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| Up the mast doing wiring in the Chatham Islands |
At
the Chatham Islands I had to take advantage of the last opportunity to do
alongside work until we reached Argentina- which was such a long way away that
it still seemed like an abstract concept. So I climbed to the top of the main
mast to the mast head lights where I changed the old lamp system to a new LED
lamp. This was great fun, although trying to cut and crimp wire whilst balancing
in a harness and bracing your knee against the 30mph winds is never easy!
The
Chatham Islands have around 200 inhabitants and the berth was very exposed to
the oncoming wind so after the entire ship decanted into the only pub on the
island to use the wifi for a few hours, we quickly had to move off the berth
and spend the night at anchor. I was really disappointed about this as it meant
that I couldn't do my final land run before the long stint at sea...But at
least I got some exercise climbing the mast a couple of times.
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| Bosuns Mates working on the deck house roof |
On
the first day at sea in the Southern Ocean I had to investigate the wiring of
the galley hot plate range. The heavy swell meant that I ended up sitting in a
bath of lamb fat (that was leaking out of the Combi oven) and I was
periodically pelted with potatoes that kept flying out of the bucket on the
wash board above my head. In fact, I spent a large amount of time working in
the Galley in the first week at sea and it was commented on that I spent nearly
as much time in their as the cooks assistants! But there just seems to have
been a steady stream of galley jobs; water boiler lever, galley lights, fridge
lights, oven wiring, toaster element.....All in a days work ;-)
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| Working in the fridge |
We
had new years (hogmany) at sea and I started looking back over 2013. I
realised that I started it in the middle of the Indian Ocean and now I'm going
to finish it in the middle of the Southern Ocean! In between I have been in the
Andaman Islands and India, Wales, London, Scotland, Canary Islands, Azores,
Malta, Southampton, Vietnam, Denmark, Helsinki (Finland), Australia, Tasmania,
New Zealand and the Chatham Islands....Not bad for 365 days really! :-)
Shortly
after the spate of galley jobs I spent 4 days marching through big services on
all four engines (2 generators and 2 main engines)- one a day, interspersed
with taking tours around the engine room that was enabled due to the
uncharacteristically beautiful flat weather. It is always really hard to know
what to say about the machinery in the engine room as I know that I find it
much more interesting than it probably really is so I have to try not to talk
too much! However, the crew seemed genuinely interested and pretty much every
one took a tour and asked lots of questions.
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| The Cheif and I working on the fire alarm system in the Chart Room |
The
days are started to become very routine (although my job involves dealing with
different challenges every day). All on board slowly accepted their new reality
of living in this small space in the middle of the ocean. It's a strange thing
really, but one that man has been doing since we first took to the sea. I think
the attraction to a life on the ocean is quite a romantic one. We all yearn to
get away from the complications that arise from our modern day living so the
idea of having time to simply think and stare out at the ocean or up into the
night sky is really attractive. However some crew quickly realise that doing
this for a long period time on a day-to-day basis has the secondary effect of
making you realise how small we really are in this big blue world.
It
is ironic that people say that they are “running away to sea” when, in fact a
lot of problems can be exacerbated by life on board. This is certainly showing
true for some of the voyage crew living in the fo'c'sle who came to get away
from the annoying habits of family and are instead having to live in a very
confined space with the annoying habits of their fellow crew. Maybe this
experience will give them perspective on the habits of those back home and make
them more patient.
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| Relaxing on the bow after work and looking up at the sails |
As
entertainment, some of the VC have been giving talks in the lower mess every
other afternoon. Once of these talks was given by a gentleman named JR, an
ex-para, who spoke about his involvement in a Quadrathon between Brighton and
Gravesend in the UK in the early 80s. It was amazing to hear about his training
and preparation for the event- what an inspiration! He was obviously in a
completely different league from me in terms of fitness and training, but he
stressed that his psychological preparation was as important as his long
training runs.....I will take solace in this as I do my meagre step machine
training every morning!
Long
voyages certainly change people. Usually for the better. I know that I have
become much more laid back, which is nice because I used to be a chilled out
person, but somewhere between the territorial army and research applications I
lost the ability to allow things to be out of my control. Now a days, in my off
time, you can generally find me sitting with a book or writing music. This more
relaxed world view is particularly useful when the engine room alarms go off
and I am suddenly faced with a gushing pipe or a machine that needs to be
switched off immediately....More haste, less speed, and breathe.
I
think I have mentioned before that I am one of the fire fighters on board
Nelly. Actually I am #2 in a two man team with the Bosun (Leslie, on this
occasion). We had a few fire drills during the voyage which I always enjoy. I
think its so important to practice life saving drills until they are second
nature to all involved. For one of the drills we had to don our kit and drag
the hose down into the starboard fo'c'sle. As we moved through the lower mess
smoke started to appear (signs saying “smoke were posted on the pillars” so we
had to crouch and crawl to the water tight door that had been closed to try and
contain the fire in the fo'c'sle. We used the water hose to cool the door and I
had to pump the handle to manually crack open the heavy steel door so we could
start hosing inside the fo'c'sle. As I pumped the door more and more, Leslie
spotted a casualty lying on the floor. It was life over limb so I ducked under
Leslie's hose and dragged the casualty out by her ankles and back through into
the lower mess. I started to pump the water tight door shut again in an attempt
to contain the fire and save the ship before we took the casualty back up to
central command at the main mast, where the Medical Purser took over. The drill
continued as we were asked to enter a second time to do some boundary cooling
and continue to fight the fire from the outside. We then mustered the whole
ship and simulated an abandonment to finish off the exercise. It was great to
go through all the motions and pumping the door reminded me of the first time I
ever wore a BA (fire fighting) kit...
I was 13 years old and
on my first RAF cadet camp in RAF Brize Norton. We were taken to see the RAF
fire fighters and they chose me (the smallest girl there) to put on all the
kit. Once I was kitted out they told me to run to the other end of the hanger
and back. So I did. They were all so shocked that I could do it that they
didn't tell me that they were joking until I had run back puffing and panting
in the summer heat of the hanger!
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| Fire Drill (I'm on the left and Lesley, the Bosun, is on the right with the hose) |
On
one of the (many) occasions during the voyage when I had to do a 250hrs service
on one of the generators I found an unfortunate blockage in the oily bilge
pump. I discovered this when the Port generator decided to throw up on me
instead of allowing me to pump dirty oil out of it's sump into the bilge pump
pipe. Of course the pipe flew off with the pressure and the resulting spout of
oil went down the front of my overall so that the oil ran down my chest,
stomach, leg and eventually pooled inside my right boot...Nice.
In general, things for the first half of the Southern
Ocean were just “swell” i.e. The ship was constantly rolling! The sea swells
were enormous with long fetches that Nelly fitted into perfectly! It made walking around (and doing
anything) involve pin-balling off the bulk heads so we were all covered in
bruises and exhausted from not being able to sleep as Nelly attempted to throw
us out of our bunks on each rogue wave.
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| Working with the Bosuns Mates in the sail locker |
I spent a couple of days involved in lots of little “5
minute” jobs that ended up taking me most of the day (due to lack of spares or
added complications) and this is always really frustrating. These jobs included
a leak in the AC system, a fault on the fire alarm sounder wiring and a broken
light switch. The AC system involved cutting and grinding out a new pipe
connection, cutting new hose and re-fitting the system. The fire sounder wiring
fault took a day of fault finding, checking all the fire alarms and bells, and
achieved the square root of zero as everything continued to work fine but the
fault light always re-illuminated about 30 minutes after resetting the alarms.
The faulty light switch involved a 2 hour search for parts that turned up
nothing useful and I ended up re-wiring the whole thing with a plug and socket
from the lamp itself as I didn't have anything else I could use!
On the 16th January I had (another) birthday
at sea. But this was different. This was my 30th birthday.
30 had always been a big milestone for me and I had a
“list of things to do before I'm 30”
pinned to my wall since the age of 14. As it happens, I have accomplished 80% of
the list! Which isn't bad considering; a) what was on there and b) that I have
been adding to it in the last couple of years. I spent the evening of the 15th
January wallowing in self pity because, well, I'm not exactly where social expectations would like me to be at
the age of 30. (Sorry mum, still no grandchildren on the horizon)....But then I
thought about it and decided that no-one expects to be on a tall ship in the
middle of the Southern Ocean, surrounded by Albatrosses on their 30th
birthday! Actually, I'm pretty lucky and I've experienced some amazing things
in my life that I wouldn't have missed for the world.
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| Surrounded by Albatrosses |
As it happened, the day itself was really productive in
the engineering department (once I got over the embarrassment of the crew
singing at me during morning “smoko”). After a morning of “bitty jobs” I
successfully re-wired the engine room fire alarm (which had been an issue for a
few days) and then I identified the fault in the internal phone system and got that
working too....Happy days!
So....here's to the next 30 years!...
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| 2 days after my 30th birthday- at the top of the fore mast in the middle of the Southern Ocean doing some more wiring |
Life
on board can easily become monotonous especially for the watch keepers. (It is
less so for us engineers where every day is a new challenge with new broken
things and different maintenance to do). However, JST is run for the voyage
crew so we have a couple of tricks up our sleeves to add interest and
excitement into long voyages. One particularly involving game is the “murder
game” where everyone is given a person to murder, a murder weapon (random
object) and a place. Unfortunately my schedule meant that I completely failed
to carry out a murder before I was killed myself (on the aft staircase, with a
hair dryer) but the game played on for a good 5 days before a single victor
could be named! On top of this we have had regular sea shanty sessions, the
famous “egg drop” competition (where watches have to design a case that they
can put an egg in, and throw from the top of the mast as far as possible
(within the ship) without breaking the egg) and various card games etc. On
top of this we had weekly Sunday services and celebrated every birthday,
anniversary, day that ends in “y” that occurred to keep up morale and have an
excuse to eat cake! (….So much for my “pre MDS diet”....Ah!) Actually, I was
amazed to discover that the two married couples on board both met on previous
Nelly voyages (as one couple celebrated their 18th wedding anniversary
and their 20th anniversary of when they met)....Very cool.
After
35 days at sea we were all settling in for another evening on board Nelly with
a quiet anticipation knowing that the next day we would be crossing the
infamous Cape Horn when suddenly over the
tannoy we hear “Land Ahoy!” For a second nobody moved. Disbelieve. Not wanting
to hope. We had all become desperate to feel solid land under our feet and to
be let up from the incessant rolling of the Southern Ocean Swells so even a
distant sight of land would be amazing....There was a sudden rush up the stairs
into the frigid air to follow the line of pointing fingers. The Captain had
sighted it first.
I
had just got out of the shower but I still raced into the chill to glimpse the
most amazing “grey blur” I had ever seen! ….Land....Running along a dirt
track...New Zealand seemed
like a different lifetime and even the Chatham Islands a distant memory. Was it really only 35
days ago?
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| CAPE HORN! |
I
woke up on the morning of the 1st February to find an empty bar and
walked up on deck (as I do every morning) to see Cape Horn off our Starboard
beam....And, if you believe it, we were completely becalmed! It seemed
completely unreal standing in a t-shirt with a cup of tea in hand and staring
at the illusive Cape Horn from a Tall Ship
that was wallowing on a Southern Ocean that could have been called glassy apart
from the long swells that caused Nelly to continue to roll in a lazy manner.
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| Nelly´s chart table at Cape Horn |
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| Nelly becalmed at Cape Horn |
We
took advantage of the calm ocean to carry out a man-over-board drill. It was
great to get out in a little boat again and going through the man-over-board
routine made me really nostalgic for the RNLI lifeboats that I work on back in
the UK.
But, it was lovely to be off the ship for a bit (even if it was to get into a
smaller boat). We took the opportunity to take some photos of Nelly alongside Cape Horn which have come out really well. Plus it meant
that, whilst Marcin (the 2nd mate) was taking the photos I was able
to helm the boat and put her alongside Nelly.
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| Me at Cape Horn! |
After that I had a real giggle in the afternoon. I had to
do a quick repair on the toaster which I tried to rush through before the MOB
debrief, but in the end I did the repair half before and half after the meeting
so I forgot to tighten a couple of screws which meant that the elements dropped
down. So, when I plugged it in at the galley, it shorted and blew up a little.
I sighed and took it back to the workshop and thought nothing of it.
Suddenly the Chief comes running up to me as the Cook had
reported that his oven was off and there was no water. Then the bosun came
running up and said that the aft heads wouldn’t flush …..The Chief and I ran
into the engine room to do some head scratching and the Chief noticed that one
of the main breakers had switched off on the circuit board so everything was
easily reset and worked immediately (much to the relief of the cook who was in
the middle of preparing dinner!) It turns out that when the toaster blew up it
tripped its little breaker (which it shares with the aft heads sea water
pump….go figure) and this then tripped the main breaker on the circuit board
(for what ever reason)....*sigh*
Ofcourse all I could think of was that Nelly was saying:
“Well…if the toaster
isn't working then I don't see why I should have to do anything!”
After passing the
Cape, the calm seas and fine (if cold) weather
continued for a few days until suddenly
we were woken by the Captain announcing on the tannoy “All hands on deck, we
need to wear ship after a sudden wind change”. The day then continued as
“normal” with various things breaking (washing machine, lamps) and normal
maintenance needing to be done (bar stock check, sewage plant cleaning). After
lunch Marcin was on watch when a squall suddenly filled in bringing over 30
knots of wind on a fully canvassed Nelly! He quickly called all hands
and I followed the on duty watch onto the deck to help take down some sail and
reduce the high angle of heel produced by the gail. Whilst still letting go of
the main halyard, I heard a tannoy for “engineer to the chart room” and found
the engine room alarms sounding for a bilge alarm. I ran down to the engine
room to locate the offending bilge and (as usual) found the sail locker alarm
going.....*sigh* ….cue bilge diving.
The Chief joined
me as I pulled out numerous ladders and sails to inspect the bilge where,
surprise surprise there was no water. Once again, something had shifted in the
sail locker during one of the violent rolls and wedged itself under the bilge
alarm float.
Anyway, it was
fantastic to be back in “Southern Ocean conditions” as we continued to head
North to try and reach the latitude of 50° South. The sunsets were stunning and (whether it was our imagination
or not) it seemed to warm up again the further we went. However, the Northerly
sail couldn't last as the winds eventually turned on us and we only reached 51°
South before having to do a U-turn. We turned in light winds and fired up the
engines on the 6th February to make sure that we made enough speed
to get to Ushuaia in time for the pilot.
It was great to have the engines running again although the excitement
was soon lost as the alarms started to reappear and the noise in my little
cabin increased 50 fold. The sail down the Beagle Channel was magical.
Surrounded by wind capped mountains, green hills and little islands that I have
been reading about during my down time on the voyage. How amazing it must have
been for the first explorers to suddenly find themselves in this beautiful
landscape after the vast expanse and loneliness of the Southern Ocean.
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| Sailing through the Beagle Channel |
We arrived safely in Ushuaia after a difficult berthing was made to
look easy by our amazing Skipper. We will be here for a week carrying out well
needed maintenance before the month long sail down to the Western
Antarctic Peninsula.
I'm sorry that this blog entry is so long, but there was a lot to say
as, well, I just sailed the Southern Ocean and crossed Cape
Horn in a tall ship!! :-)
...What a long, strange trip it has been!
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| First night run in Ushuaia |
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