Donald Church: The Legend Returns

4/9
The crew is gathering, the weather is warming, and the ship is out of the water. As the scheduled date of departure approaches, our work days are carried out with increased buzz. The galley is being prepared for the arrival of star-cook, Donald, flying in from Grenada. Finn, the winter engineer, has been busy getting the engine room and all its systems into premier form and ready for the voyage engineer to take over.
We are hauled out in the local shipyard, and as soon as the yard crew has finished painting our hull we will be back in the water, preparing for the arrival of the trainees and up-rig, the great salty jig-saw puzzle.

Kolin, Myself, Shackle on the ride to the shipyard
Shackle, Kolin, Mike, Myself and Nadja under the bow, the last night in yard.

All of us again, plus Amanda (front and center).

4/15
Donald is here and we are happy. For lunch: chicken wings, fries, and cheeseburgers. For dinner: ribs. It is good to have the chef back. Donald, chief morale officer.
All winter we’ve been taking turns each day preparing meals, and it hasn’t been bad, but there’s a reason we’re hired on as deckhands and not cooks. Shackle makes good burgers, and I will occasionally make fried chicken, but more often than not we serve up frozen pizza, or Hamburger Helper, or a box of carbohydrates and sodium courtesy of the culinary oracles at Kraft. It is good to have Donald back.

Donald

My whole body is sore. Our work week has had a growth spurt, and we now are working from 8 am to 6 pm at least, and on Saturdays too. It is good, though, because there is so much yet to be done, and time is becoming a keen adversary. We all want to get this ship ready in time for our May 17th departure for Ireland. Everyone is working hard. If there are any grumblers, they thankfully have the good sense to keep it to themselves.
Excitement builds on another front as well, as we all are planning a prom in honor of Finn, who had been studying hard for his GED, and wrote the test last month.
He knows the party is happening, but is in the dark as to just how big of a party it will be. Most of Lunenburg is involved. Epic would be an accurate word for the scale of the planned evening. Biblical might be a stretch, but I am withholding judgment until afterwards. We have all been raiding Frenchy’s consignment stores for formal wear. Should be fun.

Last month I went back Stateside to see about getting my AB Sail certification. I passed the exams and did everything they asked of me, and returned home to the Picton Castle with great satisfaction. Then yesterday I talked to an evaluator at the Coast Guard regional exam center in Boston and he told me I needed to get my Lifeboatman’s rating to complete the AB Sail, something I was twice told was unnecessary. I was furious. I still am, a bit, because I have neither time nor dime for the $900, five-day course and practicum required, and I spent nearly $1500 in travel and expenses to get the AB Sail, something I would not have pursued had I been told about the lifeboatman requirement in the first place. Furthermore, all the work and money spent will be for nothing, as the exam and all expires in a year. I obviously will not be back in the country within that time. I got screwed; I’m pissed.
It says something about the mess of the process when a sailor can come in, prove to be competent, pass all the exams, yet cannot seem to navigate the misinformed maze of paperwork and requisites. I have no problem jumping through hoops, but please don’t change the course after I’ve already crossed the finish line. How am I supposed to know what I need when the evaluators don’t even know?
(rant over)

On a positive note, the weather is unbelievable. The nights have been clear and crisp, forwards to warm sunny days with blue skies, with a fresh sea-breeze kicking in around 1400 or 1500 every day.

4/17
Shipyard work is done. We’ve overhauled the sea-cocks and through-hulls, the bottom has been coated with fresh anti-fouling paint, and we even dropped the anchors and flaked out all 800 feet of chain for some love and affection. Today they lowered us back into the wet stuff.
I would have loved to have been in the gear-house as the cradle was lowered by massive machinery. Giant links of chain, easing away our end, was payed out by unseen gear and motor. We couldn’t see the big wheels turning in the gear-house, but as each link inched out, it was accompanied with a round of timpani hammering, “ka-chunk a chunk a chunk.”
Then, with everything confirmed sound, the lines were cast off and the Picton Castle found herself once again in the familiar waters of Lunenburg Harbor.
Though we have had much work done, and the engineers have been busy, the main engine is still in the process of having the rings changed on each of its seven pistons, so we made way to and from the dock by tow. Coming into the cradle was a cinch. Conditions were perfect. Coming out was a bit trickier. A breeze had picked up out of the southeast, and was setting is onto shore at nearly two knots. We had bee planning on returning to the dock port side to, but the wind was uncooperative. Our Captain, salt of salts and smooth as Bing, told Mike, the 2nd Mate, to drop the port anchor. He did, the anchor bit, and the Picton Castle pirouetted gently against the dock, starboard side to. It wasn’t the original plan, but it was a perfect docking, and an excellent example of the level of seamanship all of us hope to attain.
We finished out the day with some overdue dockside work. As I was chipping rust off an anchor, Captain came by, took my chipping hammer, and, gripping it in both hands, attacked the rusty patch in rapid-fire assault. With the rust disintegrated, he handed the hammer back with the statement, “Go to it with violence, Ben.” Later, when I was sanding fair a freshly cut t’gallant yard, he took my sand paper, vigorously scoured the spar sending up a mushroom cloud of sawdust, and handed it back and said, “use compassionate aggression.”
At supper we were joined by Nobby, Picton Castle’s senior engineer emeritus and his wife and two children. Boy, age: three. Girl, age: baby.
Sitting around the salon table, eating the turkey dinner Donald had prepared for us, making faces at the baby and laughing at the boy’s stories and funny way of speaking, and genuinely enjoying each other’s company, I realized what a happy family we have here. We all are excited for this year. It is a good crew, and a pleasure to be a part of it. And it makes the long work days a hell of a lot more fun, too.