Nervous....

Okay, so I think I've been driving my co-workers crazy with my nervousness about my test tomorrow. During the really quiet periods when there was no one in the store, I'd walk around the store with my piece of paper that has the diagram of all the lines on the Star of India, muttering to myself. One or two people were kind enough to wish me luck. Maybe it is silly that I am so nervous about this test, but it means so much to me and passing it could offer me a world of opportunities in the future...so...I think I have an excuse. Here's one of the many diagrams that I have to know...well, fairly well, in order to pass tomorrow.

The Calm Before the Storm

Sunday. Feb. 19th. The last Sunday before The Test. I don't know why I'm so nervous about my sail training exam, but I guess it might be because I feel like so much is riding on it. Today was a breakthrough for me, and now I want to pass the exam more than ever. It started out super early, because I'm sleeping over at a friend's house to watch her dogs. The weather has been kinda bad, but I think that stormy weather is the best catalyst for beautiful sunrises and sunsets. This is what greeted me on the 73 and near Camp Pendelton this morning.



Today, the lessons were not so much on the Star of India, and more on the other ships of the museum. We had one class with Captain Chris aboard the Surprise. He gave us a run down on the history of the ship, originally known as the HMS Rose, built as a replica of a 1750s sixth-rate man-o-war ship in the British Navy. The ship was a bit of a fiasco from the start, being very badly underfunded, and spent a few years going into disrepair. She was eventually overhauled and rebuilt to meet more recent Coast Guard standards, and soon afterwards was purchased by Fox Studios for the movie "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World". Fox had to change a great deal aboard the Surprise to make her more like a British ship-of-the-line of the early 1800s. There doesn't seem to be any sense to some of the stuff that they did to that poor ship. And since I don't understand a lot of the stuff, I won't try to go into it for fear of leading you astray. Suffice to say that it seems like Captain Chris is going to be the man to run the Surprise and the higher ups of the volunteer crew are worried about the commitment of their newest volunteers regarding the Surprise. They are going to need as many people as possible to work on fixing the ship and then learning to sail it. The rigging and sail configuration of the ship are different from the Star and the Californian, which ought to make things interesting for those of us who are having a hard time learning this stuff as it is. Oh well.

Our next stop was the Californian. We were given a good run down of the sail plan on the two-masted topsail schooner and after that, a run down of the anatomy of the ship. We were then told about what will happen after the test. If we past the test next Sunday, then we are



qualified to sail, and crew. Which means, technically, that if I pass the test, then the following weekend, the first Sunday of March, I can go sailing on the Californian. Now there are a lot of us who want to do this. But there are a lot of opportunities because the Californian sails all week, all the time. If we pass, then we will be given many additional materials to learn about the details of the ship. For example, the Californian sails to Catalina and sometimes Santa Barbara, which means there is night sailing. You have to know the ropes, the pins they are belayed on, and your knots. To know them in the dark. No hesitation. So. No pressure...or anything.

The last bit of my eventful day was my networking out a bit. I made friends early on with a wonderful crew member named Anne. She has now taught me splicing and a bunch of stuff. Today, she went out of her way to introduce me to a fellow named Bob Ross, and Captain Chris. They gave me lots of tips and advice on my goal of getting a paid crew job somewhere. Also, I volunteered for Galley Duty, to clean the pots and galley after the crew had eaten lunch (today was a Maintenance Day for regular volunteers, and they get lunch on the days they come.) and I got to spend time with Swammy (David) the "grumpy old cook." He is actually pretty cool, and was happy to tell me about being a ship's cook among other things. So, now I have a lot to think about this week, and I have people who know me in the regualar crew.

One last note. The First Mate of the Star, who is pretty much in charge of the crew (outside the captains) is called Jim Davis. He is a bear. A perfect first mate. I won't go near him. He's one of those really tough guys who will only gruffly be nice to you and only if you've earned his respect. Maybe by that you have some idea of what he's like. I had several people tell me today that I had either a blessed name or that they were sorry my last name was Davis. It is a very tiny note of distinction for me. A dubious honor at best.


With luck, I will be doing the above (sailing on the Californian) in two or three weeks. Ta!

A Fateful NIght

As this last Thursday began to turn into yet another day with nothing to do, I decided to make a trip up to Long Beach. One of my stops was visiting the Queen Mary, which is currently featuring an exhibit of artifacts from the RMS Titanic. I haven't been to the Queen Mary since I was nine or ten, so I was looking forward to seeing the ship again. I started out in the Engine Room of the Queen Mary at the Titanic Exhibit. At the beginning you are given a boarding pass, and on the back is the name and info of a passenger who was on the Titanic the night it sank. Mine belonged to a 22 year old girl whose name was Helen Ragnhild Otsby, who was traveling with her father. They were on their way home from a European and North African tour, and most recently Egypt. They were both in 1st class. It also said that the pair always traveled on the ships of the White Star Line, and were looking forward to comparing the Titanic to the other ships they'd been on.

So, I began wandering the exhibit. There was all sorts of artifacts like port holes, a giant iron wrench that was all eaten away, nuts, bolts and all sorts of tools. There were pieces of jewelry, some clothing, an old leather trunk, and a lot of porcelain dishes and glasses. There was a whole display of money that was recovered, coins from all over the world and a really interesting array of paper money from various places, but mostly from the U.S., both federal and privately printed bills. The standardization of paper money in the U.S. didn't come for a couple more years after the Titanic sank. The most astonishing artifacts they had were two bottles, one of champagne and the other of an unidentified liquid. Both bottles were sealed and full.

There was a room in the exhibit that really freaked me out. It was an open room, with a walkway that went around three sides, and a smell of salt water. I glanced over the rail of the walkway....and saw a giant propeller. Some people might not know this about me, but I am terrified of depths. I have a very very hard time looking at pictures of shipwrecks or thinking about things like the Marianas Trench. The movie "The Abyss" actually didn't bother me much, but the movie "Titanic" did at the parts where they showed the ship breaking up under water and sinking into the depths. I think that it is the only thing that scares me more that spiders. I took one look at that propeller and freaked out. I stared at the wall next to me and ran through the room to the next room. This next one was only slightly better after a shock like I'd had. It was very dark, with simulated stars all over the ceiling and a giant slab of ice against one wall. You could walk up to it and touch it. It was like standing on the deck of the Titanic and touching the iceberg as it slid by.

Well, I finished up the exhibit finally and at the end was a wall with the passenger manifest, both the survivors and those lost when the Titanic went down. I found Helen Otsby on the list of survivors. Both she and her father made it back to New York. I kinda felt relieved, but still freaked out by the whole experience. When I left the exhibit and went around to the entrance for the tour of the Queen Mary, I saw that it went back down towards the engine room again. I decided to go home. My revisit with the Queen Mary will have to wait till another day. I now have a deeper appreciation for the fate of the Titanic and the folly of its creators in thinking that they could possibly conquer the sea.

Handsomely now! Ease the main royal halyard!

This sunday was the third class of Sail Training, and we are really starting to learn things now. We've been taught line handling, how to belay a line on the pin rails, how to properly coil the lines, and today, how to "fake" a line. Faking is how to lay a line out on the deck, so that it is out of the way of main foot traffic, and so that once the line is thrown off its pin, it can run free and without snagging in the blocks. It is very important to know how to do this properly, for the safety of the crew and the ship, and to be able to do it fast and efficiently, because of how fast the crew can go through an evolution (setting the sails to catch the wind and tacking).

Whilst learning the line handling, we went through an exercise. On both the main and the fore masts, the first two yards from the deck up are fixed to the masts. They can't move. But the next three yards move up and down on the masts. This allows for safely setting the sails and being able to take them in very quickly. To raise the yard, there is a chain that runs from the center of the yard, by the mast, down to the pin rails (the sides of the ship where the lines are tied off). But there are balancing lines as well, called Braces, that run from the very ends of the yard to the pin rails. To haul on the halyard to raise the yard, you have to ease off the braces, and the other way around to lower the yard. Well, our group was assigned the halyard, but two of us (myself included) were assigned to the two braces. We followed our commands and as I worked I could see the Royal yard (the highest one on the mast) rise up the mast, and back down when we were done. My counterpart on the opposite brace and I were beside ourselves with happiness, that we finally were able to do something useful on the ship. It was so cool!

The last thing I learned how to do today was to splice a line. I made a loop of line and uncoiled the three strands a bit and had to twist them back into the line to seal the loop. It is amazing how strong this really makes the line. I couldn't break the splice no matter how much force I put on it. Here are some pictures of what I did.



Next week is our last week for learning the basics of sailing the Star of India. We've been over the rigging, the sails, the anatomy of the ship, the history of it, line handling, and knots. Next week we are learning the mechanics of steering the ship, as well as how the sails and lines work on the Californian. The last week is when we have our test. Big day. I have a lot of practicing and studying to do. If I pass the test, then I qualify for the Sail Crew. This means that in July, they give everyone, no matter how many times they have sailed, a qualification test for the November crew. If I pass that, then I go into 8 weeks of intensive sail training. Since I've gone out for Deck Crew, I'll be assigned a station on the ship, and I'll have to learn all the lines of my station, what they do and how to work them. That among a lot of other jobs. That all happens 8 weeks before the ship sails in November. I can't wait. Weeeee!

Ta!

those awesome Brits!

My dear, darhling friend, Meg, and her boyfriend got tickets to see Coldplay this past Monday at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim. I managed to get my camera into the stadium, and this is the only picture that, amazingly, turned out well. I also got a video of the band playing "Yellow" and "In My Place", which shows off the band's incredible light show. Unfortunately, the bass that we could all feel replacing our heartbeats overwhelmed the mic on my camera. You can hear the music and crowd real well, but there is an annoying buzz from the bass. Too bad. Still, the show was SO worth it. I have never seen a band put on concerts the way Coldplay does.

Ta!