If we were Noah and our Barque was the Ark we’d be out collecting animals by the pair right now. As David Matthews just said lovely weather—if you are a duck!
It is raining and has been for four days—big, fat, heavy drops—and when it stops and looks a little clear then it laughs in your face and rains some more! All you can hear is giggling all over the ship as people have no choice but to either go to galley, the head or the quarterdeck, and a short walk through this rain and you are quite literally drenched. The 8–12 have given up; they sit on the quarterdeck in full foulies laughing as it runs down their sleeves and into the inner layer. Hair plastered to their heads and feet and hands all pruned from being wet so long. On a good note, our feet are very clean and our Barque has had a freshwater rinse that we didn’t need to fill buckets for. The air has cooled to livable, and as I figure it we don’t need a shower now! AND with this squally weather come bursts of speed taking us from 4–5 knots to sometimes 8 or 9 knots, lovely! So you won’t hear us complaining, but you may hear us wringing out our clothes! All in all, this is not so bad.
We are treacherously close now to Neptune’s home waters. At 1’03.139°S x 37’19.656°W, we wonder if the rain is another warning and that all these Pollywogs onboard are not making Neptune happy, or perhaps he sends the rain to try and cleanse our nine pollywogs. We did have our first written warning, which showed up on the well deck a day ago, pleading with us to take the wretched smell of pollywog off our beautiful, white Danzinger of the sea.
Who knows what could happen? Any day now Neptune himself could make an appearance on the Barque Picton Castle! I’m glad I’m not a pollywog!
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