Christmas shopping at our Chandlery at Picton Castle’s warehouse on Lunenburg’s working waterfront.
Yes, it has been a long year. Postponing of voyages, grim. Hosting a fine summer Bosun school session was just great, though. Gearing up for a world voyage? Pretty amazing. Nothing routine about a sailing ship voyage bound around the world. But that’s not all what is going on here in Da Burg.
At the training ship Barque Picton Castle’s refit wharf and warehouse at 174 Bluenose Drive here in lovely Lunenburg we have been setting up our ship & boat chandlery over the very quiet summer of 2020. Very quiet. Incidentally, we are told that our wharf was that last berth for the famous original Schooner Bluenose before she sailed off to become a freighter in the Caribbean. The working waterfront lives on and works onward. We are opening our long-planned chandlery.
In partnership with the esteemed John Edelman, known far and wide for his vast inventory of specialized, excellent and hard to find (and very salty) marine products and fittings, we have been setting up what we think will be a fine ‘old school’ chandlery. Mr. Edelman has been offering his vast array of fine hard-to-find and personally collected marine fittings up and down the coasts at Tall Ship events and harbour markets for years. Now he is set up ashore in the most logical of spots with a shoreside chandlery in partnership with a grand classic sailing ship. And we are starting off with a celebration opening in time for Christmas. Music, warmth and if we can figure it out, hot steaming spiced cider!
The date for the opening is Saturday November 14th and it will be all day long – come check it out. See attached poster. Wear your mask and rub sanitizing rum on your hands! Smells good too…
What do we have for you at this rich emporium of Traditional Marine Supply and South Seas Exotica?
Well, we have all sorts of marine bronze fittings for schooners and yachts and boats of all kinds. Big and small blocks, cleats, belying pins, thimbles, rigging screws, chocks, bitts and fairleads, skylight hinges, pad-eyes, compasses, old charts from many voyages, lanterns and brass chest handles. We have rigging items, sewing palms, the perfect ebony fids made for us in Bali for splicing rope and miro wood fids from Pitcairn Island made for us on our last world voyage, sailors’ knives and miscellaneous tools like caulking irons and tarred marlin. Need an adze? We got you sorted. Serving mallets and other tools as well. We have tins of most excellent Stockholm Tar. Who can live another day without the redolent ambrosia of Stockholm Tar? Rope, both new Hempex and soft old manila off the ship perfect for decorative use. Former topsail halyards and t’gallant buntlines, long stretched taught on tradewind blue-water ocean passages perfect for making mats and railings and who knows what? In the Caribbean much sought after for tying up goats. Movie productions love the stuff. Big Panamanian and Fijian machetes. Anchors, thole pins, anchors, canvas.
We have a wild assortment of baskets from lots of different places. These are perfect as endlessly reusable shopping bags for todays eco-conscious shopper. Many are from Madagascar, Reunion and Rodrigues, sarongs, beautiful kites from Bali where flying colorful elaborate kites is a cultural pastime, like baseball and hockey. Straw sun hats. Bamboo windchimes in abundance, all from one village on the slopes of a volcano in Bali that makes nothing else. Odd, eh? Some old ship and marine art for sale too. Prints of internationally famed artist Bill Gilkerson’s exquisite painting of PICTON CASTLE outward bound off Rose Head. We have held these prints back as signing-off gifts for those who complete a world voyage in the globe trotting ship, now you can have one too!
What else? Mother of pearl inlaid sea chests. Foc’sle seafarers sea chests. Vintage (this means “old”) running rigging blocks with many tradewind sea miles in their wakes looking for happy homes, new blocks perfect and ready to rig up on your schooner or sloop. Strange carvings from here and there. Pandanus mats from Samoa and Tonga tapa cloth. Wooden dugout outrigger canoes adzed out by hand from the coral shores of the Vanuatu islands in the far western South Pacific. Coconut scrapers known as ‘ana in Tahiti. Kinda cool battery-free/wireless food processors if you use coconuts as food.
Foul weather gear, sea boots, Picton Castle t-shirts, custom Picton Castle sarongs, coffee cups, postcards, posters, temporary tattoos (kids like ‘em, a slippery slope…), stickers and all that stuff. Ship models, dory models, (even a real dory!), a few fine books.
You can even order your own genuine and iconic Lunenburg Dory for next spring and it will get built in the Dory Shop (est 1917) across the road. Or perhaps a new mast for that matter. Does your wooden boat need some repairs? A rebuild perhaps? Just finishing up a massive refit of a 41’ yawl at the Dory Shop. What fine deserving wooden sea craft is next for some TLC?
Yes, the Picton Castle is making one more voyage around the world. www.picton-castle.com
And Dories, don’t forget the best of all such light seaworthy wooden water craft, the Lunenburg Dory. www.doryshop.com
Melli Kalliki Maka, soon anyway, Captain Daniel D. Moreland
The Ship and Boat Chandlery of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia
Suppliers of Fine Marine Products for Schooners, Skiffs, Dories, Ships, Work & Pleasure Boats, Sail & Motor Driven Craft, Rum Smugglers, Fishing Vessels, Lobster Boats, Research Vessels, Coast Guard & Visiting Vessels
Tools, Fittings, Tar, Canvas, Sailmakers and Riggers and Caulkers Gear, Anchors, Blocks, Stockholm Tar, Marline, Rope, Bitts, Cleats, Knives, Sextants, Oars, Dories, South Seas Exotica, Strange Items from Overseas
At Fair Lunenburg, Nova Scotia on the Shores of the North Atlantic Ocean, Highway to the World, Yes, the Entire World…
Established in the last century. An initiative of the Windward Isles Sailing Ship Company, Operators of the Medium Clipper Barque Picton Castle, the world girdling sail training ship, and John Edelman, Managing Marine Factotum
