18/11/12 - Lord Nelson

Day 31 18th Nov







How did a butterfly find its way out to us this morning? The watch who were on between 0800 & 1230 spotted a butterfly flutter by today. Perhaps it was lost, blown off course by a fickle breeze, perhaps it’s a special long-distance carrier-butterfly, its wing-muscles honed and toned for long flight with a message tied to its tiny leg – and it’s prettier than a pigeon. Perhaps it wasn’t a red-admiral at all, perhaps it was a tiny alien scout, or perhaps it was attracted by the pretty flowers that still adorn our bridge. Answers on a postcard…







Right, what else have we been up to..? Still sailing, still sanding and scraping the aft-deckhouse. Don’t tell Lesley, but I’m planning to paint one side like a zebra and the other like a Dalmatian. If we do it while she’s off in the afternoon, it’ll be a fait-accompli. Bwa-ha-ha-ha. Regardless of what animal print we inflict upon it (or pink, I could mix a little bit of red into the white-blue-tone, and make it a nice baby-pink, hmmm), we still have to prep it. Those hardy souls who have been involved in Mission Deckhouse have all been finding that paint-flecks are surprisingly tenacious creatures, able to adhere to one’s skin and hair through showers, sunbathing, sleeping and scrubbing.







Hard work is being rewarded tonight by an extra hour in bed (woo-hoo) as the clocks are going back an hour again. The magic witching hour will be spent on a quiz, where Team PC may attempt to improve upon their previous fifth place from last time.







Barbara says that the Captain was a very nice Cook’s Assistant today. Tomorrow we shall ask Dave to comment upon this. Uh-oh, she’s just read this over my shoulder, and I just got The Look…







It being Sunday afternoon, all of us little band of volunteers had an afternoon off, so both of us BMs and Margaret, the unstoppable Cook’s Assistant were to be found sprawled on the foredeck, enjoying the novelty of sloth. We also popped ashore for an ice-cream, went shopping, saw a film at the cinema, and had a pleasant walk in the park.







Our little Sunday mini-breaks are muchly appreciated by all of us.







Neil’s gone over to the dark-side, he’s joining John and Taffy on the Air-Con installation team. Today they seem to have mostly been wrestling with giant worms (they call them lagging, but I know they’re just trying to shield us from the truth). I saw Taffy emerging from the door from the PC accommodation this morning, surfing across a tide of writhing serpentine bodies that was at least up to his armpits. Neil says there’s 270 metres of lagging, by his count, so we thought we could lag the masts (means if you walk into them they’d be nice and soft), the spars (good if you hit your head on them, keeps them cosy if it gets cold), and the Permanent Crew (it’d be funny). 







International Hug A Captain Day went well a couple of days ago (can’t imagine who instigated that), everyone aboard was briefed that they should, on sighting a Captain, immediately go forth and hug said Captain. The only person we didn’t tell about this well-known (and conveniently movably dated, which may be of interest to the crew of future legs or, indeed, Tenacious crew) festival was Barbara. She seemed, er, surprised. Or something. I think she’d got used to it by the time Neil and I made her into the filling in a BM sandwich.







Right, that’s all the profundity I can squeeze out of my thinking-apparatus this evening. I hope it’s been informative and enriching. We’re all fine, just south of 8-degrees latitude, and I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be than on Nellie, under sail on a sea and sky of more blues than New Orleans.







All the best,







BM Kirsten J