By Kate “Bob” Addison Wednesday June 5, 2013 It’s Wednesday night here in Rarotonga and there are just a few stars peeking out from the black black sky. The day was a big muggy, but now it’s cooler and quite lovely, though still warm enough to be in shorts and t-shirt on deck. I’m perched …
Editor’s note: Apologies for not keeping you fully up to date in the Captain’s Log. We’ve wrapped up the South Pacific Voyage and are just beginning the Aloha Polynesia Voyage which will see Picton Castle sailing entirely within the Cook Islands, offering our award-winning sail training program while we deliver cargo and passengers between the …
By Kate “Bob” Addison Thursday May 9, 2013 20-25’S 159-08’W Picton Castle is sailing along, steering full-and-by the wind, which is an east by south Force 4. We’re 60 miles NE of Rarotonga, our home port and also the final port of this seven month South Pacific Voyage. The plan is to arrive soon after …
By Kate “Bob” Addison We have a well-used expression on the ship that something is very “Tuesday”. Tuesday being the vanilla of weekdays. Not traumatic like a Monday or fabulous like a Friday, just run-of-the-mill, routine and rather dull. Well, today is a Tuesday and on board Picton Castle our daily ship routine rolls along, …
By Kate “Bob” Addison Thursday morning sees Picton Castle still pushing to get easting in this favourable weather window. Our position is 19-02’S, 171-09’W and the day is bright and sunny. The wind is a very agreeable 20 knots just to starboard of dead astern and we’re braced almost square, running downwind at a steady …
By Kate “Bob” Addison Position 18-40’S 173-1’W, and we’re motor sailing in fair winds to get as far east as possible before we lose these favourable winds and the more usual SE’ly trades resume. We even had some sunshine today, though it’s a bit rolly. We got up this morning in Tonga on Thursday May …
By Kate “Bob” Addison I went with Captain and Tammy to the market yesterday, and we were invited back to one of the ladies’ (Betty) houses to see some tapa cloth that she had made. Tapa is amazing stuff, like South Seas wallpaper, it’s the thickness of a few sheets of paper and comes in …
By Kate “Bob” Addison We sailed from Samoa to the Vava’u Group of Tonga (at the northern end of about 400 miles of islands) and, after a three day passage, we arrived on Tuesday morning. The week has just flown by. The country, one of the last absolute monarchies left in the world, is made …
By Kate “Bob” Addison American Samoa is a very cool place. We are told it it culturally homogeneous with Independent Samoa (formerly Western Samoa), but the USA influence in American Samoa is clear from the golden arches of McDonalds to the huge Ford trucks that everybody seems to drive. Many of the people I spoke …
By Captain Daniel Moreland and Kate “Bob” Addison We sailed into American Samoa from Palmerston Atoll in the Cook Islands, about 490 miles to the SE. A light winds passage but sweet enough and under sail every inch until right up to the bay’s entrance. We put into Pago Pago, Tutuila, pronounced “pungopungo”. Pago lies …
