Leaving the Nut

Today had been a long day, so long that it feels like it should be the next day already.

Turn to at 0715, readied the boat leave Peanut Island for the last time. Along with the usual removal of dock lines we also had to pick up heavy D and take the anchor line that were not our anchors and tie them to the dock. I got to go in the small boat with John and deal with the anchor lines; it was great to see Bounty come off the dock instead of watching the dock go away. John and I then went around tot the starboard side, tossed the bow line up to Dan on the fore deck and motor back to midships by the davits. Climbed up and then the small boat was hauled up on the falls. We then moved the whaler forward of the forward house and put the inflatable on the davits.

Got to the fuel dock, took awhile to fuel up and while doing that there was plenty else going on like stowing things and lashing other things down. Finally got under way around 1130, had the engines on while we started to loosen sail. We set the jib, fore staysail, fore course, main staysail, main topsail and mizzen staysail. This is the maximum sails that we should set in not so calm weather because we are still a pretty green crew. It took us a few tries to get everything set nicely because we’re new and a few things were not led right and things haven’t been set in awhile.

On our way out of the harbor some boats flowed us, saw a sea turtle, got farther out and Grant said he swore he heard someone say “arr,” waited a minute and the boat came along side us. Called out more piratey stuff, but we just ignored it all.

After lunch we had a long capstan meeting, not only about how things work on the ship and what we will be doing but also about MOB, Man Over Board drills. A few of the things Robin commented on were about trash, everything goes overboard except plastic, we have a slops bucket in the galley for food and things can go over as long as if you were in a small boat and ran it over it wouldn’t bother you. He also said that some of us were here for the money and others not, we all laughed at that because who would do this for the little wages and not love it.

MOB, a very serious matter, we’ll be doing a lot of drills. A watch’s job is to get the small boat in the water and then help B watch. B watch takes charge of the boat, takes over the helm and braces the yards to stop boat. C watch is all about the pointing, their job is to make sure they keep their eye on the person overboard and point with their whole arm.

We finally were stood down and I had about 40 minutes till my watch. We ended up helping do chores that hadn’t gotten done because we’d been so busy.

A watch has the 4 to 8, we started our rotations, helm, bow watch, boat check, repeat. I had a hard time on the helm the first time around, you always follow your heading on the compass and I don’t know all the exact names for the points yet. Bow watch is good, lots of looking around, stopping boats and reporting it back to the mate, also ringing the bell every hour and half hour. Boat check is my favorite spot so far only because it’s so familiar and it goes by the quickest, we are really keeping an eye on things to see if they need to be sea stowed more. We also eat dinner on watch, take a plate up on deck and carry on.

Once my brain settled down from all the excitement my first thoughts were about how much the boat has seem to shrunk. It’s not only because of all the extra things on deck, heavy D, the brows and the whaler but more so mentally. You can’t get off the boat at all, you can’t really ever be alone and I’m use to the idea of land being space, water is empty.

The person who does the first boat check on the last hour of your watch pumps bilges and then at 20 after does wake ups for the next watch. My last station for watch was the bow and I saw about 6 dolphins ridding along side us.

So far I’ve liked the 4 to 8 watch, I’ll get to sleep now, woken up at 0320, have 4 hour watch, eat breakfast, go to sleep, woken up, eat lunch, work party, watch, repeat. As Dan said it’s like eating two meals at once because you get to sleep in between.

I have a lot more ahead of me, but so far it’s been a really amazing day.