We have become accustomed to our port programs that educate us of the particular country in advance of arrivals to help us learn about issues, language, history, currency, things to do.... Due to the short shore leave granted we did not get our port program and without it and coupled with the fact that we only ever see water for days at a time we had no real concept of where we were in the world which made this port very strange. We were left to explore and figure local customs out on our own and to try to figure out questions like.... "Are we still in Africa?". After our limited wi-fi in Senegal and Morocco we did find a good signal at a hotel and the majority of the student population spent our shore leave catching up with home, restocking our snack bags and a little beach time.
One thing I didn't mention in the last post is that it appears I am becoming quite relied on by the maritime staff which I really enjoy. I am being given responsibilities and opportunities not offered to many of the other student population such as replacing rungs on the ladders, splicing ropes and I seem to be tasked with most of the difficult weather, night time or time sensitive tasks aloft . One funny example...During my watch I was asked to climbed to the t'gallant with Will since it was his first time and the t'gallant needed to be gasketted. He was really scared and is terrified of heights. Even I was a little scared as it was really windy and we were rocking a lot. He asked me to finish the end of the sail for him since he wasn’t comfortable. It was easy to find where I needed to tighten all of his gaskets just by following the trail of blood he left behind due to gripping the yard so hard he ripped his cuticles while stowing the sail.
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| Picture from the t-gallant |
Talk to you from Brazil and as a Shellback!!
Easton
eleedahl@gmail.com
Shellback is the term given to sailors once they cross the Equator to advance from Pollywog status
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