04/02/12 - Tenacious

At the moment the ship and her crew are alongside in Pointe-a-Pitre. We have been here for the past 10 days doing maintenance. A number of jobs have been ticked off as complete due to the hard work of the crew. Onboard at present is a full complement of PC -minus the captain- one cadet, three BMs and a supernumerary officer of the watch, Alana!

The BMs, MVB and John West have been working furiously, they have between them put in approximately five and a half thousand stitches in the the fore t’gallant! They are both sporting nicely formed callouses.

On Wednesday of this week we had an official re-opening of the medical bay, some work had been carried out on the shelving. Neil Marshall (BM) completed the shelving and then hosted the opening ceremony. All of the crew attended the ceremony and the ribbon was cut, it was a surprise to find that inside my medical cupboards were two bottles of champagne!! The presence of this alcoholic beverage made the opening 'official’ and a great evening was had by all. Thank you, Neil!

The port side of the ship is looking fantastic as we have chipped, sanded, scrubbed and painted it. I just hope that we go port side in all of the upcoming island stop overs.

As mentioned previously we are Captain-less at the moment. Our notorious Captain Barbara has been given four days local leave to rest as she has been onboard for a longer period than expected. She is due to arrive back today.

The temperature is varying from 28-30 degrees with intermittent heavy rain showers, these showers were not welcomed when the ship’s side was being painted!

Our daily views consists of sail by viewings of our ship by interested sailors, bright blue sparkling water, clear skies (mostly) and tall palm trees surrounding the ship, it’s a pretty cool place to be...

Over the next few days, we will be bending on the fore T’gallant and fore upper topsail, so early mornings are to be expected, wahoo!

I hope everyone is enjoying the rain, snow and cold weather at home. If you're not? Come sailing!!!!

Ronan Ging                         Alana Russell-Gear
Medical Purser                   Soon to be Bosun!