Off the Boat
Sunset October 4th
201 days, 130 days of "sea time," 4 captains, and 8 cooks later, after much procrastination I finally left the boat this morning and hitched a ride into Davis.
Sunrise, October 5th
Theoretically there's 7 paid positions on the boat that should serve out six month contracts. I should have six people serving most of the time with me. Only one other person served out an entire six month contract with me, but everyone else either quite and jumped ship or in at least one case was fired. So I feel like just surviving my six month contract was an accomplishment. Especially since I know for a fact one of the captains despised me and hoped to fire me.
Sunset, October 6th
Needless to say, it's been a long road full of adventure, shenanigans, and self discovery. It's been a long long journey, and I've seen many an awesome new place, met countless awesome people, and learned many exciting new skills. I'm certainly glad I did this and I'd do it again in a minute, and I recommend in the strongest terms that if anyone finds themself in a position where it's feasible for them to join the boat for six months or so that they do so.
(Pictured above, the plus side of the 4-8 watch is you get every sunrise and sunset. The above pictures are some of them from our transit down from the Colombia River to San Francisco)
Click to view(I think that version cuts out early actually, but I like it best of the ones I've found. For a pretty good more complete version of the song see here)
Presently I'm back in good ole Davis, at Mishka's Cafe. I'm looking forward to getting my favourite dish ever anywhere -- Firecracker Pork Fusilli - at Fuzios here for lunch, then I'm taking the train three hours down south to Modesto to hang out with gratefuladdict. Tomorrow its another five hours on the train back down to Orange County.
On the 30th the schooner Spirit of Dana Point transits down from Santa Barbara to Dana Point (you may recall I made the reverse of this run on it last year and we were caught in a gale for 24 hours). Though I'd be leaving OC again to get on her in Santa Barbara, if I can get on that transit I think I might have to declare it my official homecoming, because then I'd actually be arriving home in style -- on a tallship. (: