Captain’s Log
Monday May 17, 2010
Maggie Ostler
Another beautiful day in our little barque. Before supper yesterday the Captain held a muster on the quarterdeck to explain the weather outlook to all hands, breaking the news that the wind was likely to die out, requiring us to fire up the mighty Burmeister & Wain Alpha diesel engine and push south for two or three days until we can find the wind again. The wind has held on through today, between Force 3 and 4, keeping us sailing along between 3 and 5 knots per hour.
With it being Monday, it’s time for ship’s work to begin again. Under the direction of bosun WT, there were a number of different projects underway today. Liam, Shawn, Katie and Michael were all working on the long boat at different points, sanding, then tacking down and painting. Fred was greasing turnbuckles, Niko and Nadia were helping chief mate Michael replace a serving on the standing end of a halyard pennant. The ash capstan bars were being scraped, the caulking around the galley house roof was being overhauled, and the skylight on the quarterdeck was being rust-busted and primed.
Throughout the day, anticipation was high for the Norwegian National Day celebrations which started at 1700. Everyone dressed in red, blue and white, (in our flag book there are 42 countries with red, white and blue as their national colors) and under the direction of our two Norwegian crew, Siri and Johanna, there was a parade around the deck, from the well deck to the quarterdeck, past the viewing stand with the Captain, mate, cook and engineer, past the helm, and back down to the cargo hatch amidships. The 4 to 8 watch were all dressed like Norwegian ski jumpers and presented their ski jumping dance, the 12 to 4 watch were dressed to showcase all things Norwegian (including the king and queen, the midnight sun, and the Edward Munch painting of the Scream) and the 8 to 12 watch sang a song about their favourite parts of Norway. Following the presentations, there was a traditional Norwegian potato-on-a-spoon race that also involved an element of trivia about Norway. Donald presented the typical Norwegian national day dinner, hot dogs and potato salad – yep, that’s what Siri said is traditional.
The crew have set the bar quite high for celebrating special occasions. We have lots of opportunities to celebrate – with an international crew representing nine different countries, there will be plenty of occasions.
[cpg_album:254]