The Picton Castle has sailed from Bali bound for Reunion Island across the Indian Ocean. After 12 days at anchor in Benoa Habour with the crew spread out across the island exploring, no doubt there are some stories to tell about our times in Bali. Some of these stories will find their way onto our […]
The sea has been a sheet of sheer calm for the past few days. It is so unperturbed, so unruffled, that it acts like a mirror – reflecting the clouds, sun, moon and stars and creating an illusion that we are sailing through the sky and not over a great ocean. The only wind we
What started out as a discussion between Paul and Nadja (about auctioning off the overflowing lost & found bin) hatched an idea which grew up to be bizarre. A Bizarre Bazaar that is! You see, we keep a lost & found tote in the salon. People inevitably leave a book on the foc’sle head when
Light winds has been the lot of the Barque Picton Castle of late. We have been motoring along here in the Timor Sea off the north side of Australia for seven days now, ever since Cape York, the top corner, hot too, 39c hot, that’s 100F. I cannot believe that we have been motoring almost
Last August, while Picton Castle was anchored at Summerside, Prince Edward Island, we were approached by film maker Susan Rodgers who asked if she could make a short film about the ship and about people following their dreams. We quickly agreed. I’ll admit I haven’t thought much about the film again, until I saw the
By Michael “Fred” Weiss We bros of the forepeak on board the Picton Castle, aka “brocave”, have been known to come up with some unique ideas. Actually that’s not true. In reality we’re just a bunch of dirty, stinky, sweaty, hard-working kinda guys trying to keep things simple. Well, we did hang up mini disco
The temperature in the Coral Sea continued to escalate. The sun bit down ferociously and we responded in turn by smothering our skins with sunscreen and wearing progressively bigger straw-brimmed hats. Captain is always telling us to wear shirts. Squalls frequently moved in on the ship with little forewarning – and provided a strange kind
We learn a great many skills on the Picton Castle. Some we expect to learn and others, perhaps not. We learn how to set sail, take in sail, furl sail, unfurl sail, brace the yards, wear ship and tack. We learn how to box the compass, how to be a good helmsmen and how to
We sailed out of Luganville Harbour in Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu on October 28th bound for Bali, Indonesia. Sailing between Cape York, Australia and Papua New Guinea through the Torres Strait it should take us approximately 3-4 weeks to find our way to that storied isle. Everybody was excited to be on our way, but it
The Picton Castle crew love to celebrate the holidays – and they do it well. Preparations for the Halloween marlinspike began on October 30th. Georgie, our party planner extraordinaire, came up with the brilliant idea of having a Halloween Twister game. Using an old sheet from the linen chest she and Alex began their furious
