Looking from midships up the port side towards the foremast. The staysail is that tube of canvas furled up against the mast and is the one I describe below as being the first one that I got to set. You'll see some foot ropes, parallel to the deck and connecting the ratlines to the foremast and that's how we accessed the furled sail.
And the deck-cam view of the port side.
up at the bow - are the "old school" heads. Yup, the hole is there for sitting on. But what a view! (and a bit of spray depending on the sea conditions).
When we are on bow watch, here's where most people stood during the daylight hours. At night, we were back on the leading edge of the quarter deck near the cannon.
One of the four-pounders, so called because the cannon ball they fire weighs 4 lbs.
And now, heading below decks. These steps are very steep so you hang on to a knotted rope and go down them backwards like a ladder.
At the bottom of the companionway and behind the steps, are some storage barrels.
Also on the 18th c deck are these mess tables. The 'benches' are actually sea chests belonging to the professional crew.
Hanging out on the 18th c deck when not on duty. Ceiling height here amidships is comfortable as you can see.
When everyone is up in the morning, hammocks are all stowed on this deck as well. Making your bed is easy, just roll it up lengthwise, tie it off then toss it into the pile.
One of the yardies passing through gives you an idea of the height of the deck here under the foredeck. That's the pile of bedding from the photo above on the right side of this picture.
Going aft, this is the space affectionately known as the mini-mates deck. The officers' cabins. Mind you, you have to duck here too since the ceiling is about 4'6" under the quarter deck.
In the Great Cabin (above this one) is a huge table where the scientists could lay out there work and where the captain did his paper work as well. The Great Cabin includes these benches across the stern. The windows were usually open to allow fresh air and light into the cabin.
and here's the view out the stern windows.
"Happy Hour" takes place every morning at 9.30 and that means cleaning the ship. Each watch is given a different area of the ship to clean on a rotating basis. Today we're swabbing the decks on the 18th c deck. (remember the height of the ceiling? we're scrubbing the floor while crouched down - who knew that being a goaltender, and being used to standing in the crouch for periods at a time, would be helpful while on board ship?)
In James Cook's day, this would be where many of the senior officers and scientists had cabins. There's a big black hatch right in the middle of the deck behind the base of the mizzenmast that is the alternative access to the food stores, fridge, freezer and engine room. Part of our safety rounds involves going through this hatch and down the ladder to check on these rooms. During the night watch we access those rooms through the galley door, but during the day when the cooks are on duty, we do not go through the kitchen.
And when the hatch cover is lifted and tied up, here's the view straight down the ladder and into the dried goods storage area. The assistant cook is there in the blue t-shirt going about her work when my partner and I came through on our safety rounds.
So now that we've gone down the ladder to the 20th c deck we might as well continue the tour down here. The dining area is located down here and includes the 'mod cons' like a Zip water heater so that one can get a cup of tea/coffee/milo at any time of day or night.
On the left side of the photo above (where the light bulb is showing) is a curtain that leads into the women's change room. Stepping through the doorway you enter the locker room. The locker is 76 x 56 x 56 cm.
through another curtained doorway and we're into the washroom. Cubby holes on one wall (at the base of the foremast) for everyone's toiletries, hooks on the wall for towels and wet clothing.
...and a marine toilet. One of the little facts you didn't want to know - urine combines with sea water and a precipitate is the result. So marine toilets need to be flushed three times so there is plenty of sea water to wash the pipes through.
7 January SSW WSW
Since I was awake at 5.30 I got up, had a shower and went up on deck by 6 ish. A couple of the yardies get up at 7.00 to wash and scrub the deck with a hose and scrub brush, washing sea water over the entire deck. It was quite dry by 8.30. The cook and steward came up around 6.30 to do some morning exercises, and since we’d been on watch 20-24hr, we were on for the 08-12.30 hr watch, which meant we ate breakfast first before anyone else. Muesli, cereals, toast, yogurt, and tea which is made by the cup out of the Zip. Although our watch was scheduled to end at 12.30 it lasted until 1.00 as some other jobs were underway and the ship motoring through the channel to the open sea.Again, our duties included the safety check below decks; someone on the stern watch, two on the bow watch(one available to run back and inform the helm what has been spotted); two on the helm and that leaves 5 leftover for doing any tasks as may be required when the sails are up. The two on the helm are designated as brains and brawn. On this watch I spent time on safety detail, bow watch, stern watch and missed out on the helm but ended up getting a chance to go up the foremast to loose the foremast stay sai.. That involved climbing up the rigging to a foot rope that is about a third of the way up to the foretop. So I climbed off the ratlines to the footrope and made my way inboard towards the mast where the lower part of the stay sail was furled. Just above my head was J – his foot rope was my hand rope, and above him our topman A and they were unfurling the middle and top portions of the furled sail. The rule is “one hand for the ship and one hand for you,” so I hung on with one hand while with the other I made to undue the sail. I also found myself on stern watch as we motored out of the channel. WE had anchored off Garden Island overnight which is just south and west of Fremantle (or “Freo” as it is abbreviated in Oz). So we had to motor north again to make our way out through the shipping channel and just before Rottnest Island we set the rest of the sails. Now unfortunately b/c we were the watch on duty we did not get to set the sails (we were “watching” instead) and the other two watches were called on deck to set sails. Together they set the fore course and foretop, store stay sail, and main staysail. And VOOSH we were off and reached a speed of 5 knots. Because we were passing Rotto (seems everything gets abbreviated when convenient, with an ‘o’ as a replacement suffix), we attracted much attention. A little cesna flew around us a few times taking photos, a news helicopter came and did a few fly bys and in the channel, a few motor boats came out along with sailboats to have a look. One hardy soul came out in an open motor boat without a life jacket to take some photos. Rather foolhardy as the sea was getting very rough and choppy.
We had a briefing around 9.15 from the Captain of the ship. He explained what we were doing that day and also ominously, described the procedures for sea sickness. “Happy Buckets”would be available at the foot of the main mast. There are canvas buckets on both port and starboard with which to scoop up sea water and rinse out your bucket and under no circumstances go below to the heads.
As the sails were set I was on the bow watch. A great view of a turquoise sea passing the island. Saw a few dolphins, one in particular directly below me at the bow who was testing out the bow wave. It gave up very quickly as we weren’t that fast and it lost interest. The other intriguing sight was the flying fish. At first it looked to me like like someone was skipping a hand full of stones across the waves before I recognized they were flying fish. Because everyone else was setting sails it took a while for the watch to change and lunch to be set.
After lunch it did not take long before the first few people succumbed to sea-sickness. I have been taking buccastem and it is helping. I felt slightly queasy through the afternoon but not incapacitated as many were, and I kept an eye on the horizon and watched for birds. Saw an albatross, a few shearwaters and a tern. No more dolphins. There’s another avid birder on board and happily we are on the same watch so we get out the binoculars and keep an eye open.
Backing up a bit, we were off duty by 1.00 and then had lunch and were off watch until the 2nd dog watch (18-20 hr) By that point many more people were clutching their happy buckets and 4 of the 12 of us on our watch were left standing while the others were looking pretty miserable. In the 2nd dog watch I got to try my hand at the helm, first as brawn and then as brain. The brawn just does as they are told. The brain decides on the bearing. Certainly I found standing at the helm helped considerably with quelling the queasiness (I hadn’t pushed my luck so hadn’t eaten dinner). After 30 minutes, brawn becomes the brains and at 1st I thought I’d give it a miss but I was encouraged to give it a try and I was glad that I did. By the end of my 30 minutes which became 40, I was feeling 100% and figured I’d beaten the sea sickness. It was 7.30 at night by this point. Feeling so good, I offered to refill the water bottle belonging to one of my watch-mates who was obviously having more intimate time with her bucket (oh, and they’re called Happy Buckets because previous crew have drawn smiley faces, butterflies, and pretty designs on the buckets to keep one ‘amused.’I went below to the 20th c deck to refill her bottle and went from feeling 100% great to 100% grotty in 2 minutes. I came back on deck, handed E her water and promptly motioned for her bucket.Mercifully that was the extent of it and getting rid of lunch made me feel so much better again so I could at least function unlike others who have been bent over their buckets for the whole afternoon.
We went to bed directly after our watch.Lying down in the hammock was blissful relief and the swinging motion surprisingly comforting. I woke feeling fine and seem to be over the worst of it. Others were not so fortunate (nor taking any medication that they could keep down) and it moved into day 2 for some and even day 3,4 & 5 for a few unfortunate others.