A Day in the Life
So last night I'm sitting at the local tavern with my captain, bosun, cook, and three other shipmates, drinking pitchers of Broken Halo IPA, when three vikings walk in. It's crewmembers from the research vessel moored beside us (wearing plastic viking helmets)!
They come hang out with us and we all drink and pretty much everyone but me sang karaoke (the vikings even found some ridiculous song about vikings). The Portway Tavern closed at midnight so we all piled in a cab to find another bar. After finding two more that were closed already (and this is Saturday night!) we found one that was relatively happening. By now I was wearing one of the viking helmets myself.
My shipmate Garret kept disappearing and coming back with a piece of hot fresh bacon, which we would eagerly fight over. It was a mystery how he was getting this, but as to where, it turns out the front part of the bar is actually a diner. When the bar finally closed our appetites had been so whetted by the bacon we had to sit down to some delicious diner breakfast foods (most of us got biscuits and gravy .. it was only $3.50!)
I wake up this morning after only four hours of sleep, and not at all hungry for breakfast (number two). Being as I gave up caffiene a few days ago, and if I don't eat now I might be starving by lunchtime, it's looking to be a long day.
As it would happen, today turned out to be a totally freezing day. I'm wearing the sweater I thought was warm enough for anything, over a long sleeved shirt and a t-shirt, and with my peacoat and scarf over it, and STILL too cold. I need to find a way to work another layer in.
I survived till lunch but lunch was interrupted twice by calls of "ALL HANDS TO MOORING LINES!!" as the diabolical pier we're moored to worked its pilings between our fenderboards again. Our spritsail yard (the yard arm off the bowsprit) had broken when we were initially pulling up to this pier, and today the chainplate broke -- masts are held steady by fixed lines going down from them in all four directions, to the port and starboard these lines are the shrouds (which are also used for climbing aloft), and they are anchored to the boat through the chainplate, so that thing being broken is very bad.
I think our daily sail may have already been cancelled previous to this mishap, but that really torpedoed things.
The day we arrived here in Astoria the chief "elected chairman of the tribal council" of the Chinook tribe came aboard and officially welcomed us to Chinook territory, and led us in a ritual cleansing of the boat with cedar boughs. This was done by brushing everything with the boughs that one wished to cleanse. People even took them to the tops of the masts ... but clearly no one thought to visit the chainplate with them.
Some Pictures
Sage & Beth (i_id)
Yes we go out in public dressed like that.
jk they hadn't had time to change before our impromptu fieldtrip to Englund Marine. Not that I don't usually look like I'm stuck in the 18th century anyway ;D (to change into our "funnies" or period attire for tours really all I need to do is change my pants)
Here's some crewmembers showing off the booty foul-weather-gear they bought when we made the abovementioned store run.
And here's the ship's-dog, Tiller, sitting on crewmember Ivan as he tries to catch a few minutes of shut eye today (he was among those of us who only got four hours of sleep the night before). The other day while the captain (her owner) was up on deck late talking with Ivan and Garret, Tiller came down and climbed into my sleeping bag with me. It was cute.. and added much appreciated warmth!
See Also:
Regular updates on twitter
Pictures I just put up on my old photobucket account
and pictures on flickr (no new ones today (yet) but I had posted some the other day)
An excellent entry by I_id posted today, also about our latest happenings!