The day came in fair and partly cloudy. Small sea, light southeasterly winds. Plenty tropical warm now. The decks are busy with good works. Much like the day before. Sailmaking, new planks, spar making and mysterious projects in the engine room. Navigation class on the quarterdeck at 1000 followed by noon sights for latitude at …
Winds have gone light. Should pick up in a day or two. Yards are just off square. Celestial navigators were out in force today at noon. What chance has the sun? New planks going on the quarterdeck with Carlos and Anne-Laure. Dirk has taken charge of the new royal yard. Erin and I are planning …
Once again the day came in overcast and then cleared up by midday. My guess is that has something do with a sea/air differential. Sunday at sea today. Also our first full day in the tropics in some time. New daymen have been stuck out to sailmaking, rigging and carpentry. Carpentry is concerned with making …
The day came in overcast and like yesterday was clearing by noon. Progress being made on the new royal yard. Got the taper in. Erin, Dirk, Carlos and James working on it. Gaff topsail being bent on again. Celestial navigation class scheduled for tomorrow. Having crossed the Tropic of Capricorn this morning, the Picton Castle …
The day came in overcast and cleared slowly throughout the day, becoming sunny by day’s end. Water temperature is also up five degrees Celsius by day’s end. Today we caught a 22 kilo “big-eyed tuna”. It has big eyes. Caught a second fish later but tossed it back being so small. Many birds yet about …
Picton Castle is now alongside the long narrow dock in the small port town of Luderitz, Nambia. Nice old wooden fishing vessels of the North Sea model, big stern trawlers, a massive and complicated looking diamond dredging ship, a small tug and few yachts, with sea gulls laying low in the strong winds. At the …
Yesterday afternoon the winds and sea made up strong. Sea got pretty lumpy and cross-grained; they still are pretty lumpy and confused. The ship is moving about quite a bit. Steering will give you a sweat. The more experienced and better helmsmen get to put in extra time at the wheel. Last night quite a …
ARRIVAL CAPE TOWN Just before sunrise we had the Cape of Good Hope abeam on starboard as the Picton Castle sailed north bound for Cape Town. The bio-luminescence in our bow wake and waves pulling with us was rich and magical in the inky dark. Seals came alongside to check us out. We could see …
Steaming along here making westing about 60 nautical miles south of Knysna, RSA (Republic of South Africa) which is on the bottom of South Africa and has great oysters. Not much wind but plenty ships round the “Cape of Storms” sailing east and west. And huge ones too. Plenty of bulk carriers and tankers over …
Closed with coast of South Africa about midnight. Winds went from 25 to 30 knots out of the north to 10 to 20 knots out of the south west around about the same time in short order. Got into some lumpy seas. Hove to. About 0800 this morning got going again, conditions moderated near the …
