TNS458 07/04/2016

Day 39

Fwd Stbd Watch 1230-1600

Having had the highlights of our time ashore described in detail over the
last few days, we have quickly settled into the old routine of sailing, in
the heat, once more.

Actually, today has been described as the perfect laundry day, with fresh
bedding also coinciding with a watch personal laundry, meaning we can all
climb into a clean bed tonight in fresh pyjamas, ready to get up at 2330 for
our midnight watch.

We touted round the Bosun Mates for news for our blog as they seldom get a
mention. It’s been a day of routine maintenance which although sounds
humdrum, stops small jobs turning into big jobs. Godfrey has been up the
main mast working on the split rattlings & ‘stuff like that’. Lee has also
been aloft renewing square lashings and refreshing his knot work. Kat has
oiled the blocks on the mizzen mast, re-led the brails there and helped set
the spanker after it was taken down very early this morning in light air.

We stuck our head into the galley in an effort to find some new news & found
Micha cubing a large leg of pork in readiness for a French themed pork
cassoulet for dinner tonight. We are all looking forward to pork & beans for
dinner (except the vegetarian!)

Capt Simon gave an interesting talk this morning, his four basic lessons in
tall ship manouvering – wearing, tacking, sailing onto and off of an anchor.
He’s planning a ‘Man Overboard’ exercise after we finish watch today. One
could just drop ‘Penelope’ off the bow, walk to the stern and fish her out
with the boat hook in these light winds but we suspect the sail handling
talk was not given in vain this morning.

Our Cadet on Watch – Ryan is studying hard and says to his Mum “See you in
three weeks.”

Salutations from Louise, Mona, Stretch, Paul, Mike, Steve & Andy on mess
duty.

PS The sea is currently 30.5 degrees – phew!!!

PSS Late news, we’ve just seen about 15 dolphins chasing fish, with us for
about 5 minutes, made our day.