Half round

Before tours started Kat, Brooke and I quickly put a second coat on the mizzen futtocks and dead eyes. I did the dead eyes meaning that I was getting painted in by Kat and Brooke, some how I managed to squeeze through the lubbers hole and get down without touching the futtocks.

Then Kat and I were sent to the half round, I still hate it and it seems to be never ended and we haven’t even really started on the port side. Kat and I went over the starboard side; there were a few pieces of the half round that needed some adjustment, to low or high on the line. We also cleaned the half round scrapping off any extra caulk.

At the end of the day I helped Brooke and Sveta place a staging so sometime this week we can start on the port aft half round. Today Brook worked on the bow sprit and later part of the half round with Sveta and Katie was in the engine room with Peter all day.

Kat’s boyfriend, Josh, is visiting again and Peter left right after work to go to New York, he’ll only be gone 36 hours though.

Since we have the next two days off we are all planning on doing some of our own cooking. Not only because we enjoy it, but to have something different to eat.

We also struck a brow tonight and Sveta said "We'll leave them here till we re-open next year." Classic new year joke ish.

Painting the Cross Trees

I’ve been wanting to get more comfortable at the cross trees, but haven’t yet had the opportunity, but today I did and boy am I ever comfy there. Katie and I sanded and painted the cross trees, getting up there with all the gear was the really hard part. I had one end of the extension cord tied to my harness and I had the bosuns’ bag with sanders in it slung around my neck and arm. Slowly climbed up trying to avoid chocking myself and not dropping anything.

Once we were both up there we tied the sanders to the cross trees and secured the extension cord and splitter. We then some how had to sand everything around us, under us and as well as reaching way out, some how we managed to do it all. With Katie, aka Monkey Toes, it made things easy because she’s really good at finding just the right spot. We ended up sitting on the futtocks, or really lounging on them to reach to sand a few places. Later when we painted we sat in that same place.

We also saw four manatees today, being in the rig gives you a great view of everything large in the water.

Lucky for us we got to use latex paint, not only does that dry fast but it also comes off of your skin and a bit of your clothing pretty well. We practically painted ourselves in because we usually hold on to the cross trees to get up and down. At the end of the day we liked that we were able to be up there with all that gear and work around everything really well. When we got down though, we noticed two large spots we had missed, but at least we are going to have to go back up there so that we can add textured paint on the top of the beams of the cross trees.

After cleaning up I was put to tarring some dead eyes on the mizzen top, but there wasn’t that much time left so didn’t have to tar too much.

Kat did more patch serving and a little tarring and Brooke painted the mizzen futtocks and the stuff around the dead eyes that I had primed yesterday.

Also made lemon squares tonight.

Kat hanging in her harness and patch serving.

Wonky corn bread, thanks crooked oven!

Taaaar

Another day working aloft, I got to play with tar, that’s a really black and sticky mess. In my bucket I had a squeeze bottle full of tar, a rag and a sock. Carried that all up, got situated and put on two latex gloves on my right hand and then the sock. Squeezed tar on the sock and smeared that all over a new patch serve that we did the week before. You have to put on enough so everything is coated, but not too much that it drips everywhere. I also wore an old long sleeved shirt so that I could get tar all over me, and that’s exactly what happened.

I finished by lunch so after I did a little more bunging, there were not to many bungs left so couldn’t do them all.

After that I got to paint the metal around the dead eyes that are attached to the futtocks, lucky for me I got to sit on the mizzen top and not have to dangle. It took me longer than it probably should have, but I didn’t want to spill any paint at all, not one drop. I was cautious and that helped because I didn’t spill anything. Yay!

Today everyone did a bit of everything but Katie and Peter were in the engine room all day, they were very very filthy. They were changing out coolant and fixing a few other things so they had to squeeze behind and under the generator.

One Month

It’s been one month since I came aboard the Bounty and it has been more than I could have ever imagined. Things were a lot different from what I had expected, first of all I was not the only new person and in fact we’re mostly girls instead of me being the only girl. The first day when we climbed the rigging I was all for it, not the least bit scared and I made it all the way to the cross trees that first time. I was really proud of myself for having gotten all the way up there, I’m not afraid of heights, but I’m no climber.

As far as living on the ship, I didn’t know what to expect at all, but it’s great. My cabin is nice, everything arranged the way I like it, the generator has a nice hum, when it’s turned off at night everything is so quiet. The sound of the waves hitting the side of the ship is great too. Showering and laundry is easy enough along with using the heads. I have not done too much cooking; just making a few desserts and they really have all kinds of ingredients so there is always something good on hand.

Now for the workload, I knew there would be a lot to do, cleaning and fixing of things, just didn’t know exactly what. Well it’s a lot of the same repetitive things, sand and paint, sand and varnish, sand and oil, caulking, fixing things in the rigging and Peter does things in the engine room that are a mystery to me.

Physically I have gotten more tan, built muscles and growing some nice calices. I have also learned a lot, not just about fixing things, power tools and actually having a job, but a lot about the tall ship industry. Boats have reputations; some are known for being stupid, like the Royalists and others lazy like American Pride. When I look around for another boat to work on I’ll be sure to email Rebecca and get her opinion on them, she’s seen a lot and worked on a bunch of them.

I really love working here, mind you I’ve never worked anywhere else, but it’s all a great adventure to me.

Today was good fun; I finally got to work on the deck. Brooke and I spent all day making holes for the bungs. You drill a hole in the deck, put in a screw, add a dot of wood glue, place in a bung and whack it in a little and let it dry. When it’s all dry you come back with a chisel and make it flush. There were also a lot of tours today and people kept asking us what we were doing and how it worked.

After work Brooke, Katie and I went swimming for a bit, I would have swum longer but they didn’t want to, I could swim all day even if the water was not that warm.

Last day off

Today is the last day of holiday, seeing as how there are only three of us and we have each had a day of watch, we agreed that we’d all be on watch today. Katie took the morning because she was already be up on the tween from having had watch yesterday, me the middle of the day and Peter the night shift.

We ended up doing a deck wash this morning because it had been four days since we did one before, deck was looking dry and there was still rust chunks everywhere, wouldn’t want that to get much further.

Kat called and was ready to be picked up, so Peter made me drive and gave me a lesson in the small boat. It was not that bad, just need some practice and I’ll be fine at it.

I had watch from 12 to 5, so once again ended up being stuck on the boat while Kat, Peter and Katie went out. I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies again, froze most of the dough in balls like I usually do so then we can have them on another day. Also there are lots of pretty ripe bananas so I see banana bread in our future. Watched more of Horatio Hornblower as well, amazing show.

For the night since all three of us had been on watch we had a little sleep over on the tweens. At dinner we had watch another episode of Hornblower, so we had to watch another one.

Christmas

It was really hard to sleep last night on the tween with the wind being so noisy and making things bash and crash. We all slept in and finally when Peter was up at 11 we opened our gifts from the Twomblys.

They were all really just things that either they didn’t want or need to take with them and things that the crew could use together. We got a soccer ball, dart board, hangman games in a little book, mud mask cream stuff, plastic cups and ping pong balls.

We started watching the Simpsons’ movie because Peter hadn’t seen it, but ¾ of the way through we left to go have a little party with the museum people. Ate some good food, talked, hung out, general merryness of Christmas.

Was a good day.

Charlie Brown style Bounty Christmas Tree.

Peter.

Joe, one of the tour guides.

Dinner.

The museum has grown 3 masts and a bowsprit. lols

Into the Night

Peter and Katie had gone to the library and rented Beerfest so we stayed up watching that, in the spirit of it all Katie and Peter drank a lot of beer. Next we watched the ’62 version of Mutiny on the Bounty, it’s so odd watching the ship that we are currently on and seeing how different it was before. The great cabin was bigger, hatches were in different places, the boat was blue, the masts white, the capstan shorter and white, stripes on the fife rail are white and a few things we have that weren’t there then. The hatches that we use as vents for the galley are there, but used as hatches to climb down into the ship. This one guy coiled really funny, put half the coils on the pin and then coiled some more, odd. Where the skylight is it was a closed hatch and a small boat over it. The stairs in the great cabin are more at an angle then our ladder we have today.

Peter also commented on how the boat handles. He talked to Sam who worked here for a season and said the ship went where he wanted it to and planed to have it go. While Robin who’s been here 15 years says that sometimes its good and others just does whatever it wants.

Comparing the boat from when it was originally built, before the refit for Pirates of the Caribbean and now, a lot has changed.

Later we found ourselves in the laz because Peter kept going on about how he had breadfruit plants down there and everything was looking good but oh you wouldn’t want to see that. The Laz is and interesting place, haven’t really hung out there much because it’s not a place I really go. There is space for four mates; the larger room in the middle has two and one on each side. The port side room has a sign that says, “honeymoon suite” Peter is on the starboard, he needs a sing that says, “engineer suite” with a wrench and something silly, prove he really is a shut in, lol. Also the wiring down there is odd, some sockets are hooked up as lights on the circuit board and to make the emergency lights go off you plug them in.

What an odd Christmas Eve this has been for me.