Location: Home! Alongside in Lunenburg Harbour, Nova Scotia!

At about 0710 this morning the Picton Castle passed the buoy called “Fig” and by 0730 we had reached White Point, where the mates had us loose all sail to dry. After a hearty breakfast of bacon and cheesy scrambled eggs the crew got to work pulling heavy hawsers and Samson braids (dock lines) out of the chain locker and off of the top of the galley house, where they had been flaked to dry after their use in Shelburne during Alberto.

We flaked hawsers on the forecastle head and forward on the well deck to be used as head lines and bow springs; we flaked two hawsers amidships to be used as after-leading and forward-leading ‘midships springs, and we flaked hawsers aft on the aloha deck to be used as stern lines and stern springs. Bites from each hawser would be sent ashore to be made fast over bits on the dock and then the slack would be taken out of the hawsers aboard and made fast around big cleats on the deck called “bits.” We have done this many times throughout our voyage, but this day would be the most nerve-racking because there would be an enormous crowd of friends and family waiting for us there. Captain warned us that it would be easy to lose focus in those circumstances, and our priority was to get the ship safely tied up.

At 0845 we braced the yards to heave-to long enough to launch the skiff. We put Zimmer, Brent, and John in the boat to clean the topsides and make the ship’s steel bright white for our homecoming. At 0935 all hands were called to hoist the skiff back into her starboard davits and again make way for Lunenburg.

At 1035 we set all fore-and-aft sail and all hands were busy painting seizings, rust-busting and spot-painting white on rusty spots. Some hands had turned-to to do a major domestics (house cleaning) of the ship’s living spaces, and Kolin was leading the hose in a thorough deck wash. When the Captain told the mates “That’s well!” we cleaned all the brushes and packed away the painting supplies for the last time.

At 1100 we had reached Rose Point, Cross Island, and Battery Point. All hands were called to set tops’ls, t’gallants and royals. We had a nice sailing breeze and therefore did not need our engine. We had set all of our flags and our pennants and we looked quite beautiful with all of our sails filled in the breeze and bright colors flying at the tops of our masts. There was no more work to do, so we sat there in kind of an electrified state—tired from turning-in to bed late and from rising early. I was a bundle of nerves, completely wound up like a cheap watch! We were only a few hours away from reuniting with our families!

The day was been so exciting that I forget what lunch was, but I remember eating soup and a beautiful fresh fruit salad.

When lunch was all cleaned up, it was close to 1300 and we were due to make our arrival in Lunenburg Harbour at 1400. I was sitting on the cargo hatch when a whale-watching boat roared up from abaft our starboard beam. The people on board were cheering at us and waving signs. A handful of my shipmates and I were trimming the foreyards and taking slack out of the starboard sides, and we carried on doing so while the boat paced alongside us and the passengers aboard cheered. We didn’t pay them much mind.

Through the hauling and marrying of lines I learned that one of the ship’s major investors, and a close personal friend of Captain Moreland, was aboard the whale watching boat and he was going to cruise into Lunenburg aboard the Picton Castle. Then I heard Drew shout that his parents were aboard the boat. Kathleen’s parents were aboard also, and they got to see her bringing the ship towards Lunenburg from her position on helm! When she discovered they were there she became emotional and distracted and handed the helm off to Becky, who was standing by.

We are used to boats cruising alongside us and cheering because we are likely the only real pirate-looking ship the majority of people have ever seen up close and in person. So I did not pay much mind to the passengers aboard the whale watching boat; I merely waved politely and smiled for my shipmates who had family aboard. Drew had even managed to kiss his mother when the whale watching boat got close enough to let Edgar Crocker board the ship. I had a hold of his waistband so he did not lose his balance over the rail. It must have been very nice for Drew to be the first to kiss his mom after joining us in Cape Town about four months ago.

I was standing by on the cargo hatch trying to get warm in the sunlight when I heard someone shout, “Erin! You’ve got someone on the boat too! What do those signs say?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked to no one in particular because I did not know who spoke to me first. I looked over the rail. Sure enough, the first thing that caught my eye was a bright white sign with blue letters waving high above the passengers’ heads, and it read “100,000 Welcomes!” in Gaelic, a traditional language still spoken in parts of Cape Breton. Then I saw another sign that read, “What’s yer father’s name?”—a classic Caper phrase often asked when you are first introduced to someone new. Chances are good that if they run through your list of relatives, they will know someone in your family. There was another sign that read, “Holy mackerel! Oh, me nerves!” This one baffled the crew, but I knew it just read that they were excited. There were two more signs and on the end of the pickets holding the signs high were the arms of seven of my family members! “Oh, me nerves” is right! I was shocked and cried to see my family whom I had missed so much, and laughed hard at the fools they are! You can be sure wherever you take a Caper they will steal the show!

Our crew and our families on the boat had a short time to shout greetings back and forth over the rail before it was time for the boat to leave and for us to concentrate on sail handling. We had to focus on getting ready to bring the ship past the familiar foghorn on Battery Point and into the mouth of Lunenburg Harbour.

A fresh breeze blew up then, giving us an extra knot of speed or so, just when we did not really want or need it. We began to clewing up all sails in rapid succession and the Main Engine was fired up to bring us in under control, with Cape Breton native and assistant engineer Brett at the engine controls on the bridge. Even though we arrived at the dock under motor power, our families and friends had seen us come home under full sail and witnessed the skill and speed we’ve mastered at taking in sail.

At 1400 we launched the skiff with Zimmer and John K. in the boat. They were in the water to stand by to receive the Captain’s orders to push the ship by her bow in one direction or the other. We approached the dock among a deafening racket of Scottish bagpipes and horns blasting from the Primo, Zebroid, other local vessels and also from the Atlantic Fisheries Museum. For every horn we answered three horn blasts back. It was so loud that it was difficult to receive and relay instructions from the Captain.

We approached so that the end of the dock was forward of our starboard beam. At 1408 Chief Mate Sam tossed the first line ashore to shipmates Brent and Jack who were waiting on the dock to make lines fast. We warped around on the headline until our starboard beam was parallel to the dock. Susannah got a forward-leading and after-leading ‘midships spring on the dock and surged or took up on the lines smartly until the Captain decided the ship was where he wanted her. At 1416 the Main Engine was secured and the ship was officially alongside at Lunenburg Harbour.

Hundreds of people lined the docks of the Picton Castle and the Lady Janet and others still had climbed up onto the decks and the rails of the Primo, who shares a dock with the Picton Castle. There was the clapping of hundreds of hands and voices cheering and calling out to loved ones. It was really an overwhelming moment. Our hearts were pounding and more than one of us whispered our knees were shaking.

The Captain kept us focused by snapping us back into reality with the order to square the yards—gear, sheets, tacks, lifts, and braces. I think we had those braces squared and trimmed in record time. When the yards were square and the lifts and braces were made fast, the crew got the order, “Up and stow!” Our crew sang out, repeating the order together, many of us already partway up the shrouds.

Following Captain’s orders, Pania Warren (from Pitcairn Island) and I ascended all the way to the Main Royal yard to stow our favourite sail. Pania and I are the same size and we work well together aloft, often having to take breaks to recover from fits of laughter. It was my pleasure to stow sail for what may be the last time with my shipmate and cabin mate, Pania. Directly below Pania and me on the T’Gallant yard were Andrea M. and “Baby” Jack, and so on down the mast. The Picton Castle’s sails were stowed in record time with especially neat and lovely harbour stows, some of the finest of the voyage!

When we were finished stowing the Main Royal, Pania and I leaned our bellies against the yard from where we were sharing the foot rope on the Starboard Main Royal yardarm. We looked below and down to deck and saw that our shipmates were already returning to deck because the sails were stowed. We looked down upon the heads of the hundreds of people standing on the dock and they stared upwards at our crew working aloft. We waited together aloft for as long as we could get away with before the Captain called the muster on deck.

When all hands were down from aloft, Captain Moreland called, “All hands, muster midships!” His crew gathered around him on the cargo hatch and he told us to go get our cameras and hand them to someone ashore because we were going to pose for our official crew photo. We have never taken a picture of all of our crew posing together before because it is bad luck to do so before the voyage is complete. I sat between Doc Jeremy and Pania, helping to hold up our ship’s white and red life ring with her name stenciled upon it. Our crew stood around us and behind us with arms wrapped around one another and big grins on their faces as we all faced the crowd on the dock. We are the picture of the healthiest and happiest crew that ever went to sea on this old barque out of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

After the last photo was taken, Captain Moreland waved his arm toward the crowd and told our crew, “Get out there and see your families!” There was absolute chaos It was a blur of crew dashing over the rail and onto our old and familiar dock, pushing our way through the crowd and calling out the names of our parents. I found my family standing in front of the Primo.

After we had a chance to reunite with our loved ones, we began branching out to meet each other’s families. It happened quite naturally. Fathers and mothers approached their children’s shipmates and finally touched the hands of someone they had never met but felt they knew so well. My shipmates and I embraced people we had only seen in one another’s photographs from home, but were quite familiar with all the same. “How is so-and so? Where is the dog today?”

Shortly thereafter the crew scattered from the ship to spend time with our families and to take hot showers in their hotel rooms. After dinner with our folks, the entire crew and all their loved ones met up at the Knot Pub, where we watched the hockey game (the Oilers won! The day just kept getting better and better), and shared cold drinks and hundreds of laughs. We have thousands of stories to share with anyone who is willing to listen! It was around 1:30 in the morning before many of our parents had an opportunity to leave and turn-in to rest!

Already the ship feels empty because shipmates have gone to stay ashore in soft beds and warm rooms with bathtubs and hot water showers. One by one bunks are stripped of the familiar printed sheets and photos are taken off the overheads. Taxis to the airport have begun making their rounds and contact information has been exchanged.

Tonight is Picton Castle Awards Night at the old Fish Factory. This promises to be a very light-hearted and playful event and I expect we will expose quite a bit about our lives and relationships aboard to the family and friends. But they will never really know the half of it.

Job well done, Captain, Mates and Crew of the Picton Castle’s World Voyage IV! It’s been a sincere pleasure sharing the last 28,000 nautical miles with you.

Barque PICTON CASTLE arrival, by Barry Schnare 055

Homecoming Crew Portrait 2006 for web site

Johanna--Homecoming 2006

The Barque PICTON CASTLE 068

The Barque PICTON CASTLE 122

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Photos of ship arrival by Barry Schnare
Portrait of crew and Johanna by Erin Standing

Late afternoon on June 16, the Picton Castle crew brought their ship to anchor in quiet, sheltered Port Mouton, Nova Scotia. We were chilled to the bone at sea, but nearly encircled by the beautiful shoreline and lush green landscape, the sun and the air quickly warmed the ship nicely. Layers of sweaters and toques began to peel off. When we went aloft to stow sail it was warmer still; Doc Jeremy attributed it to being high above the frigid Atlantic water.That evening we held our last Marlinspike party together as crew of the Picton Castle’s fourth World Voyage. Of our 51 crew 36 have been together since April-May of last year, I believe this may be a record for this old sailing ship. We know our ship and we know one another, inside and out.

Before the Marlin Spike was to officially begin, Captain Moreland called an all-hands muster amidships. We stood in front of the scuttle to the Main Salon, leaned on the main fife rail and lower tops’l sheets, sat atop the fore braces on the port side, and as many of us who would fit sat cross-legged on the cargo hatch to hear the Captain speak. Then our Captain addressed us privately for the last time. His words made our hearts swell with pride at our massive accomplishments: we travelled 28,000 nautical miles throughout our global circumnavigation, and we put our ship and one another above anything else in our lives for an entire year. We were loyal and committed and we brought ourselves safely around the world.

At one point or another during the Captain’s speech my nose began to sting and I had a lump in my throat so big that it ached to get enough air in my lungs. My eyes were burning and began to water and I think I can even pinpoint the second my heart broke. I turned my back to my Captain and my shipmates so that no one would catch me silently blubbering from my perch atop the port pin rail. I tried to focus all my attention on a red and white local fishing boat that was motoring into the distance. The water was as calm and smooth as a sheet of ice.

There’s very little chance that I was the only one welling up with emotion. Our crew have a lot to be proud of. We have achieved what we set out to do, and the reality was that the next afternoon our ship’s family would separate and face the world that should be most familiar to us, but we have to rediscover it without the excitement and chaos of experiencing it with 50 shipmates.

The Captain gave the order for the Galley Crew to go into the hold and get the beer that had been chilled in the freezer for us! What a treat to have a cold drink aboard! The Galley Crew set up the Marlinspike punch on the starboard pin rail and Joe fixed up an enormous pot of his infamous popcorn, which was plopped down at the port forward corner of the cargo hatch, within easy reach of anyone cruising past.

Sea chanteys and traditional maritime music piped down on the Marlinspike from where Maggie had lashed the stereo on the Bridge. A pink sun set all around us and reflected on the ship’s white hull and the faces of those of us standing at the rail. For old times’ sake, Kjetil slipped away from the party unnoticed and returned wearing one of the funniest costumes we’d seen all year—a perfect way to end the voyage’s final Marlinspike!

At 0615 this morning (the 17th), Kolin gave everyone their wake-up and the crew dragged their groggy selves on deck. We joined one another stretching and yawning on the foc’s’l head waiting for the order to heave away on the windlass.

The mud was thick and the old hook dragged her fluke and heavy chain link by link. Andrea M. stood on the foc’s’l head with the fire hose and hosed down the chain as it clinked up the hawse pipe one link at a time. Five people manned each of the red and green painted windlass bars and about 30 more stood by to lend a hand at heaving up our anchor one last time. At 0645 we had the starboard anchor clear of the water and were underway, bound for Lunenburg. We expect to arrive there around 2 PM.

Bending sail on the new yard.

On our way Home!

Putting finishing touches on the sail for C. W. MORGAN.

Royal yard goes up.

Touching up a few spots with paint to look our best!

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Location: 06° 30.2′N / 050° 10.7′W

What will become of us all now? In 37 days our year-long adventure aboard the sail training ship Barque Picton Castle will come to a bleary-eyed end and the majority of us will wander away with the same dumbfounded expressions as those portrayed on the faces of the “returnees” on shipmate Ollie’s show, The 4400. The Captain jokes that our lives are now ruined forever, just as his is. However, this is not made-for-TV fantasy. There is no quarantine center for displaced, world-voyaging, deep-sea sailors, and likewise there is no debriefing seminar to help us process all of the experiences and knowledge we have gained in this past year. My shipmates and I are facing the unique challenge of having to take ourselves out of this special fraternal world that we have been living in and are now defined by, and to try and relate to the people we were before this all took place.

I guess a good place to start is to take a look back at who we were in our pre–Picton Castle days. We were contractors and businessmen, head hunters and graphics designers, rocket scientists, heart surgeons, dentists, and biologists. We were students of every fathomable faculty of learning. We were librarians and actors, lawyers and editors, bankers and farmers. We were anthropologists and physical therapists, respiratory therapists and occupational therapists. We were professional poker players, bartenders and taxi drivers. We have a long and impressive list of our identities, but is there room to live a double life and split our time between being an ” ‘ist ” and being a deep sea sailor/ world voyager extraordinaire?

The good news is that we have a whole new realm of skill sets to add to our old ones. We can lift heavy things and wash 10,000 dishes a day. We are excellent problem solvers and can reorganize a 50-tonne cargo hold in a day. We are master exterminators and can sew a patch on anything. We can competently row a whaleboat and embark on overnight expeditions to unfamiliar tropical islands. We can say “Hello” and “Thank you” in ump-teen languages and can tell you the currencies and exchange rates for as many countries. We can climb high ladders and work with both hands. We are fanatic converts of the concept of “island time” and are avid story-tellers to anyone who will listen. We know now rather than simply believe (believing is sort of weak watery stuff compared to knowing) that we are no more than equal to the amazing people we have met, and maybe not quite that. We are aware that children are smarter and funnier than we are, so we are willing to step back and let them take the lead. We can crawl on our bellies in dark, low spaces, fix marine heads, and can withstand extreme temperatures. We can do any and all of these things not only ashore, but also on a rolling ship! We are the same familiar people, just now available in new and cooler models with loads of special features.

I asked Lead Seaman Kjetil (Norway) what would become of us if we retuned home and found ourselves unsatisfied with our old lives and unable to compete with the adventures we’d just had. I had a plan for when this voyage was finished and I had to walk away, just as my shipmates had plans to return to the businesses they had built up and temporarily left behind. All of our plans have changed in some way or another. I do not expect that very many of us will be discontent to return to our lives, especially now that we are capable of seeing options that before now we could not have known existed.

As Kjetil and I talked, I told him of my mental images of a mob of empty-shell people milling about, hopelessly trying to apply our willy-nilly list of fine-tuned skills. Kjetil’s response was that we have no reason to worry because we can always open a Picton Castle Temp Agency—our collective crew is qualified to do just about anything! He ran through examples that are similar to those outlined above, and then he used his classic quirky humour to relax my furrowed brow and end the conversation all at once. A Temp Agency for Picton Castle crew was the best solution for us because, he said, “Only one person needs to be competent; the rest of us are good at following orders.”

Captain says that we have no idea how truly competent we are now, but he says that “You’ll see, little fish.”

Crew working on the way to Bali

Kjetil lurking on the way to Bali

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Bound from Jamestown, St. Helena Island to Fernando de Noronha Island, Brazil

Location: 11° 26.1′S / 011° 37.4′W

I may have misrepresented how wonderful it is to sail on a year-long round-the-world voyage. Well, it is wonderful, but there are occasional moments of discontent. I know people have been waiting for juicy tidbits of evidence of crew squabbles or evil Mates, or something of the sort. Well, I can’t help you there; our crew gets along quite extraordinarily well for cramming 50 adults from all walks of life into a 179-foot-long Barque, and our Captain and Mates treat us well. We learn a great deal from their examples. We have things pretty easy compared to crews on ships in the Age of Sail: roomy bunks, fresh food and water, lots of time to explore ports of call, etc. Is the food bad? Absolutely not! Joe works hard every day; we always have fresh bread and hot, balanced meals and he makes sure to stock up on all our favourite treats when provisioning. So what is it that pushes our buttons and can even trigger foul moods? Only the most significant event of the crew’s day: The Wake Up.

This morning was the straw that broke the Camel’s back. Even the most even-tempered and understanding of our crew were annoyed to the point of drawing the lead seaman’s attention to the terrible Watch wake-up we had received. Tonight it went like this, “ERIN! WAKE UP!” and then squeaky sandals and a red flashlight turned and went out the door, just like that! Each member of our Watch was rudely jostled awake, unfortunately including innocent shipmates, such as the six other girls sleeping in the Bat Cave, who do not rise at 0330 for Watch. It is not reasonable to expect to be cooed into consciousness, but when a person is sleeping on a ship, it is important they know what they are being waked for. Has something happened and it’s all hands on deck? Is it time for Watch and am I late for muster? Is it still raining outside and do I need to bring anything with me in case I will not have the opportunity to go below?

I blinked a few times in the dark and took a few deep breaths, but the damage had been done. A bad wake up = one cranky girl. You read the above and perhaps you think we are all over-reacting. Perhaps you are right, but there is a balance and courtesy we strive to maintain aboard so that we make one another comfortable. We have learned to give the wake-up that we would like to receive—as much information in as few hushed words as possible. A short conversation allows your brain the opportunity to adjust to reality. The typical script for a wake-up goes like this: “[insert name], it is 3:35 AM (they wait for your reply). This is your wake-up for Watch. They sky is clear and you may want to bring a sweater. See you on deck.” Then they leave only after they are assured that you are, in fact, awake (after all, their Watch cannot be stood down until the on-coming Watch is all present and accounted for).

This morning’s negative reaction was merely a snowball of frustration stemming from the less-than-stellar wake-up trend that has developed, shocking us into wakefulness the past three nights. For example, two nights ago, the person on wake-ups (who has lived aboard for a year) stumbled around our living compartment trying to find the correct bunks of the people he was responsible for waking. Using a large flashlight with a bright, white bulb, he directed the beam directly into each and every sleeping face, and then he directed the beam of light onto a highly reflective piece of plastic to review the bunk chart again. We were all awake at this point, and merely groaned with annoyance. After a half hour of being on deck, it was not given a second thought.

Last night a different person was responsible for wake-ups, and this person also wielded a bright flashlight. It’s dark, I understand, but it is also dark on deck, and our eyes hardly have to adjust. There is no furniture to rearrange and trip over in the living spaces, negating the necessity of using a flashlight in the dark. (As a rule, if one must use a flashlight, we cover the lens with our fingers, allowing out only small cracks of softened light, cast downward.) Then he proceeded to try and wake a crew member who has never lived in our cabin, visiting the bunk of someone else entirely. Then before reaching my bunk, he woke the on-coming galley person 2.5 hours earlier than they needed to rise. He spoke in a regular indoor voice, rather than in hushed tones or whispers that we typically engage so as not to disturb the other sleepers.

Maybe we are all just a bunch of babies, but we are mature enough that this morning’s annoyance stems from individual aggravation and not mob mentality. Every person on our Watch flopped on the hatch for muster with a sigh. Perhaps this is part rant, but also this is an historically accurate portrayal of how very small annoyances in a closed environment, such as that aboard a ship at sea, can be incredibly frustrating. The journals of apprentice deckhands during the Age of Sail write of the gruff and surly wake-ups barked by more experienced sailors, directing the slumbering men (seasick or otherwise) immediately onto deck for some unpleasant chore or another. There are accounts of entire crews demanding that a Captain make improvements to some aspect of their life aboard. Of course, the most serious demands being related to issues such as an end to corporal punishment, to rations of alcohol, to better food, etc., but it is well established that lesser issues can fester if not corrected over time.

A crew mate of ours, Ollie, tells a story about his four seasons aboard the Norwegian full-rigged training ship, the SØrlandet. Ollie is a very tall man and he could almost sit up in his rack on the Sørlandet, if it were not for a beam than ran horizontal across his overhead. He said that throughout the four seasons he volunteered aboard, there was one woman to whom the task of waking Ollie’s Watch always fell. He describes her as a hearty, abrupt (but kind) woman, and he claims that each and every time she would wake him, she would say it so loudly and abruptly that he would be shocked into an upright position, smashing his head against the beam. He claims this happened so frequently that he took pains to sleep in positions that would conceivably protect his head, but even if he slept with his head at the foot of his bunk, the wake-ups would still jar him out of slumber with such a start that he would inevitably bruise his brow. He laughs about it now and says that she remains his friend and one of his favourite crewmates to this day.

Two hours into Watch and we are beginning to relax again. At the beginning of Watch we reviewed how to give a proper wake-up, something one would assume we’d have down-pat by now, but obviously needed re-visiting.

All that aside, there are a lot of exciting things happening aboard the Picton Castle to look forward to! Today is Sunday, and with that brings the famous 2.5 hour all-you-can-eat, anything-you-want breakfast that we call “Chibley’s Café”! Hurrah and huzzah! Being a Sunday at sea, it also entails a lovely, light lunch and an afternoon Marlin Spike! As if all that were not treat enough, today is not just any Sunday; it’s Easter Sunday! This means a nice, big Easter dinner at 1800 (6 PM)! I caught Chief Mate Sam, and Becky sneaking around the deck at 0430 this morning, hiding chocolate eggs and other treats around common places on the ship (in coils, in the ship’s boats, etc). The crew are going to love this!

Sundays are certainly something worth getting excited about (and we do!), but another cause for celebration today is that we finally got our Force 4 sailing breeze! All of Pania’s whistling and sweeping at the masts has apparently pleased Neptune, and his Royal Saltiness has given our once-blessed barque (curse those reeking pollywogs!) her fair SE trade winds! We are now making around 6 knots of speed, which is a marked improvement from the 2.5–4 knots we had been making before. We have only taken in two or three sails (fore-and-aft, to help adjust steering) and the Picton Castle is in her glory!

As we cruise along through the South Atlantic, we have all of a sudden become privy to sunsets and sunrises (also the rising and setting of the moon) of such shocking beauty that we could not experience again after those of the Indian Ocean! The water trickling across the deck is becoming noticeably warmer and the crew is getting excited for our much-anticipated arrival at the beautiful island of Fernando de Noronha, Brazil. Only another 1400 nautical miles to go. Then on to Grenada in the Caribbean!

Location: 13° 14.5′S / 010° 21.2′W

This evening just before dinner, Greg the Second Mate sang out the orders to set all sail, to pass the sheets and set the fore and aft sail, and to rig and set the stuns’ls. The 4–8 Watch and any other hands who were on deck relaxing sprang into action and in minutes the Picton Castle was sailing along, powered by 22 sails gently filling in the Force 3 breeze. Twenty-two sails and more than 175 lines of running rigging (halyards, sheets, bunt-lines, clew-lines, leach-lines, braces, down-hauls, tacks, clews, brails, out-hauls, in-hauls, lifts–not sure if that includes the stuns’l gear, fish and stay tackles or gantlin’s). After ten months at sea (it is now twelve months aboard for those of us who arrived early for the month of preparation in Lunenburg before we set off on her Fourth World Voyage), the “old hands” are quite quick at setting several sails at once, and while the green hands are learning quickly, it’s easy to see they are caught up in the excitement and get overwhelmed still. We can relate; when we were the new hands, the orders sounded like a foreign language and there was a lot of confusion when you have to take clews, bunts, leeches, tacks and sheets into account (plus the chaos of 20 hands running about the deck casting off and hauling on lines).

After all sails were set and all the lines were coiled and hung, there was just enough time to go aloft and nip bunts before the dinner bell rang. I went aloft on the Main and Jeff B. went aloft on the Fore. With the gentle breeze and the crests of the slight wind waves hardly breaking, it was impossible to make myself hurry through the task. The sun was low and fiery in the sky, and it would sink behind the horizon in about 45 minutes. When I was aloft, the dinner bell rang and Greg told me to come down and fill my plate and then finish up nipping the bunts. I had only one bunt-line left to nip and I made sure to take my time doing it so that I could steal a million more glances at the ship with all her sails set, sailing into the setting sun.

It’s moments like these that all superfluous brain functions stop so that every one of your senses can function at its peak performance. My brain geared down to process the yellow fireball backlit by a pink sky and fuchsia and purple clouds; the feeling of being dwarfed while perched amidst more than 12,500 square feet of canvas coloured by the rain and sun and streaked by the grease on the masts; the subtle sound of the breeze in the rigging and the sloshing of the ocean all around us. The jackstay and thick canvas under my fingertips were still warm from the sun. The pressure of the narrow footrope nestled on my arches to just alongside the balls of my bare feet; and the weight of my body as it pressed into and eased away from the yard on the low, gentle swells; and finally, the smell of the salt in the air and of the musty smell of my sea chest that had permeated my cotton t-shirt.

After I climbed down the shrouds and was safely back on deck, Greg talked to me in “that tone” to let me know I’d been caught climbing up the lee shrouds. I admitted my shame because I knew the difference and don’t want the new trainees to get bad habits, and with his message still ringing in my ears, I skipped down the ladder and onto deck to coil the buntlines that I had cast off. I wasn’t a bit hungry and my mind was still trying to process what I had just experienced in less than a five-minute span of time. “That was beautiful,” was all I could say, half to myself and half to Andrea, who was sitting on the spar watching me coil. She nodded her head as she ate a forkful of peas, but we both knew she didn’t see it they way I had seen it.

Sunset on the way to Fernando

Sunset--the crew s eyeview

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Location: 15° 12.7′S / 007° 44.8′W

Bound for Fernando de Noronha, Brazil

Our crew was very keen on exploring the island of St. Helena, infamous for being the place where Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled from 1815 until his death 1821. We asked around and Maggie was sent to the home of a woman who was known for arranging tours. Jamestown, St. Helena is nestled in a deep, narrow valley and is not densely populated, so when she was told to visit “the blue house with the blue trim” it was not difficult to find at all! She arrived at the door of a tall house located on the main street (built in early 1800s) and after a few minutes, she had negotiated a tour for 18 of our crew for the very next day. The woman added as an aside, as if it was obvious, that the tour would be given by her father, who was going to take us in the town’s old fire truck.

The next morning we all gathered outside the blue house with blue trim and met Colin, the sweet old man with pretty hazel eyes (quite striking since the majority of the population is quite dark (Portuguese, Malay, Indian, Chinese, English, Dutch and African Boer descendants) generally with brown eyes, sometimes hazel. We also got our first look at the old fire truck. It was green and had no top on it and it had been refitted with rows of seats whose leather covering became quite hot in the bright sunshine. The fire truck was quite old fashioned. It resembled a longer version of the Jalopy that Archie drives in the “Archie and Jughead” comic books!

Colin drove us through the narrow and winding streets of Jamestown and up the hillside where we could get a nice view of Jamestown and the harbour from up high. The road was a little wider than a single lane and cars driving down the hill have to “pull over” and stop to let cars pass that are driving uphill. There was only a low, stone retaining wall to prevent cars from tumbling into the deep valley below. With the old buildings (built in the 1700s and 1800s) and the old European-style streets, the asphalt that paved the roads was the only indication that we were in fact in the modern era. Atop the hillside Colin stopped the car so that we could look down into the valley and absorb the landscape. He pointed out the heart-shaped waterfall that flows only in certain seasons, and he pointed out the first home that Napoleon stayed in when he first arrived to the island. Apparently he wrote of this residence as his favourite on the island because he had the opportunity to be with the family who lived there. Atop the hill opposite us was a large fort that had been built by the English. There were forts all over the island to protect it from being conquered by another country.

Our first stop was Longwood, the home where Napoleon lived and died while he was exiled to St. Helena. It was a rather elegant cottage with many rooms decorated to the height of fashion in England at the time. Napoleon was dethroned and exiled to St. Helena allegedly for reneging on a contract with the English. The English, however, were also guilty of not completely fulfilling their end of the deal, so while they deposed Napoleon as Emperor of France, they did give him the rank of General, and he was kept according to a General’s standards. In fact, in the final days of his life, a new home was being built for him because he did not like that Longwood was so damp. It also had a terrible rat problem, and it is recorded that a servant sleeping in a companionway had a portion of his leg chewed off by rats in the night! Longwood and the tomb where Napoleon was first interred (his body was exhumed 19 years later and returned to France) are still considered French soil, although St. Helena belongs to the English. Longwood has undergone extensive restorations and appears now as it would have when Napoleon lived there (minus the rats and dampness, and with added electric lights), and the English have taken over the responsibility of maintaining it on behalf of the French.

After our visit to Longwood, we loaded back into the ancient fire truck (it stalled out from time to time, but ran remarkably well considering its age!) and drove along a beautiful scenic highway (still one lane) with plunging green valleys on one side, and the peak of a 2,000 ft mountain on the other. We drove to the place where Napoleon was buried. Apparently he and his escorts would walk along the valley’s mouth from Longwood and he liked to spend a great deal of his time in the little clearing that he requested he be buried in. It was quite a hike down a slippery, green path, but we were rewarded with the most beautiful forest clearing I have ever seen. There were fragrant purple flowers growing on tall shrubs, their petals dotting the clearing where they had blown free. There were tall trees lining the clearing, with their thick foliage and stumps blocking out the world around us. There were seemingly hundreds of birds singing together. I understand why Napoleon spent so much time there and chose to rest there for what he thought would be forever! In the center of the clearing was a large concrete slab (about 10 x 10 feet) surrounded by a tall wrought-iron fence that marked where the tomb had been. We were very lucky to be able to visit Longwood and the tomb because they are normally closed on weekends. The staff having opened them especially for our crew! The walk back up the steep forest path to where to truck was parked at the top of the road, was alarmingly difficult. We puffed along out of breath with our leg muscles cramping from the exertion. We have become stronger physically from working on the ship, but we do not have any stamina because our aerobic activity comes in short bursts and we do not have to walk about the decks of the ship much (and it is not a great distance from bow to stern, anyhow).

We loaded back into the truck and Colin took us on a scenic tour of the island, showing us an American satellite observatory that was erected on a hilltop. The hills were lined with flax, which used to be a major export from the island to make fabrics, but it became redundant with the development of nylon materials. Flax still grows in abundance on St. Helena, but it is now considered a weed. Its main function now is to protect the steep hills from soil erosion.

As we drove along the winding roads, we saw how dramatically different the lush vegetation inland was from the harsh, barren appearance of the shoreline and cliffs facing the ocean. The air was so sweet and clear that one smell struck me more than any other: after months at sea with salty air, I was struck now by the smell of fresh water! The plants, the drizzle, the trickles of water running down the rock faces smelled richly of fresh water. Leave it to a sailor to detect that difference!

After a lovely drive we came across an old, magnificent plantation (now serves a political purpose) where Colin invited us to hop out and pass through a fence and onto the plantation grounds. We had walked only a few feet before we encountered what he had brought us to see. An enormous tortoise named Jonathon crept along at a fabled turtle’s pace, pulling clumps of grass out of the ground with his rounded “beak.” We walked up to Jonathon and petted his long, leathery neck and legs. He pulled his head in at first but then relaxed when he realized what we were. Jonathon is used to people, but he is blind now in one eye (because of a cataract) and we had approached him from his blind side. He was a gentle and patient tortoise, despite a little hissing from time to time when he wanted us to let him alone so he could eat. Vicki peeled a banana for him, which he nudged aside until later. As it turns out, his favourite fruit is grapes, but we had no grapes with us. Jonathon, we learned, is a whopping 174 years old! He is not the only tortoise at the plantation. He shares the sprawling lawn with two female tortoises, each around 40 years old. I did not catch where the tortoises came from, but I believe the French may have brought Jonathon. After we stood in awe of this ancient animal, the notorious island drizzle chased us back to the truck.

We circled around the other side of the island and visited a fort that overlooked Jamestown and the harbour, where the Picton Castle was anchored. We ran around the abandoned battlement and inspected all of the winding corridors and empty spaces whose ceilings seemed to stretch upwards forever. I had to step on my tiptoes to see out the slits cut in the high walls for the gunmen to be protected from enemy fire. The fort was quite large for an isolated island. Some rooms were so dark I dared not go in for fear I’d fall into a storage pit of some sort. From the fort, Colin brought us to the top of Jacob’s Ladder, the last spot on our tour. Since the bottom of the ladder is only a few hundred feet from the blue house with blue trim, Pania, Kathleen and Brett could not resist the temptation to climb down the 700 steps and meet us at the bottom. Their legs were quite sore the next two days.

Once we returned to where we had began our trip more than four hours earlier, we thanked Colin for showing us so much and for taking the time to spend the day with us. The rain had cleared up, so we left Colin and headed straight for the Castle Gardens to chatter about our adventures that day and to relax on the park benches amidst a fountain and thousands of flowers. We caught up on writing our postcards and played with some young children who are lucky enough to live inside the Castle Garden’s walls.

Although Napoleon hated it there, St. Helena and its people struck us with their beauty, and we know how incredibly lucky we are to have had the opportunity to visit one of the most historic and isolated islands in the world (it can still be accessed only by ship). As with Pitcairn, only the luckiest few of us might someday have the opportunity to return.

Castle gardens with fountain, St. Helena

Cllimbing Jacob s ladder, St. Helena

Napoleon s drawing room

View of Jamestown from the hillside road, St. Helena

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The adventures of the Picton Castle and her crew on this voyage have been followed closely by elementary school students all over the world. One school in particular has been working very hard to send art projects and letters filled with wonderful questions about what it is like for us to live and work at sea. For some background information, the students are from Jubilee Elementary in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and the school’s vice principal is Erin’s (onboard educator) proud father.

Erin wanted to share with everyone her replies to the student’s letters because they answer many of the questions that have often been posed to our crew throughout our voyage.

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Dear Tyler,

We have sailed through the North Atlantic, the Caribbean Sea, the Panama Canal, the South Pacific, the Torres Straits, the Indian Ocean, have rounded the Cape of Good Hope and are now in the South Atlantic, bound for Nova Scotia (with some nice, tropical stops along the way).

At the end of our 12-month voyage the Picton Castle crew will have sailed 28,000 nautical miles and will have circumnavigated the world! We crossed our half-way point about a day before we arrived in port at Bali, Indonesia.

When we leave port, Joe the cook sees to it that we have plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables aboard, as well as fresh meat stocked in our five freezers. We have plenty of canned and dried foods in our cargo hold—enough to feed a crew of 50 for a month if we have to stay at sea longer than we planned. The food is very good. We have all the sorts of things that we eat at home—but tropical fruit like bananas and mangoes taste way better where we’ve been than they do coming out of the grocery stores at home.

It is sometimes easier to write or email home than it is to call our families because the Picton Castle has been on the other side of the world. That means that recently it has been difficult to call when we would like to because the time zones are so different that we are not even on the same calendar day as North America!

Chibley took a good sniff at your letter. I think that means she says Hi back.

Thanks for your questions!

Erin

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Dear TJ,

I love being out at sea. I love the routine and I love my shipmates. I love being strong and doing hard work and I love that I learn new things every single day. We do get to go ashore quite often. We spend about three weeks at a time at sea, and then we spend anywhere from three days to four weeks in each port. This eats up the 12 months it takes to sail around the world! I like meeting all sorts of new people and learning about their cultures and learning new words in their languages. Did you know that in many of the places we’ve visited, the children typically speak a minimum of two or three languages? I think that is quite extraordinary, and they thought we were strange for only speaking a little bit of a second language like French or Spanish.

Captain Moreland is a very good captain and he treats his crew well. He is not the type of scary old-timey sea captain we read about sometimes in books, who would have crew members flogged with the cat o’ nine tails if they displeased him. The only cat I’ve ever seen in his hands is Chibley! He teaches us many things about sailing ships and being a good sailor, and he takes us to all of his favourite places in the world and shares his experiences and friends with us. We are very lucky to have such a nice Captain.

On a ship we navigate using a sea map, called a chart. A chart ‘maps’ out the ocean so that we know where we are at all times. Each hour we plot our position (which we take from our GPS or Global Positioning System) and measure how far we’ve gone since the last plot. The Mates use the plots and the chart to help determine what course we will sail to get us where we want to go.

Thank you for your questions and your well wishes. We are having quite a lot of fun and the Captain and the entire crew enjoyed reading your letter as well. Thank you for putting so much thought and effort into it!

Erin

Dear Caressa,

It is a very interesting experience living on a ship. I had to learn how to walk again because the deck is always swaying in one direction or another, and I had to learn an entirely new language! Nautical words and instructions sound like gibberish at first, and it takes a while to get used to hearing them and understanding what is being said. When my parents came to visit me on the ship before we sailed, my father mentioned right away that I was speaking with an entirely new vocabulary. It works for us when we are aboard our ship, but when we go ashore, sometimes we forget how to use regular English and often confuse the people we are talking to—and ourselves as well!

Chibley is doing really well. She had a sore tail last week, courtesy of a nasty dock cat; she is nearly all better now because she has been getting extra attention and Ollie gives her tons of extra treats.

We’ve sailed in I think six different oceans so far and have visited just shy of 20 countries, I think! I’ve lost count! We are in the South Atlantic now, sailing up the coast of Africa to our next port of call in Namibia. We will be home in three months. It will be over so soon!

Thank you for your questions!

Erin

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Dear Melissa,

When we left Lunenburg last May it was very cold at sea. We hit warmer waters within a week and traded our foul weather gear for shorts and t-shirts and bare feet. Within 11 days we were in the Caribbean Sea, and it was beautiful, hot, tropical sailing from then until about a month and a half ago, when we made the three-week passage from the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope (the southernmost point on the continent of Africa) and into the South Atlantic. The South Atlantic is as cold as the North Atlantic, and we are wearing layers of pants and sweaters again. Two months ago it was 44 degrees outside and now the water rolling across the deck is so cold on my bare feet that it makes my bones ache!

I love sailing on the sea! We see all types of marine life! We’ve had whales play alongside our ship, but most frequently we have dolphins playing in our wake and seabirds perching on our yards! I really love watching the dolphins play. I think they might be magic—I’m not sure. I should go to sea again and do more research on it!

Thank you, Melissa, for your questions!

Erin

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Dear Megan,

I do look after Chibley and I have help from other crew who love her, like Pania from Pitcairn, Ollie from the USA and Kimberley from the UK. I am in charge of feeding her every morning (she prefers canned food, and makes me chop it up for her too!) and I clean out her litter box every Sunday (Eeww!). She is a good cat, so I am happy to do it for her. She is also very persuasive and talks many of the crew into sneaking her treats all day and night.

I have had a lot of fun sailing aboard the Picton Castle, Megan, but it isn’t always pretty! Boys and girls, pony tails or not, our hair gets so tangled in the wind that we do not always bother to brush it anymore! The sun and salt water has also bleached our hair quite a bit. I am afraid that it all might just crack off any minute. It would save us all the trouble of getting a haircut!

I love to climb high in the rigging and I love fetching pails of water from over the side. I love teaching new crew the things I’ve learned and I love standing forward lookout at sunset. I’ve never seen prettier sunsets in my life as I have in the Indian Ocean. I wouldn’t be able to say these things if I’d never gone to sea!

Thanks for your letter, Megan. I enjoyed reading it.

Erin

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Dear Shealene,

Chibley is doing very well, Shealene! We’ve had nine new trainees join us in Cape Town, South Africa, and she has been breaking them in nicely. Chibley has a habit of testing new sailors by napping in their bunk. When they try to climb in too, she refuses to budge and forces you to sleep in awkward positions shivering without your blanket! But, the ship is her ship, so the cat gets her own way.

We are all doing very well; thank you for asking! We’ve been having a lot of fun learning to sail. We’ve been gone ten months already! It’s hard to imagine! In only three short months we will be in Nova Scotia again, and it all feels like it is happening too soon for me. I miss Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island. I miss my family, but I really, really love our ship. I am not ready to get off yet, Shealene! Many of our crew are feeling this way.

A ship is a great place to live because it is big and there are always tons of people around to talk to. There is always someone to help you do your chores and you learn new things every day. You get to sail in the hot sunshine and in the warm rain when the wind is blowing a holy hooley. You get to visit tropical islands and learn ten different ways to get into a coconut. You also learn to never, ever sit or nap under a coconut tree! You get to stitch every seam in every sail with your own hands if you want to, and you get to climb high into the rigging to make sure that the sails will always work properly. It’s pretty cool to live on the Picton Castle.

I hope that you have the opportunity to visit the ship someday when we get back to Nova Scotia! Thank you for your questions!

Erin

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Dear Brandon,

Thank you for saying so, and yes the Picton Castle is a very cool ship! She’s big and she’s safe and she’s a great place to live and work. Do you think you’d like to sail some day? Do you think you’d like to climb up the rigging and work almost 100 feet above the deck? My shipmates look like Lego men when I look down to deck from that high aloft!

The crew works very hard, but the Captain gives us Sundays off so that we do not have to complete any ship’s work, and he always encourages us to have fun with our work and when we have time off. We have costume parties and dance on our cargo hatch. We baked nine pies and more than 500 cookies at Christmastime and ate them all (the entire crew felt sick for days from all the sugar)! We live with our 50 closest friends and get to explore exotic islands with them and we help one another learn to be better sailors.

I like hearing the wind and the waves folding into themselves. I like that when I walk, it is impossible to walk in a straight line because the deck is always moving. I do not like when it is rolling so badly that my body cannot lie still in my bunk, but thankfully that does not happen too often!

What sorts of things do you want to do when you are all finished school? Is there anything that you are as excited about as our crew is about sailing?

Thanks for your questions, Brandon!

Erin

Location: 15° 32.2′S / 006° 25.5′WOur southeast trade winds have been light and shifting since we left Cape Town. Today we had a fresh enough breeze to sail off the hook without starting up the main engine.

We were a day late leaving our anchorage at Jamestown, St. Helena Island, because the pump on our primary fresh water maker failed. This pump had passed muster in the machine shop in Cape Town but now it was gone. Danie, the engineer was able to acquire three possible replacement pumps with the help of local fisherman and of the crew of the RMS St. Helena, the island’s mail ship. As it stands, fresh water use has been restricted until Danie and his assistants are able to replace the pump. This means that consumption of our 8,000 gallons of fresh water has been limited to drinking and cooking our food. With these restrictions the water can last thee months. At our usual rate of consumption our tanks would be empty in 8–10 days. We’ve got buckets tied to several stanchions on the ship in order to fetch salt water at our convenience (to wash ourselves and to brush our teeth).

I cannot really tell the difference between a fresh water and salt water shower if I towel off well enough. Brushing my teeth with salt water might take some getting used to, but I tell myself it just tastes like baking soda toothpaste. The Captain says that this probably won’t kill us. He told of sailing around the world in the wooden Brigantine Romance in the 1970s where these restrictions were in effect for the entire two-year voyage and no one thought anything of it. He said that he had two fresh-water baths on that voyage. The first was at Pitcairn Island, which felt good because he went swimming in Bounty Bay right afterwards. The second bath was in Borneo and he said it hurt his skin. He also says that salt water baths will help the boys smell better. We should rejoice.

Our lack of luck with the wind (first a big gale and now finicky trade winds) and with the restricted fresh water, the worthy shellbacks of the crew are convinced that King Neptune has gotten a whiff of the odious stench of insipid pollywogs onboard. We do not cross the Sacred Line again until shortly after Brazil, and we fear he may punish us until he can judge whether the pollywogs are fit to cross the line or not. Maybe if we bribe him with their hair … a few human sacrifices might be in order …

The Picton Castle is now on the second passage of her fourth and final leg of her fourth World Voyage. We are bound for Fernando de Noronha, Brazil, a beautiful island off the coast that is a well-protected national park. It is 1700 nautical miles from St. Helena. We are not sure yet whether the Brazilian authorities will let us visit there, as it is quite difficult it seems to obtain permission to go there. The ship has visited in the past, so we have our fingers crossed.

We are currently steering NW with a Force 2 breeze (small waves, crests do not break) off our port quarter. The swells are a low three feet, coming from SSE. The wind has shifted from N of E to S of E throughout the last eight hours and we are currently braced on a slight port tack. The air is mild and the sky is 7/8 cumulus coverage. Despite the gentle winds and sea state, there are still two hands seasick. When I scrambled out of my bunk for watch tonight, I stepped directly into the empty bucket that my cabin mate had placed on her sea-chest near the head of her bunk (just in case). They are new hands and I feel sympathy for them; it took me till nearly Rarotonga before I finally got my sea legs and stopped feeling seasick.

The approach to St. Helena Island was a particularly lovely one. The bright orange and yellow sun was setting behind the lee tip of the island (which at some angles looked like a larger version of Pitcairn, with similar rock formations off its coast), and as we sliced through the water towards our anchorage at Jamestown, we were accompanied by roughly 10 dolphins who were playing and jumping and racing through the waters all around our ship. Ollie climbed out in the freshly tarred head rig to get some video. When we finally reached our anchorage, the light was beginning to fade as the three shots of chain were let out into 90 feet of water. The crew stared up in wonder at Jacob’s Ladder, more than 700 steps that climb a steep cliff in Jamestown. Chatter about whether we were hearty enough to climb it came to an end with the order to “Up and stow!” all sails. With a cheer, the aloft-goers scrambled up the rigging and laid out onto the yards and stowed all sails in the moonlight in what I believe may have been record time!

Our visit at St. Helena was a very pleasant one and we enjoyed the company of the local children pretty much everywhere we went. The locals were kind to us and were quite interested in what we do. They were trusting of our crew, as they simply left their children with us for hours, making us the babysitters on a moment’s notice! Their generosity was evident in the way they were so willing to help us out with the pump, working with Danie for more than two days to try and remedy the situation. It’s always impressive the way seafarers co-operate with one another; like an unspoken bond. The islanders shared their rich history and beautiful landscape with us, taking our crew on tours of the island and to visit Napoleon’s home and his former tomb (both of which they opened on the weekend just so that our crew could visit). Our first stop of the fourth leg was a pleasant and memorable one, but it sure does feel good to be back at sea!

St. Helena approach

St. Helena approach, dolpins alongside

St. Helena approach, reflection in Monomoy

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Location: 10° 35.3′S / 000° 13.6′W

The Picton Castle is gliding through the South Atlantic at a leisurely rate of 2.7 knots. Eighteen of our 19 square and fore-and-aft sails are set, and the only sounds on deck tonight are the whispered voices of the On-Watch and the creaking of the rigging overhead as the tiny puffs of light air fill the sails. These moments of quiet provide the best opportunity for the crew to reflect on the places we’ve been and the things we’ve actually seen and done. With a limited time ashore, the Picton Castle crew have become masters at cramming in as much excitement as is humanly possible in all of the ports of call that we have visited. When we return from our adventures there are things that immediately press for our attention, namely the ship, and we often get caught up in a different kind of excitement, not really having the opportunity to debrief and absorb the on-shore experiences. Second only to spending time with schools along the way and getting a tattoo from Ti, the majority of the Picton Castle crew had one this thing somewhere around the top of their To-Do-When-Sailing-Around-the-World list—seeing Africa’s animals! Because African safaris can be quite costly and can take many days, a few of my shipmates and I opted for the budget, do-it-yourself option; so we rented a car and began our epic journey to seek out and find examples of Africa’s infamous wildlife.

Our first stop was Boulders, Simonstown, for the world’s finest vantage point for viewing African penguins in their own habitat (but I’ve told you about this already). We drove what is known as the Garden Route to reach our various destinations, and after about a nine-hour drive (and too short an overnight rest), we rose early to drive to Mussel Bay where the Botlierskop Private Game Reserve is located. At 7 AM it was already piping hot inland, so we loaded on the sunscreen and bought as much Gatorade as we could carry. At Botlierskop we had arranged to be part of Game Drive, wherein you are loaded into an oversized vehicle (designed for the South Africa military) and taken on a guided, three-hour tour of a private game reserve in hopes of happening upon animals in their natural state. I was relieved that our tour was taking place in an oversized military vehicle because I had no idea how else we would be able to scale the steep and winding mountain paths, but especially because some of the animals we would be viewing were quite large and dangerous, such as lions and rhinoceros, and this vehicle was practically indestructible.

We were underway not five minutes when we happened upon two elephants playing in a big pond. They were ducking so that their entire bodies were submerged in the water, with only their trunks in the air. They looked like they were having such a great time! When the female elephant stood up to see who we were, the male stayed below the surface and kept swiping at her tail with his trunk, teasing her. At one point, he wrapped his trunk around her trunk and tugged at her as if to say, “Come back and play!” Our guide told us that the full-grown male was probably somewhere shy of 5,000 kg and that a newborn elephant is born already weighing a hefty 120 kg! He also speculated that the female might be pregnant, but so early on it was difficult to tell. Female elephants are pregnant for a whopping 22 months! That’s just shy of two years! Our guide explained that the elephants like to play in the water when they can because they have very short hair and their skin can burn quite easily in the South African sun.

There was a terrible wildfire at the game reserve in November, and four of the eight rhinos that live in the reserve died when the herd miscalculated its escape. Losing the rhinos is quite tragic, but the reserves’ greatest loss of life were the smallest animals and snakes that could never be counted, and therefore cannot now be accounted for. Interesting enough, South Africa’s vegetation has evolved in such a way that some plants cannot release their spores until they’ve been scorched, the seeds germinating in the ashen soil. It had been only a few short months since the fire, but the vegetation was starting to take hold, leaving the dramatic, rolling hillsides a dark, textured brown.

Our guide told us that one game drive had already returned earlier that morning and that they had had great success seeing animals such as lion, buffalo, giraffe, zebra, and the rare black impala, but they had been unable to find the rhinos. Our guide embraced the challenge and hoped we’d be lucky enough to find them before any of the other drives do.

Kneeling in the shade of a prickly bush lay a bushbuck (resembles a North American deer), and after a few more minutes of driving we happened upon a bunch of warthogs (they look just like Pumba in The Lion King) chowing down in a little valley clearing alongside some rather large wildebeest. They were not too interested in what we were, but they were fascinating to watch! Then, as if some tiny lunch bell rang somewhere in the animal kingdom, several different species of animal just started coming out of their hiding spaces in the shade to get a bite to eat!

First there were giraffes. Oh, what a sight! There were three juvenile giraffes on the right side of the path, just beyond the side of our vehicle, slowly stripping leaves from the branches of low shrubs with their long, black tongues. Giraffes are the only mammals that can lick their own ears! They were absolutely beautiful. The young giraffes had a much lighter colour and fewer markings than did the adult giraffe stripping high trees on the other side of the clearing. When giraffes are born they often land on their heads from about six feet in the air, and they can usually run within an hour or so of being born. When giraffes walk, they walk with both left legs and then both right legs! The only other mammal to do that is the camel. But when a giraffe runs, it gallops like a horse. It was unbelievable watching them move! They were so awkward in their gait, but their long necks and faces were so elegant! Did you know that giraffes have the exact same number of vertebrae in their necks and backs as do humans? The vertebrae in their necks are just larger and have greater spaces between them than ours do!

After the giraffes, we approached where the zebras were having their relaxing mid-morning snack. Something new that I learned was that the species of zebra that lives in the Botlierskop reserve is the only species whose stripes go all the way around their belly, too. Most zebras’ stripes just wrap around as far as the tummy, leaving the tummy white in colour. And did you know that a zebra’s short hair is not the only thing that is striped? Their skin is striped, too! The zebra were quite nervous of us, although they appeared to be relaxed. The lone adult male in the group stood so that he could keep one eye trained on us over his shoulder, and his ears were pointing straight back at us. He kept walking away from the group of zebras feeding, just as he would do to distract a predator and protect the group.

As we continued on our never-ending quest to find the white rhinos, we came across hundreds of rare black impalas. There are probably hundreds of thousands of red impala in South Africa, but black impalas are quite rare, and we learned that Botlierskop had the greatest black impala population of any private game reserve in South Africa. Black impalas are worth a great deal of money, dead or alive—a red impala can be sold or traded for $60–100, but a black impala will go for thousands of dollars. Mixed among the impalas were a large population of waterbuck. While an impala is quite tasty to predators, the waterbuck has evolved a protective mechanism: its coat is incredibly oily and bitter, and as a protective strategy it will run into the water to escape its prey. Somewhere through evolution, other predators have learned to not eat waterbuck, but to use their escape strategy for their own benefit. Take, for instance, the crocodile. When a waterbuck runs into a watering hole or river to escape its prey, the crocodiles know to not bite the waterbuck, but rather to attack whatever is trying to catch the waterbuck!

Our vehicle drove along a long plateau overlooking the mountains and valleys it had just taken us two hours to drive through. Pressed for time, our guide told us we needed to see the rhinos now, or it was never, because the lions were in a reserve located all the way on the opposite side that we had started from. Then, as if by magic, the guide spotted something that none of us could see. Along a high picket fence that divides the extreme edge of the reserve from the rest of South Africa were four enormous rhinos seeking a little shade from the heat. We bounced along the rough path in record time and approached the rhinos until we were less than seven feet away. Three of the rhinos were hot and tired, lying on top of one another like a dog pile. But one large, male rhino stood guard and paced in front of the vehicle with his short tail curled high into the air, which was a sign of aggression (glad to have an armoured vehicle now). After we learned a bit about the rhinos and took lots of pictures, it was time to head to the lion reserve.

Once there we noticed a team of men working away at the fencing system that encloses the lions’ expansive reserve. The lions have to be kept in a reserve separate from the rest of the animals because they would be the dominant predator and eat them all! A reserve employee feeds the four lions a measured amount of beef once a week or so. You’d think than an enormous and powerful animal like a lion would need to eat lots of food to keep them big and strong, but that is not true. In their own habitat, a pride of lions might make a kill only once in two weeks. If they are lucky, they might bring down a large animal once a week. This works out okay because South Africa’s lions are adapted to such conditions. It is also quite hot and lions like to stay as camouflaged as possible, so they tend to rest where there are fewer animals to encounter them. This is a smart way to stay cool from the heat, and it also protects the lions from natural enemies as well because lions sleep 18–20 hours a day! Reminds me of our ship’s cat, Chibley!

It was time then to leave the lion reserve and return to the lodge. We thanked our guide and grabbed a quick bite to eat under ostrich-egg chandeliers. Soon it was time to be on our way again. It was going to be another eight-hour drive to the place where we planned to camp for the night. We were going to sleep in a mud hut alongside a long and beautiful (but muddy) river—that the owner assured us would be hippo and crocodile free (more people are killed each year in South Africa by hippos than by any other animal). After a good overnight rest in a mud hut, the next morning we would hit the road again, bound for Addo Elephant National Park, where they have more than 400 elephants and a whole slew of other African animals, many of the populations as large as that of the elephants!

Black Impala

Elephants play in river

Giraffe

Lions

White Rhinos

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Introduction

Jean-Claude is a resident of Reunion Island, but originally from Brittany, France. He joined the Picton Castle for her sail to Cape Town, approximately 3 weeks. Jean-Claude loves playing the accordion and anything to do with the sea.

Récit pour les francophones

La Réunion:

Le 25 janvier 2006 la dépression venant du nord s’est creusée et les vents trop forts ont retardé notre navigation prévue pour Tulear à Madagascar. Le départ est prévu pour lundi 30 janvier après le week-end du nouvel an chinois, l’année du chien. Tandis que Boloetse, capricieuse comme savant l’être quelquesfois les femmes créoles à la Réunion, décide de traverser Madagascar. Nous remplissons les réservoirs de carburant avant de partir et nous attachons à bord tout ce qui peut bouger. Au moment de partir, coincés par le vent fort du nord-est soufflant en rafales sur notre “flanc” bâbord (gauche), derrière deux gros bateaux de pêche à couple (l’Austral et l’Osiris), nous ne pouvons pas décoller du quai. Le capitaine du Port nous fait venir un petit “remorqueur-pousseur,” l’Abeille, pour nous dégager de l’avant afin de faire route sans problème vers la sortie.

Dès la sortie, au fur et à mesure, les voiles sont à poste et nous filons fièrement à 5 noeuds et demi vers le sud-ouest: direction Capetown en contournant Madagascar vers le sud (la destination Tulear n’était plus possible vu le retard.) Tout s’organise à bord sans précipitation mais minutieusement. Les règles de sécurité ont été données à tous; chacun doit avoir sa place en temps voulu, sans pagaille. Tandis que certains surveillent sur 360° notre évolution sur la “belle bleue” toute anomalie (nuages, épave, baleine, bateau, lumière…) est répétée au chef de quart, d’autres vérifient la bonne marche du bateau, voile, moteur…tout ce qui risqué de nous entraver est repris, refait.

La barque de 1998 demande un entretien constant, il faut revoir le haubannage, l’accostillage, les voiles, les bouts nombreux ayant chacun une spécificité. On vérifie tout: les douches, les WC, les cales, les frigos…la hantise du marin c’est la fuite d’eau et le feu à bord. Les quarts fonctionnent de 0 à 4 heures, 4 heures à 8 heures et 8 heures à 12 heures, 2 fois par jour. Les professionals font leur journée de 8 heures du matin à 17 heures ou plus le soir. En plus nous nous relayons tous pour aider le cuisinier à chaque repas et la vaisselle, ainsi que le nettoyage de la cuisine et la cambuse, les poubelles, triées etc. A dix heures le soir il ne doit plus y avoir de bruit dans les chambrées; on arrête les réunions particulières, la musique, les chants, les guitares et l’accordéon diatonique se taisent. Chaque anniversaire est fêté au repas du soir par un gateau du “Chef cuisinier,” le cook, avec chansons et musique. La “ruche” est en marche et réglée comme une horloge, mine de rien “la barque” se fait belle de jour en jour et sa “garde-robe” remise à neuf. L’odeur de la peinture se mèle à l’odeur des gateaux de Joe.

Ne croyez pas que Boloetse est négligée, le capitaine la surveille et nous fait part régulièrement, au cours de mise au points, très pédagogiques et de croquis. Boloetse, cette capricieuse, remontait vers le nord dans le canal du Mozambique, s’était affaiblie et s’est mise à redescendre en devenant un dangereux cyclone. Nous pensions le divorce consommé, mais non, le cyclone se dirige vers l’endroit ou nous devons passer au sud de Madagascar et sa trajectoire menace même de revenir sur nous en retraversant Madagascar. Nous refaisons donc une route nord, vers La Réunion, pour être en sécurité proche d’un abri, il n’y eu a pas à Madagascar sur le côte est.

Dimanche 5 février à 6 heures nous voyons le Piton des Neiges au dessus des nuages dans le soleil levant, une baleine et son petit sont sur notre route. Le dimanche après-midi, c’est repas sauf pour les hommes de quart qui doivent être disponibles. Un bain est organisé pour ceux qui veulent, les voiles sont réduites et des vigies surveillent sur les 3 mâts en cas de requins. L’échelle de corde est à poste pour remonter. Le soir, repas et anniversaire de la plus jeune à bord, 19 ans, 2 jours avant c’était les 63 ans du plus ancien. Après le repas du soir le dimanche, l’équipage a le droit de faire une petite fête, un punch aux fruits est à disposition, avec modération. Chansons, récits, mimes, danses…au milieu du bateau devant le grand mât.

La dépression est en descente vers le sud, nous avons déja le cap sud-ouest et demain, lundi 6 février nous mettrons le moteur pour rattrapper le temps “perdu.” Enfin nous faisons route vers Capetown…sacrée Boloetse va…

Having a sing in the carpenters workspace

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