Pallada! Banana!

Victoria has been awesome. The big ships, Cuauhtemoc and Pallada, are truly stunning. Just feeling the enthusiasm for the boats and maritime culture from the public here has been truly rewarding. Thank you Victoria!

We spent our trip from PA with several Canadian media on board, shooting for news reports mostly. They were gracious and even helped us haul a few halyards. As expected our new sails arrived the day of our PA departure! Upon anchoring off Esquimalt, we took turns ferrying to shore for a welcome barbecue put on by ASTA and Victoria. When we weren't ashore, we were bending on sail... until midnight at least. The Lady Washington crew convinced the coastie guys with their high powered zodiacs to take them out on rides and they did doughnuts around Bill.

The next morning we weighed anchor after boarding several photographers and news reporters, then sailed around off Victoria with Zodiac, Lynx, Lady Washington, Duen, Pallada, Cuauhtemoc, and a giant modern sloop named Cassiopeia. Captain Christopher sent Shawn and I aloft to rig the main topsl before arriving into the inner harbor, so I got some great shots of the other boats (to be posted later). We spent a good 2 hours up there before realizing that our tacks were unfairly led and admitted defeat and just furled the thing. Oh well! We tried. While up there we noticed that Cassiopeia's mast had broken about 20 feet from the top, and they had bent it over and ductaped it to what was left! We heard the story later that a stay had given out during an earlier sail. Our arrival in Victoria was truly grand. Pacific Grace was next to us, also furling her topsails, and we found our dock amidst several other boats and the thousands of faces on shore. Awesome!

Eventually the Russian ship Pallada arrived, letting out its anchor and being pushed by a tug to perform a perfect docking right next to us. Pallada dwarfs the rest of us. In our part of the marina are the vessels R. Tucker Thompson from New Zealand, the Blarney Pilgrim, Talofa, Lady Washington, Lynx and Pallada.

To be continued...

Look at all the great press we're getting online!

A picture taken friday night in VIC

Someone else's blog

Peninsula Daily News

Hey Jesika - Where's da rock?

Silhouette

Port Townsend Leader

The Victoria Times Colonist

Victoria's Tri-City Herald

Fisheye Fun

I love fisheye lenses! Our guest, Roy Barnett, a professional photographer, was aboard on a Port Angeles sail taking lots of pics with his new lens...

Above: Furling the headrig. Below: Jim Rich playing for himself and the dolphins.



Above: That's Kim Carver and Shawn Jonutz doing what they do best - figuring out how to get this rig running smooth! You shoulda seen us yesterday aloft during the parade of sail into VIC, rigging topsails the entire time!

Above: our esteemed Scottish engineer "MacGregor"  Below: Nathalie, now a famous west coast chantysinger!

Here's most of the crew along the starboard rail.



What an AWESOME shot of Shawn, cowboying the fore as we douse!

From Roy Barnette - Thank You!

Aloft from midships



Passengers out of Port Angeles



Borrowed sails: AKA "someone else's prom dress"

hoops and stays

from the top left, going clockwise: Nick Williams, guest, guest, guest, Bryce Potter, Robo, and ROY!

Above is Jim, eyesplicing new lazy jacks

looking aft from the fore. Check out them Olympic Mountains!

Above is the Quarterdeck, below was a special catered dinner in the saloon.

Left Behind

Today Bill hauled out for her Marine Surveyor inspection. All crew are required to disembark as the travelift takes her out of the water, but I had a feeling someone was missing.

No, not Bryce. I knew he was in the water, shivering madly.

The rest of the crew was on the dock, standing by... but where... was....



SPIDEY! Man that kid gets around.



I wonder what Spidey's owner, Jim Gladson of LAMI, thought of Spidey's shenanigans. There's Jim below in the foreground.



And here is one  of the surveyors. JB and Shawn are asking him questions about what he's marking. Much of the very bottom of the keel is rotten. The rest looks great! I'm thinking that many of the crew will be employed by Puerto Ricans in 2 months.

Sated

Looking foreward from the main crosstrees

Looking aft at the main gaff.

Spidey hangin' with Martha



Chef Guillermo prepares tomorrow's dinner...

But above is what he cooked tonight (swordfish, roasted red pep salad and red potatoes cooked in wine and garlic!). See the crew's sated look after eating...

Spidey Hidey Hole

Above is Lady Crew "Shiny". Below are Lynx crew Kirsten and Matty

Here's Sean "Griff" hanging from a bosun's chair on the main, varnishing.





Captains JB and Michael Kellick commanding a fine vessel with morale officer Heather

Carpe Riggum!

For the last few weeks climbing our shrouds has been like a circus act gone wrong - where you're sure the guy is about to fall. We tuned the rig, took her out sailing on the Gray's Harbor bar, and after that one sail we were still spinning around wildly while climbing topmast shrouds. In the twilight hours of our last day in Westport we descended on the lanyards like a plague of flat-seizers - Carpe Riggum! That's well, belay. And we were off...

Although we were almost delayed by a TSUNAMI. The question was, go way out to sea or head for higher ground? We wanted to go out to sea and save the boat! But it wasn't necessary. The town decided not to evacuate and there were many cheers for the bars still being open. As our new crew Raff Mendez said: "You bet there's gonna be a tsunami... a tsunami of BEER inside my mouth!" 

We love our new Puerto Rican crewmembers!

THANK YOU to the Islander Hotel in Westport for wi-fi in their lobby, 15 donated hotel rooms, breakfast for all the crews! You guys are AWESOME!

Below are Lady & Lynx during their first Westport battle sail.

Yay for Mini Brigs!

New crewmember "ROBO" with Engineer Macgregor, hooking up the intercom.

OK so Natalie thought she could handle the throat halyard, with new slippery line, with Adventuress's sails bent on and creating quite a bit of tension on our rig (they don't totally fit - the peak is way high, both the main and fore are reefed, and we're pulling up the boom jaws a lot higher than usual). The line didn't exactly get out of her hands, it took her hand with it. Natalie has rope burn like you've never seen before! She's cooking one-handed. I said "Natalie! They replaced your hand with a roast!" What they should have done was replace her fingers with spatulas and whisks.

Here's Nick tending to Natalie's raw paw.

AH... the morning of the movie shoot I woke up and said "I can't work in these conditions! Where's my assistant?? I need to be dressed! Get me my Shiny!" But the movie crew didn't bring us assistants. They brought us breakfast, lunch and dinner at the top of the dock for 2 days though!

Here's Lady/Lynx cook Jesika Starr and Assistant Shopkeeper Carley Tallman before hitting wardrobe.

A beautiful Westport sunset.

The movie crew also brought lots of fake cargo to make Bill look like a merchant vessel.

And plenty of camera gear of course.

Last day in Westport: transferring an old sail up the dock. The guys are checking out a big purple starfish.

Our mate, Capt. Michael Kellick, waves goodbye to Lynx.

Baby Guns, I mean Big Guns, since he's Bosun now, poses for the camera. Bosun Shawn Jonutz shows off his new bicep implants.