7 days to go! Next Thursday, I drive to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia to begin my 4 & 1/2 month adventure living aboard the tall ship "Picton Castle". I will be a trainee crew member helping to sail the ship around the world, her 5th circumnavigation!! I am participating in the first leg of the voyage, which begins in Lunenburg and stops in Panama, the Galapagos Islands, Pitcairn Island, the Gambier Islands, Tahiti, and Raratonga. The ship will continue on without me around the world (Figi, Indonesia, Cape Town, Namibia, Bermuda among other places), but I need to be back for school in the fall!
There will be 50 crew members aboard the ship, about 38 trainees and 12 professional crew. Most of the crew are between 18-30 years old, but there is no age limit so some older trainees will be participating as well. The only requirement is that you are able to work really hard! We will be put on watch throughout the voyage, usually 4 hours on and 8 hours off around the clock (which means if I am on the 4-8 watch, I am on watch 4pm-8pm and 4am-8am!) When we are on watch, we will be steering the ship, painting, varnishing, hauling lines, climbing aloft, standing lookout, plotting our position, and doing anything else to keep the boat heading westward!
The ship herself is a 179-ft square-rigged barque with a riveted steel hull, clear oiled-pine decks, steel masts, wooden & steel yards and she carries 12,450 square feet of canvas sail! There are 175 lines that come down to deck for sail handling and I have to learn all of them in the first couple of weeks! Luckily I have a handbook that I can review in this upcoming week so I am not totally useless when I get there.
This next week will be spent packing...and repacking...and repacking...because I am a chronic over-packer but I cannot for this trip! I have seriously limited space in the "bat cave" (cabins in the very stern of the boat) which consists of a small wall locker and perhaps some space underneath my bunk. So this will be quite challenging.
I am also trying to figure out communication (hence the beginning of the blog...). I will probably have internet in ports and I will be bringing along my laptop to keep up with some written account of the trip. I will post entries & pictures when I get to port (which may not be for two-three weeks at a time!).
Goodbye until Lunenburg!
