Jackstay wars

Even though we were closed today we still had an early day so we could get a jump-start on bending on the foretopsail. At 8 a news crew came on to do some live feed for the party tonight, some charity for muscular dystrophy is taking people “hostage” to raise money. We spread out the sail and there was still some work that needed to be done on it, Laura sewed new chafe gear onto the clews, we don’t have any normal leather so she used some burgundy stuff. After that Grant, Mitch, Mike and I went up in teams to pull the jackstay off so that the footrope stirrups could be taken off and lashed to the jackstay instead. Grant and I started after the other two but finished first; the starboard side was really bent up and hard for them to take out. Finally got the sail aloft started to stretch it out, but by then we had to come down and clean up.

Seine twine roband skirt.

Tar

Today was extra sticky. Started off doing more patch serving with seine twine, it’s already tarred so after you work with it for awhile and keep pulling on it some of it just rubs off onto you. After there Tenley, Sam and I finished painting the top of the whale board. After lunch I helped Grant serves some eyes on stirrups, involving more seine twine and actual tar. I now have stripes on my leg from where the already serves part of the stirrup touched me.

Sticky Fingers

Started the day by NP-1ing the foretopmast, it was covered in slush so I had to scrape that off a little. It sprinkled while I was up there as well, but it all got done. Once everything was cleaned up for tours Grant, Tenley and I were back over the side painting the whale board for the rest of the day. We got a new crewmember today, Samantha.

Caves and cars

Had an amazing day off, started with a shower, clean is always the way to go. Richard put himself in charge of renting us a car, after it was acquired Jesse, Brooke, Grant and I hopped in and headed west. Our goal was to see some caves and possibly the world’s largest radio telescope.

Took about an hour to get to a town called Aricebo, drove around there for a while knowing that the radio telescope was somewhere near by. Ended up finding a great cemetery and then asked for directions. Headed south for a while and then found the caves, we had to wait a long time to get on a trolley to take us to the caves, but it was well worth it.

The caves were filled with stalactites and stalagmites; we had a recorded audio guide that said a 17-story building could have fit in it. The most beautiful thing was the openings of the caves, framed with stalactites, plants and dripping rainwater. There were also a handful of limestone formations that had names, like one that looked like strips of bacon, a dolphin, but the best one was a witch, very gnarly drippy face.

After the caves we got some fruit at a street side stall, pineapple, watermelon, grapefruit, grapes, hot sauce and 2 big bags of small mangos. We drove to the telescope; it was down some small back road and didn’t look like much, lots of houses and cows. When we got there it was closed, but it was still nice drive and an amazing view.

We took a different road home, just to see something different, had a lot of nice views along the way. It was a great day, rained 6 times and the temperature was perfect, John said that it had been super hot in San Juan though.

Cemetery.

Caves.

Patch Serve

Spent awhile cleaning the galley, cleaning a bit more than others would because Dan told me to take my time. Went aloft and did some patch serving on the main course footropes, but they are such big sections that it takes forever, I ended up having to hang in my harness, my sides hurt at the end of the day. It was back over the side for me to clean off the whale and then paint it. Had a crew party tonight, dress like a tourist, I made a guava cake.

Tedious jobs covered in anti seize

Today was filled with lots of stupid little jobs, lashed some rat boards to the mizzen topmast shrouds, it’s so tiny up there I don’t know how anyone would ever really climb them. Found some gear for the foretopgallant, mizzen topsail and spanker. Then I was sent to find bolts so the yoke could be attached to the mizzen topsail yard. Couldn’t really find any, then had to cut some bolts, find nuts, anti seized everything, then Grant and I tried to fit the holes in the yoke with the holes in the yard, nope, wasn’t going to happen. At the end of the day it was decided that we’d have to drill some new holes, it was just too ridiculous to try and fit it.

More sanding

Richard and I were sent to patch serve footropes on the main and fore, I started on the course and stayed there all morning, there were a few really big spots. We used seine twin instead of marlin. After clean up for tours I joined another sanding party, Tenley, Mike, Rich and Barron got in the whaler and sanded the whale board. After lunch we cleaned off the whale board, while waiting for Barron to bring us paint we took the whaler on a ride under the stern to say hello to the rudder, it was really fun. We started to paint, but then it sprinkled. Rich and I went to help Jesse who was finding seams to fill, some of them went all the way through the boat and into the forward tank room. We tried yelling back and forth to find one of the bigger seams that you could see light coming through, but that failed. Finally got some radios and that did the trick. It was Nick’s birthday, the cook, so we all went out for pizza, it was amazing and our table was huge. Our Engineer arrived today as well, Don, he previously worked on the Hawaiian Chieftain.