again and most people were pooped enough at 10.30 to want to head back to the ship and bed!