Teacher Aboard Logs

Buenos Dias!

Well, after three weeks of crossing the Atlantic, we are set to arrive in Puerto Rico sometime tomorrow. It has been a long, but pleasant and easy journey. Our seas ranged from large rollers early on in the trip, to flat and fast later on.

When we left Madeira, I managed to get a shot of Captain Parrot with his copy of the Dundalk Eagle newspaper. Our Eagle goes everywhere!

The Ship As I mentioned last time, I want to cover some of the areas of the ship, so I have a few new photos for you. The first is of Pride II flying all her sails but the Ringtail, and I've labeled the sails for you.

This is a panoramic shot of the saloon, galley, and cabins below.

And this is a panorama of the deck from the perspective of the aft starboard quarter (right rear). I hope these pictures will give you a better idea of the space we have available to us. Not much for 17 people crossing the Atlantic for three weeks!

Underway

We finally caught a Barracuda on the lure today, but it was only 18" long so it was tossed back before I could get a picture. We still have our nightly visits from the squadrons of flying fish, though!

Since they die anyway, we're still rigging them up as bait for all of the fish we haven't been catching!

Guest crewmember Friedrich is still running around filming the boat from every conceivable angle! He filmed Andy in the galley and Captain Dan up on deck.

He had one exciting moment while he was filming out on the headrig. The entire rig dipped into the sea with him and his camera!

The maintenance is still going on, and on, and on, and on! Brad is working on the covers for the hawse pipes, while Chris has been working on the new bungs in the aft cabin top.

During the first few days of the crossing, "Hippo" (the ship's inflatable runabout), got a bath of its own, while John attended to some maintenance on the outboard engine.

Sanding is still taking place everywhere, after which varnish gets applied.

Brad is doing a great job varnishing the Compass Pedestal.

Since we're at sea, crew must be able to repair anything that breaks on the ship. Today we had a mast hoop break. These are the hoops to which the sails are attached that slide up and down the masts when the mains'l or fores'l are hoisted or lowered. John spent several hours sitting in the bosun's chair working on the replacement.

Whenever anything breaks or tears, the crew tries to use the old material somewhere else on the ship. The sail that blew out during the race across the Atlantic earlier this year has provided canvas for several projects on the boat, including my current endeavor. I decided that the best way to learn a few new skills (including sewing and knot tying) was to make myself a "ditty bag," something sailors use to carry sewing tools, their knife, marlinspike, line, and other small items. So, with the help and encouragement of a couple of crewmembers, I started this somewhat lengthy process! I began with a simple piece of canvas, which I had to cut into a rectangle to make my cylinder, and a circle to make the bottom. These were then stitched and seamed.

Almost all the sewing onboard uses heavy material, threads, and needles. To sew with these we use a "palm," a leather support that fits in the hand and has a lead surface with which to drive the needle and its waxed thread through the canvas. Even the grommets that I've used are made from twine and then stitched onto the bag. In this photo, you can see the palm, needle and thread, and grommets and bag.

This last photo shows my progress to date. I have four of the six grommets sewn in, and hope to finish them tomorrow. The last task will be to splice three strand manila rope onto the bag and tie a Crown knot at the top with a sliding Turk's Head knot on the strands. So that's what I've been doing in my spare time!

The crew spends their time with other things as well. The first mate, Christopher Flansburg, and Captain Parrot are both shooting the sun with their sextants to determine our location. Last night I was treated to a wonderful view of the constellation Sagittarius. While we were studying the sky, we also saw a satellite pass in the light of the moon at approximately 1855 hours.

Other crewmembers watch movies on Sunday, "movie day." The television gets strapped down to the table and a video gets popped in. Last Sunday we watched one of my favorites, "Casablanca."

We also celebrated Ellen's birthday this week with a cake and song below. Happy Birthday Ellen!

Of course Election Day was not forgotten on board, and we had our own special voting procedure! As it turned out, Al Gore won the Pride II election!

We've had a few showers, but for most of the time it's been hot! My favorite place is out on the headrig where I get a fresher breeze.

Some of the crew use impromptu saltwater showers to cool off. Fernando loves his daily dunking.

There have been many times where I just wanted to dive overboard into the inviting ocean, but I'm sure it would take me longer to get to Puerto Rico than if I stay onboard! So for now, I'll just stay at the helm as the sun rises behind me and know that I'm one day closer to the city of San Juan - and home.

Your Teacher Aboard,
Lee Vogtman

YOUR THOUGHTS

1. List as many skills as you can that sailors might need in order to succeed and survive out on the ocean.
2. What other areas of employment use the skills of handling rope and tying knots?
3. What is Ciguatera poisoning?