04/06/15 TNS439

A big bonjour to all our loyal followers and those tuning in for the first time!

Welcome to day three of our voyage on-board the beautiful barque “Tenacious” (and what an incredible barque she is!) Coming to you from Cherbourg, France! The intrepid adventurers on-board have been kept busy overnight settling into life at sea- keeping watches, helming, and learning the art of looking out for marine traffic and other dangers… oh! and of course finding our sea legs! Which, I must admit always reminds me of a bunch of newly born calves attempting to walk for the first time – highly amusing for anyone who is not actually sliding around on the decks holding on for dear life!

Well, after a successful night of motor sailing across the channel, we have arrived in France to great excitement from the locals, and a swarm of people waiting for us on the docks! Following the conduction of assisted climbs (which allows those members of our crew desiring the added security of a safety line to scale the main mast and enjoy a rather different, somewhat confronting but absolutely incredible perspective of the world) we’ve been released on shore leave to explore this beautiful town, and hug a tree.

A previous captain of mine recently imparted a piece of valuable advice – “the difference between an adventure and an ordeal is attitude”. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt about this special ship and what she does is that she’s not designed for comfort zones. In keeping with this theme, this morning our resident Bosun Tom cornered myself, and two of my shipmates, with a “challenge”- to pull the course square sail out from its hidey hole in forward storage, and rig it up so we can use it. Sounds easy enough right? Well, when your first question is to ask what on earth that sail is, and which stick does it go with…you’ve definitely been thrown in the deep end. A few hours of scouring every book in the ship’s library, the corners of our brains for any sail knowledge we may have had, and a little bit of coaxing the permanent crew into letting slip a few hints and tips, we set about rigging the sail under the self-assuring statements of “we’ll learn as we go” and “we’ll know what to do when we actually go aloft”. Two hours later, a few near stacks off the mast with hands and mouths full of ropes and sail (thank goodness for harnesses) and a couple of “what’s that knot we’re supposed to use again?” we had rigged the square and it’s now ready to go – fingers crossed all our hard work will have paid off, and it’ll be the first sail we set when we cast off tomorrow morning bound for a cruise down the peninsula bound for the beaches home to the D-day landings.

Well, with an afternoon to explore the city, and what I’m sure will be an insightful talk from our resident historian Bjorn to come tonight, I shall wrap up this novel of an entry.

Yours aye,

Amanda Aft Starboard Watch