Nope, I haven’t been idle forgetting to write a blog - we crossed the international date line last night thus losing a day as we crossed back West and moved sharply onto 14 August.
Life on the ship has settled down quickly into a routine, revolving around the two watches I am doing - I have just finished the morning watch this Thursday.
Yesterday evening we set more sails as our course changed to head towards Tonga, heading more to the west after the southerly motor sailing over the previous day. The sea became calmer and the roll of the ship is noticeably better under sail than with the motor.
This meant that most of the greenies on board started feeling better too, meaning work on watch could be shared out more. Yesterday evening was a quiet watch, looking at the southern sky star constellation with the help of the ship’s guidebook.
The moon is heading towards a full moon making the nights incredibly bright, and reducing the amount of stars one can see: we did pick out the easy ones though, the Southern Cross and Scorpio. One step at a time. The ship looks magical at night with the sails set; it is very easy to imagine mariners from down the ages sailing off on adventures with undiscovered lands awaiting them over a distant horizon...
This morning was the first morning on board when a range of ship’s work could be undertaken by both the permanent and voyage crew: yesterday’s work was written off because of the choppy conditions.
The permanent crew attended to minor repairs while my watch set the t’gallant (the top sail on the square rig) upping our speed to around 5 knots. After a spell on lookout, perched on the bow like some kind of dodgy pirate, I volunteered to do the ship’s brass polishing, long work but all part of the experience. The final task was the ship’s bell, bringing with it the reward of being able to sound ship’s eight bells for the end of our watch at twelve noon - see what I mean about the pseudo pirate behaviour!!
Now I have the rest of the afternoon free until our next watch starts at 20h00. It’s amazing how quickly you fall into the routines on board, and the place really does seem to work like clockwork. I have been given the nickname of "Mr Sausage" by the Captain as he is convinced I ate all the leftovers from dinner last night, something I deny completely - my only disappointment is that I did not get them before whoever the nifty thief really was!
We should be arriving in Tonga tomorrow morning, in the northern island group of Vavau. The plan appears to be to spend the weekend there; including a local feast on Saturday - reassuringly not the same kind of local feast that welcomed Captain Cook and his crew…!
Rob
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