Monday, November 30, 2009

Day Off

Sleeping on the tween deck was interesting. It was a little bit like I was actually at home because hearing boat go by was a bit like hearing the cars go by out my window at home. I really did want to climb the rigging this morning, but dang was I ever sore, I had no idea I’d be this sore. I need more upper body strength and fast.

Since we had the day off there was a whole lot of nothing to do. Chilled out in the galley, then Ashley and I went for a walk around the island, not that interesting but saw some egrets.

Came back and had some leftovers for lunch.

Later Katie, Ashley and I jumped off the starboard channel. It was great, but they were a little chicken so I went first, even though I’m the one who can’t see too well. I screamed. Haha, so worth it. I went three times. Katie jumped in after me and we swam aft around the rudder to the ladder on the dock. I did it again and that time it wasn’t as bad; convinced Ashley to finally jump and went in after her. I thought I’d be the chicken one, but apparently not, I even did the rigging the other day, so I guess I’m braver than I thought.

Took a shower to get the salt off and now to commence with some more relaxing, though I do admit it feels odd, I’d like something better to do. We ended up having pizza cooked by Maisie and it was really good. Then we spent a good hour or two playing Sims, we made most of the crew and built a house that looks like the Bounty. The best part was that we made Peter a tad bit too insane and he kept talking to himself. Also it was great fun to have Rebecca and Caleb try for a baby. We were all laughing really loud and Chuck came up to see what we were doing and we just kept laughing and none of us could talk, ended up practically crying. Good times.


Path on Peanut Island.

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Duty and Sanding

Today I had duty, which means I’m the one in charge of getting people up, washing lots of things and boat checks.

So yes, I got up, did a boat check. Checking all the rooms and locations of the ship, checking the water level, pressure and temp of the generator and other such things. Got everyone up and had breakfast, apparently Sundays are cereal day.

Turn to was at 8 today so that we could have a chance to climb the rigging. It was so much fun! I didn’t even think about how high up I was, I just went for it and really enjoyed myself even thought it was a little scary. Getting over a few things was hard specially when u got to a top part. I climbed the main mast all the way to the cross trees. They said we can climb any time we want as long as we have our harness on, the lanyard and tell a mate. They also don’t want us to be comfortable up there, otherwise we might nap up there and become careless.

After that we were sent to wash the deck and I swept and moped the tween deck.

Tours started and I cleaned up the galley and the heads. Did another boat check.

Had a great lunch of chicken, potatoes and peaches.

Kat went back down the side to finish up some painting with Katie. Ashley helped Tsveta with something. Later after I did some more cleaning I asked Rebecca what I should do and I ended up with Katie sanding the back legs of the helm. That was interesting work, hard on the hands but fun. After all the sanding was done we bleached it with wood bleach

Chuck went swimming and when he jumped over the side a few people freaked out, thought someone had fallen over.

Finally the day was over and had dinner, burgers, watermelon and potato salad. Did some more cleaning up and am now relaxing on the weather deck, I think everyone else might be watching a movie or something.

Tomorrow we have a day off because there are no tours, I plan on climbing the rigging and hopefully making it to the royal and then later I might go swimming with Ashley.

Still have to do another boat check tonight, sweep and mop the galley and sleep on the tween deck, who knows how strange that’ll be. I did sleep a lot better last night.

Tours.
Kat in the bosun's chair.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

The Basics

It was a felt like a really long day, and gee, it’s only 7, it feels heaps later.

Got up, snuck upstairs and I wasn’t the only one up, of course Chuck was up making breakfast, I didn’t even remember hearing him get up so he was quiet as well. Rebecca was up along with her friend who came last night Marci. Went in talked to Chuck about things, and people started to slowly trickle in to breakfast. We had fried potatoes, grits with bacon, ham, caramelized bananas, burnt ish toast, toast and tomatoes.

Then we had a capstan meeting at the capstan, go figure. Talked about a few things, getting us acquainted with the ship, what we were going to be doing that day. Then we got to swab the deck. Pumped up salt water, had to go down into the engine room for that, then Katie and I scrubbed the deck with the help of Tsveta working the house. It was kinda fun, I like to get my feet wet.

After that we had a safety tour, where all the fire extinguishers were essentially, radio, lights, general alarm and a few other things like that.

Then people from the museum came over to get a tour so that then they could give them instead of us. We tagged along as well.

After that people started to come on for tours and there were a lot more then I expected, there isan’t a total head count yet. Through out the day working in different parts of the ship you could hear the tour guides giving out info, wrong info, things just not correct at all. Like apparently the helm is the real one from the Bounty and that Queen Victoria has touched it. WRONG!

We had lunch, hot dogs and spaghetti, if there ends up being spaghetti again I’m so putting it on toast. Then that’s when another person arrived, Kat. Murphy Who we kept thinking was Cat Mercy and thought it was a great stripper name.

From there we had work party. First I started helping Katie and Kat get things together for sanding and painting a stripe on the port aft side. Getting extension cord, paint, sander, bosun’s chair and a few other things from the bosun’s room. It’s really neat down there with all different kinds of gadgets and tools.

But I got pulled from that party and put to work with Tsveta and had a better time I think. Helped her take some screws from a board and heave it around, but the best part was helping splice a line. Okay maybe not exactly a line, and eye. We threaded it through the board and stuff… didn’t know exactly what I was doing, but learned a lot. It’s darn hard to splice if you don’t have a fid. My hands are tired. The thing we were making is for going over the side so more people can sit on it like a bosun’s chair I think. I’ll find out later.

Finally the work day was over, for the most part, tours had shut down.

Had another capstan meeting, when we all got there it was just girls and then peter showed up. It’s an odd ration of girls to boys, more girls and I thought there would normally be more boys and that’s what they all said. We talked about how duty works. You work from 7 am to 7 the next day. You are in charge of doing ship checks four times a day, cleaning the bathroom and kitchen and taking up and down the flags. There are a few other basic chores as well. Also sleep on the tween deck. Ashley was lucky and had it today so she didn’t have to do a few of the things in the morning, but I have it tomorrow, eep!

Hung out a bit and had dinner of stir-fry, peaches and a spicy sauce.

Helped Ashley with the flags and cleaning up in the kitchen, had a nice talk about how she came about to be on the Bounty, she’s only been working on the ships officially for the past year.

Took a shower, it was very refreshing, yet a little uncomfortable.

Now I should at least go and read up on what my duties for tomorrow are exactly.

Hectic Travel and Soothing Waves

I got up at 4 am to fly from San Jose to Houston. I was a little nervous checking in because I didn’t know if my bag was over weight and how much stuff I’d have to move around, it ended up working out really well. Mom hung around with me for a little while just killing some time before boarding. From San Jose to Houston it was about 4 hours, not too bad, slept most of the way. It was really interesting flying in though, it was really flat, a lot flatter than I thought and also there were a lot of trees. I guess the airport is more on the outskirts of the city because I didn’t see all that many tall buildings, just mainly houses and other stuff, it was odd.

The layover was about and hour and I called mom and she told me that Margaret had emailed me, told me where to go and that I was to call Caleb when I got in.

The flight from Houston to West Palm Beach was really nice, had a great window seat in front of the wing. After looking out the window for a bit the clouds got in the way so I took another nap. When we landed I ended up talking to some of the people next to me and I told them I was working on the Bounty and that they should stop by, ha.

Getting from the airport to the Bounty was the thing I didn’t like, took a cab to the Rivera Beach Marina. My cab driver didn’t know exactly where to go; lucky for me I had done lots of research so I had a better idea than her. After I got there and dragged my bags for a bit someone asked if I was head for the Bounty and directed to me a spot where I could get picked up. Later I found out that the same thing happened to other people so it was made easy for me. Called Caleb and waited around for him and went over to the Bounty.

Motoring over in the little dinghy was interesting, turn around the corner and there was the Bounty all in her glory with the dregs of the sunset flowing over her deck. First thing I saw of her besides her masts was the stern, we motored around to the bow, gave me a great view up her hull. Climbed out, got on the dock, up the stairs, over the gangway and I was on her. After a month of prepping, researching and worrying I was finally there!

Sam helped me take my stuff down to the second deck? Tween deck? I have no idea, and said he wasn’t sure which was my berth but that I could look around and he pointed out a few things.

So I explored a bit, went down another deck and found the berths, smaller than I thought, but more storage space actually. I ran into Chuck, the cook, he was taking a nap, oops. Went back up and walked around and saw some stuff, I have no idea what anything is really called. Went to the top deck, weather deck I guess and met a few more people there. Rebecca, Peter, Katie and Ashley.

The rest of the night was spent more or less in the galley chilling, getting to know everyone and hearing a bit about what is ahead. Rebecca and Caleb are married and leaving the ship for the season, Sam is leaving for awhile but will be back, they are the mates. Peter is the new mate, he’s from San Francisco, west coast yo, he’s 30, really nice, I think I’ll get a lot of info out of him.

Katie and Ashley are experiences from what I hear, they have been on other ships and are in their early twenties. Ashley is really cool, I like her, we quoted Monty Python and the Holy Grail together.

There’s another girl, Tsveta, she’s quiet, haven’t heard much from her.

I’m the young and very inexperienced one.

Rebecca showed me to the berths and said I could have anyone I wanted, I took the one where no one was, might as well be alone while I can or maybe I’ll move.

Also…. These people drink a lot, and some of them smoke. Oh well, and I’m only 19, I haven’t been exposed to all of this before, it’s a big grown up world.

So as for tomorrow, maybe another 2 people will come and we have to get up at 8.15 and work starts at 9. I have no idea what I’ll be doing, but I guess I’ll be finding out then, but I hate not knowing.

I’ve got my room nicely settled ish, supposedly they are going to rip out some of the shelves in my room and put some in the empty space next to my bunk, so we’ll see if I have to move all my junk. Rebecca also said that the people who just left had to repaint the bunks so they are nice and clean.

There are a lot of weird noises going on around me; I think it’s mainly the generator and the bilge water. Also every once in awhile I can really feel the ship move, at first I thought I was just dizzy and I was the one who was moving, but no, it’s the ship.

I also checked out the head, two toilets and two showers, two washers and two dryers. There is also a small library, hopefully I can find time to read a bit.

Ironically I’m listening to “I’m On A Boat.”


Friday, November 27, 2009

How to Pack and Re-Pack

Over the past month I’ve been gathering everything that I needed to take with me on the trip, the past 3 days I have packing and re-packing. The airlines being the annoying people that they are have gotten good at making stupid rules about how much luggage you can bring, the dimensions and the weight. Currently my check luggage is about 2 pounds over with the scale I have at home, maybe they won’t see that, I think the dimensions are okay, but also keep in mind that it’s a domestic flight and I have to pay for my checked luggage cause airlines just love being annoying. I also will have a carry on that is a little over the size, don’t tell and maybe they won’t notice. I can’t help it that I have to bring my own sleeping bag and it just won’t fit in anything!


Moving on, to what I’m actually bringing with me:

Basic ugly clothing I don’t care if it gets covered in junk and never gets clean
Coveralls, so I can avoid clothing getting covered in junk
Bedding, (sleeping bag, 2 sheets, 2 pillow cases and a blanket)
Two towels, one big one small
3 pairs of gloves
2 hats
2 bandana
2 handkerchiefs
Embroidery for sea bag and sewing kit
Leather man, large buck knife, Swiss army knife, medium knife, marlinspike knife combo, needle nose pliers and magnet stick (all my brother’s doing)
4 flashlights (pelican, pen light, head light and something I could tape to the wall)
Lots of sun screen
Coffee cup
Big bag of left over Halloween candy and drink powder for water bottles
Water bottle
Knee pads
Crocs, flip flops, tennis shoes
Plastic bags, Ziploc
Cards, fake tea lights

So you get the idea, at home it doesn’t look like that much when it’s all piled up, but start shoving it in and it gets dangerous. Sure I’ll be docked and can go get something if I don’t have it, but I prefer to be prepared all the way so that it’s just right there. Every item that goes in I think, “Will I really use this? And how much?” before it gets it’s rightful place in the bag.

Also I had my brother check over all my stuff and tie up my sleeping bag so it would be smaller. He's great and deciding things like this because he's been on ships and lived in small places before so it was great to have his view on a few things.

Oh and of course there are dog hairs on a few things because Noodles thought she’d help me pack by laying on top of my stuff.


Most of my stuff piled up.

Noodles trying to help.

Yeah that's right, help me again right when I wanted to fold up my sleeping bag.

Back of my coveralls made on my grandma's machine.

Finally all packed up, now it's time to not sleep for about 5 hours till I get up at 4 a.m.!

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Historical Jacket

For the past few weeks I have been working on a jacket that is correct for the time period of the Bounty. Why? So I can dance around in it and be silly, it's just what I like to do, and I looooove historical clothing. I took my time, unlike some of my other things, I wanted it really perfect, crisp sewing lines and pressed everything before I sewed. It took awhile, including sewing the 38 buttons on! I used Butterick pattern 3072.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Research

I have done so much research in the past few weeks. I was looking for everything and anything that could help me prepare and also general information about the Bounty and it's history. I did find some great photos on Flickr and then proceeded to contact those people and see what information they could give me that would have helped. And they helped a lot.

I also read everything on wiki and read any kinda tall ship website I could find. Also of course YouTube was a big help.

Even better, I'm proud of myself that I've read Mutiny on the Bounty, the one by Nordhoff and Hall. The '62 movie was based on that book, and that book is based on facts, not the facts. So I read and watched both of those. Also watched a thing on the HMS Pandora.

Here's some of the things I really liked and thought helped.




Videos: