By Chelsea McBroom April 30th, 2014 My bunk leapt and rolled beneath me and I tried to adjust my sleeping position to keep myself wedged and still. The wind howled through my porthole. I felt the slam of a wave against the side of the Picton Castle and water splashed up, through the porthole and […]
By Chelsea McBroom April 27th, 2014 On my first day ashore with Picton Castle‘s port watch, I left the café, having finished my delicious fruit smoothie and walked down the street to the fresh market. This island, Vava’u, is where our shipmate Vai is from and her grandmother and aunt were selling their handmade baskets
By Chelsea McBroom April 21st, 2014 Supposedly the Picton Castle has crossed the date line but the Captain decided we wouldn’t change our dates or times until we are anchored at Tonga. Perhaps by doing this he thought his birthday would be skipped but he couldn’t fool us. Lily cooked on her day off and
By Chelsea McBroom April 20th, 2014 The Picton Castle couldn’t sit around waiting for the wind to pick up, so we motored for a couple of days, with fore and aft sails, until we found enough wind to carry us to Tonga. The day came and hands were called to go aloft and loose. The
By Chelsea McBroom April 19, 2014 Starboard watch was taken back to the Picton Castle and switched once more with port watch so they could be ashore on Palmerston another night. Because the ship had hove to, two people had to be watching the deck at all times, so we were put into pairs and
By John Kinley, apprentice April 15th, 2014 It was a dark and stormy night. The crew of the Picton Castle was restless as the anchor chain cranked and rattled in the hawse pipe. The anchor’s fragile grip held our bulky ship in the lee of the small atoll of Palmerston on a narrow strip of
By Captain John Beebe-Center April 15th, 2014 Sometimes you just know. Being at anchor at Palmerston Island presented some logistical challenges – primarily because one goes from no sounding to a coral reef in about 200 yards distance. The out fall of the lagoon and the prevailing Easterly breezes are what keep an anchored ship
I was delirious with exhaustion and hesitant to go ashore at Palmerston Island after our night of heaving up the anchor aboard the Picton Castle. The ship was hove-to, like the night we arrived. We had drifted seven miles. The weather was gloomy and I could see us making a quick getaway that night if
By Chelsea McBroom April 13th, 2014 Port went ashore to Palmerston Island while starboard stayed on board to continue with a day of ships work. Melbourne, a man from Palmerston, came by asking if we had any soap to spare and so I brought him a bag full of bars to take back. Some locals
By Chelsea McBroom April 12th, 2014 The Picton Castle sailed to Palmerston Island quicker than expected. The winds reminded us of the Roaring 40s and all we needed to sail with to get us to five knots were the topsails, the foresail, the inner jib and the main topmast staysail. The Captain originally planned for
