Monday August 17th
Woke at 7:00am for my watch and had some wonderful crepes for breakfast. Morning watch was pretty uneventful, very cold out, but sunny. It reminded me of skiing on a sunny day.
For afternoon work party I was assigned to the group in charge of getting the lines run for the main topgallant and royal we took down and up during the transatlantic. We went aloft and strapped things down and got some of the lines run. Gabe was calling the shots and sent me to put of both sides of the royal halyard blocks.
I got up to the yard got one block on the yard and looked up the mast. I looked down to Gabe and shouted down “how the Hell do you expect me to get up there?!” pointing to the strop 8ft above the royal yard, above the back stays and 2ft from the tip of the mast. “wrap your legs around the mast and climb the backstay” was his reply to which I retorted “there is nowhere to clip in” which was met with the classic “well then it would be foolish to let go wouldn’t it?”.
So I took a deep breath, unclipped from the yard, wrapped my legs around a greased mast, clapped my hands on to the back stay and pulled myself up hand over hand. When I reached the top I held on with one hand and clipped myself to the eye of the backstay. Hanging in my harness (I have much faith in it) I shackled on the new block. When I was done I unclipped, wrapped my legs around the mast and lowered myself hand over hand to the yard. A few minutes later I did it again to run the halyard.
I went to sleep after work party and slept through dinner. I asked cookie to set me aside a plate, which he kindly did. I was awoken for my night watch and took an idle position first to eat dinner. Not a few minutes after finishing I was called up to strike the fore and aft sails, which we did. Andrew and I went into the headrig and spent a good half an hour getting the sails daisy chained to the jibboom so they would not flog during the night. We did a lovely job if I do say so myself.
The rest of watch was none too interesting, we saw one of our tallship pals in the distance and saw a city on the English shore near the end of the watch. Sometime during the next watch we will round the Southern tip of England and enter the Channel. This should mean the wind will come fair and we can set some sails and really get a move on. Off to sleep I gratefully went.
Tuesday August 18th
Woke up rested but regretting leaving my bunk. Came on deck to the main topsail and forecourse set, England to port. Started on the helm and she was steering so lovely. Amber took the helm from me a bit before 9 so I could run aloft to unfurl the foretops’l. We set the foretop and maincourse and continued sailing along.
I chatted with bill about steel boats on bow watch and the traffic of the channel was starting to add up. Things will get interesting as we get deeper into the channel, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world that bottlenecks to 10miles at one point. Watch went pretty uneventfully.
We met for capstan and spent a good deal of time talking about abandoning ship and what we would do and take depending on how much time we had. Work party started and aloft I went to work on running the gear for the maintopgallant and the royal, just like yesterday. Over two hours I spent in the rig running lines and during the that time the clouds cleared and we had a right sunny warm afternoon.
I ended up putting seizings on the bitter end of the topgallant halyard so for nearly a half an hour I hung in my harness from just below the royal yard. The coast of england lay low off to port with dozens and dozens of little sloops along the coast. Meanwhile the sun’s rays warmed my skin and lit up the water, it was lovely work. I finished a little late and went down to my bunk to relax before dinner.
After dinner I slept until watch and came on deck to a lovely sunset in wispy clouds along the horizon. There was a lot of traffic everywhere and we came right by several fishing boats. The night came on slowly and the stars began to glow. A mild night with the coasts shrouded in clouds, we had all the stars you could want to see and many shooting stars. During my idle position I laid down on the stern and just stared into the heavens. I thought about “star watches” my family used to do when I was little, how much I still enjoyed them, and how I never thought I would be seeing the view I was now.
Wednesday August 19th
Caught myself almost falling back asleep after my wakeup and came on deck to another beautiful sunny day. I know the channel can get extremely ugly and I feel very lucky to have the weather we are. Some of the nicest since we were near Bermuda. We weaved in and out through the shipping lanes and plan on crossing the Dover Channel close to the French side.
Yet another landmark experience as we crossed the Prime Meridian today. Not a thrilling experience, but still a cool one. My first time sailing in the Eastern Hemisphere. I really enjoyed soaking up the day and when I was asked to come help clean up some tar that had gotten in the bilges I didn’t mind. So I got on my work clothes and crawled down into the bilges for an hour or so getting orange slime and tar on myself. I am glad to shower soon.
Afternoon work party was back in the rig as we finished running all the sheets and gear for the main t’gallant and royal. We had another warm afternoon and I actually got quite warm working aloft. We finished just in time and for the hour before dinner I showered and laid out in the sun on deck.
Slept after dinner until watch. When I came on deck were on the north side of the Dover Strait. France was plainly visible and a heavy mist was setting in. Lots of shipping traffic and all coming very close together at this point. I started on the helm and had to work hard to make sure we stayed dead on our course. The rest of watch went pretty uneventfully. The stars came out less brilliantly than last night, but still beautiful. The last hour of watch dragged on and when it was over I was out like a light
Thursday August 20th
Woke up for watch to another lovely day! Staysails had just been set when we came on deck. As I was on the helm the wind veered enough that we threw up all the squares on the main and fore masts. It was the moment of truth for all the gear we had run and despite one wrong lead they set like they did a month ago before we took them down. We killed the engines and cruised along at 6 knots under a bright sunny day, still haze/mist on the horizon.
We braced a little more square to the ship near the end of our watch, but the rest went true to form. We saw lots of traffic and a few oil rigs as well. If we are not already we should soon be entering the North Sea.
Lunch and then for work party Colby the volunteer and I cleaned out the tar area in Bosun’s and organized it. After that I went aloft and patch served. We sailed along at a good clip and a little swell was building to give us a roll.
Dinner and a nap later I was back on deck. The previous watch said that it had blown quite hard for an hour or so. The ship log used to gauge our speed in the water was ripped right off its new mounting bracket and lost. The wind during our watch slackened steadily until we were only doing 4 knots and had to throw on an engine.
Tonight was our most mild night to date, I never even had to put on a coat. Another misty/hazy night as the sun went down and the stars began to come out. At dusk Andrew and I went out on the bow sprit and furled the headsails like we had done the night before. We joked we shouldn’t do too good of a job or they might make a habit of sending us out to do it. All sorts of shipping, fishing boats, lighthouses, buoys, oil rigs, stars, and lightning in the distance gave us quite a light show.
Friday August 21st
When I woke up I could feel the ship moving slowly and figured we must be near our anchorage. Sure enough we were in the channel a few miles from our anchorage moving nice and slow. A touristy beach front lay on our port and ahead a huge wind farm with more windmills off in the distance.
Behind us on the horizon a couple of tallships were white flashes of full sail and ahead more ships lay at anchor with smaller sailboats moving around. This makes me excited to see some new ships and that we may be looking forward to a big event. We set a couple more squares and struck them a half hour later as we came closer in.
We came to our anchorage near the wind farm set the spanker and went into the wind. The anchor dropped and I went below to find our anchor ball (a ball hung forward to let people know we are at anchor which apparently the Dutch insist we use) which needed to be assembled and painted. We threw on a coat of paint, tied it up, and I crawled out on the bow sprit and made it off.
We refurled the headsails and went below for lunch. I am looking forward to having anchor watch tonight and getting a lot of sleep. It has been a week since I got my tattoo and it is heeling up well, also, I still really like it.
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