Oiling the Chains

Well, the smell of pine tar has officially seeped into my skin and stained all my clothes. This first week of work has been physically challenging, dirty, tedious, and so much fun!!

My days begin with a wake up call around 7:15, but usually I am up a few minutes earlier with the smell of Donald’s cooking (today it was homemade cinnamon rolls!). By 7:30, we make our way over to Cape Chidley for breakfast with everyone since Chidley has a much larger galley. All of the cooking is done on Zebroid, but dishes and eating take place on Chidley—it’s a bit confusing! Cold cereal and coffee are always served at breakfast, but we also enjoy blueberry pancakes, eggs, bacon, porridge, and bagels! We all wash our own dishes quickly then head over to the dock in front of Zebroid for muster.

Mustering on a ship is very important, and we do it twice a day to make sure everyone is on the same page with what needs to be done and that we all start and end the day at the same time. Sometimes Captain Moreland comes to musters, but it is usually run by the first mate, Mike Moreland, who is the captain’s nephew. We all get assigned jobs with an AB (Advanced Boatman) leading us. They will also be leading watches once we are at sea. The AB’s on Picton are Meredith, Sophie, Cirie, and Kaitlinn.

The work I have done this week has been varied. On Monday, all the trainees watched as the Picton was taken to dry dock, but we weren’t really allowed to help that first day. After lunch, we split up into groups and read the entire handbook, went through important orders, and practiced knots! So far I’ve mastered the eight knot, reef knot (a square knot), bowline, rolling hitch, double sheet bend, clove hitch, cow hitch, round turn two half hitches, sheepshank, and have practiced many more. In our downtime, usually after lunch or dinner, many of us practice knots in the Batcave and listen to music.

Tuesday, the trainees of Zebroid began the day with domestics, which means that we clean our ship, Chidley, and the warehouse. Domestics are done every morning to make sure the ship stays clean—they are incredibly important because sailors are dirty, dirty people! I swept and mopped the galley and the companionway, chatting with Donald the whole time. Donald is from Grenada, so most conversations have to do with how cold it is here in Lunenburg! After domestics, we got reassigned to different jobs. I ended up organizing books in the warehouse for the rest of the day. We are bringing thousands of books to the children of Pitcairn Island and French Polynesia, but we have to organize them all into different age groups, and them bind them together into small bricks of books so that the children can help us carry them off the ship. It’s a very big job!

On Wednesday, I was in a group led by Meredith. We spent the morning locating the boat falls, which hold the skiff we take with us aboard the Picton. We rigged up all of the blocks and lines. When we could no longer be of any help, we began cleaning some of the pots and pans that will be in the galley onboard by toting them up and down the steep steps that lead to the deck of the Picton. It was kind of nerve racking climbing those rattling steps! After lunch, I got assigned to oil the anchor chains. Picture me holding a mixture of tar and oil in an old paint can, wearing ripped, dirty jean, a flannel shirt over 4 other layers, and a hard hat. I looked awesome. Oiling the anchor chains was definitely a fun job and I got incredibly dirty! It was nice to be able to sit out in the sun, and when I got back, I noticed my cheeks and nose were quite rosy! In the afternoon, we were supposed to go out and do a lesson in small boats, including rowing, sailing, and outboard motor boats, but it was too windy for the first day, so we had a short lesson inside the dory shop, learning a bunch of different rowing commands that I recognized from my crew days! After Wednesday, I was chilled to the bone, so I opted out of the outside dinner and got a big bowl of soup with Tammy from the Banker instead, and caught up on some emails. I also took my second shower!

Thursday was sort of a special day for work because I was on galley duty! Everybody must complete a shift of galley duty every couple of weeks and help prepare and set up the three meals that day. Kate (my new friend from England), Tammy, Brad, and I were the galley team, and we had to report at 6:15 which meant waking up at 6! It wasn’t actually too hard waking up since we’ve been going to bed between 10-11 every night. We put on the coffee, put out the trash, went over to Chidley to set up and—the power went out!! We fumbled around for flashlights, but all of our preparations had to be done in pitch black! Most of breakfast was eaten in the dark as well. I guess the power on Chidley goes out frequently when you plug over 3 things in at a time—and the lights, coffee maker, and hot water maker did the trick! Between meals, we did some other little projects, like coiling and organizing lines in the warehouse and working in the galley on Picton, scrubbing shelves and locating items in the hold. We got lunch on that day, which was tacos, potato asparagus soup (which was soooo good), and salad. Between lunch dishes and preparations for dinner, we mostly stayed around Zebroid and Chidley in the afternoon (Picton on dry dock is about a 10 minute walk away, up a hill!). Although, we did have to go over for a few minutes to haul up the anchor! It takes about 10 people at a time to move the windless, and we substitute in for each other every few minutes. It was like doing 150 squats in a row, taking a short break, then doing another 150 squats! In the picture, I am on the right, in the red jacket with the yellow hood!

We got dinner on with no problems or power outages (rice, beef stew, scalloped potatoes, spice cake and ice cream!) and enjoyed the rest of our shipmates. At dinner, we met a couple, Marie and Leroy, who are actually from Pitcairn Island. They now live in Albuquerque, but traveled up to Lunenburg to meet us and deliver some items that we will bring to Marie’s family on Pitcairn. Marie’s last name was “Christian” and a descendant of the mutiny! I’m not exactly sure how Leroy got there—Marie said he was sent there for something so I was a bit confused, but they met and moved off the island in the 1970s. I asked Marie what it was like living with a couple hundred people (there are even fewer now) on Pitcairn to living in New Zealand and then America. She told me it took almost two years to adjust and she still misses a lot about Pitcairn. Marie and Leroy will be here the next couple of days and I look forward to speaking to them more. I learned that on Pitcairn, to say, “How are you?” you say “whattawayou” (spelled phonetically J), so I will have to remember that!

After dinner, cleaning up, and getting out of my work clothes, I crashed in my bunk and fell asleep around 9:00. Today is now Friday, the end of the first work week (although I think we might do about a half day of work tomorrow). At the moment, the Picton is leaving dry dock, so the trainees have the morning off. I am sitting in a coffee shop, sipping on a latte (just getting my fill before we leave in a couple weeks!). I have to be back at Picton’s dock around 11:30 to help put on some chafe gear before lunch. This afternoon we are all doing a massive cleaning of Picton so people can start moving on tomorrow! Although, the people who will be living in the Batcave (usually the younger girls on the trip, so definitely my living quarters) will remain on Zebroid for a couple more days because they are doing some work back there. I am fine with that plan because there is heat on “Hotel Zebroid”!

More to come in a few days…feel free to email me, too! I love getting emails from home. My email is joannalaingclark@gmail.com. This way, I am more likely to respond individually, too. For the next two weeks, I will be able to check my email almost every day, but after that, I will be off the grid!