A Day in the Life

[aggienaut]

   Day 19: Still no days off in sight. However Knuckles' brother, whom we've dubbed "Fingers" (which will no doubt be a surprise to him), arrives soon to join the crew and maybe then we'll start getting days off.
   Today we were just scheduled for crew training, ie no tours and no sails with passengers. We had revielle at 0830, did chores, unloaded about $1000 of food supplies from a sysco truck into the boat, and then it was around 1000. It so happens that apparently we'd been invited to tour the local oil spill response ship, the W C Park Responder. So several of us (and several from the Lady crew) went over there at this point (reasoning it was reasonably nautical as to count for "training"). Fortunately for my curse solemn vow <href="http://emo-snal.livejournal.com/131197.html">not to go ashore, the vessel is, of course, afloat.
   Said oil spill response vessel was really neat but then myself and the rest of the Lady crew that was on the tour had to hurry back to the Lady for an ed sail. That's right, the Lady. My boat had no sails today but the Lady did, and as I still have nearly no experience with ed sails and it's my job to lead them on our boat I was voluntold to accompany the Lady out on hers.

   Sail was fun. Did as much as I could to observe my counterpart Aaron's ways. Aaron is... flamboyant. In as not gay a way as flamboyant can be. It works well for entertaining the kids but... I am not Aaron. I feel like the organization rather wishes I were Aaron, but I very clearly am not Aaron. I think I'm rather the underdog here ;)

   Aaron knows a ridiculous amount about the finer details of 18th and 19th century so I decided to ask him my cannon question (ie many many in the tallship community insist that every gun aboard a ship people want to call a cannon rightfully ought to be called a "gun" and never a "cannon"). I was actually rather surprised when he responded "I DON'T KNOW!!! I too have noticed that in all contemporary sources they're called cannons!!!" If someone brings up the gun thing to me again I might have to throw down the gauntlet and demand they cite a source.

   Three hours later we return and I return to my boat to find... they've been "standing easy" for "hours!" By which I mean two people are to be found loafing about but everyone else has run for shore on liberty. We're not "stood down" but only in as much as everyone still needs to return for end of the day muster and official stand down. I go off somewhere else and everyone takes the day off?! Rude!

   This evening Knuckles (the cook) brought out the bbq grill (I guess that makes us buccaneers eh?). The steak was absolutely delicious. I went back for seconds, and thirds, and fourths... and fifths and sixths until it was all gone (I made sure no one else wanted any more before repeatedly ravaging it).

   Sometime a bit after dinner I returned to the Lady to learn shanties with Aaron and drink rum. After doing a bit of singing I've determined ... I think I'm absolutely godawful at it. Me singing sounds like someone saying a sentence in a loud and vaguely vaguely singsong manner. Moar rum can probably only improve upon this.

   Then Aaron and Lady pursar Beth (i_id) wanted to watch Dr Who. I'd never seen this show and my first inclination was to flee because the fandom of it I've seen on the internets has often frankly scared me. However I thought I'd give it a chance. It was an episode about a future space colony on the back of a giant space whale. Really I don't have any particular complaints with it and thought it was delightfully quaint the way they conjure up that 60s sci fi feel by putting rotary phones on space stations and things ... but I still think the fandom is fucking scary and I'm not about to go all fanboy about it.

   Walking back down the dock to the Chieftain, I regarding it fondly as it pitched and rolled happily in a set of rolling swells that had come in and thought about how I'll miss the pitching and rolling when I'm off. The pier lights cast a sepiatone glow on everything and a light rain was falling, as I walked along the dock to the 19th century looking vessel I call home, and I felt rather pleased about all of this.

Picture of the Day

Pony waits for the next shot to line up.

Another picture from the battle sail on Saturday.
I uploaded a number of pictures from that day onto flickr today

   Tomorrow we sail for Sequim, WA, a place which is apparently rightfully pronounced "squim" (yes as in "skwim"), sail which should only take 3-5 hours under sail. The day after that Aaron and I apparently both have a meeting in Seattle. Someone from the organization will be driving us the two hours there and back.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Around $800.

[(Anonymous)]

Between $600~$1,000.

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

Oh, you haven't seen the scary part of Who fandom until you've spent time at Gallifrey Base. There are places I will not go, and this is one of them. I'd spend a day reading 4chan before going to GB.

"The Beast Below" was okay, but Who has had far better stories in its time, and far, far better Doctors than the current piece of soggy string in the role. The 9th Doctor was, for me, something monumental; the 7th, meanwhile, was (by the end of his run, anyway) pretty much the biggest bastard in the universe (something that got amplified in the subsequent novels, after the series was once more canceled.)

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Gallifrey Base?

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

Gallifrey Base is what became of the discussion forum part of Outpost Gallifrey when OG shut down the site. OG's forums were widely regarded as the most obnoxious, contentious, and flat-out disgusting examples of Whovians. GB has pretty much picked up the torch and offers the same experience.

Amazingly enough, a number of writers for Who in various of its form go there. They generally get their livers eaten by the denizens, though, and I have no idea why they'd tolerate the behavior (indeed, some don't, and have abandoned the place in disgust.)

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

"Gallifrey" I'm assuming is something in-universe?

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

Gallifrey was the Doctor's home planet. It was destroyed prior to the revival series, although, this being Who with its peculiarities and all, this was actually the second time it was destroyed -- it was destroyed previously in the BBC 8th Doctor range of books, about halfway through the series, though the last book of the range provided something of a solution to that issue...in time, of course, for the planet to be destroyed in an all-out war between Time Lords and Daleks (of which only small parts have been depicted.)

One thing about Who -- and this is wisely something Russell T. Davies, who revived the series went with -- is to avoid putting much thought into the continuity. This is what drives so many fans insane...whether it's Dalek continuity, the UNIT dating issue (this is a real pinhead angels thing), how old the Doctor actually is (currently supposed to be 907, but that means he lost a few years somewhere as he was over 1,000 years old at one point), Earth History...well, yaknow, at some point you have to chuck the baggage overboard or else forward progress stops because of dead weight. That's meant chucking all the boon continuity, too...for the second time.

And, yes, I know far too much about this. Comes from having been around to see the very first episode broadcast in 1963.

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

I'll have to do some poking around and see if I can't find you citations of some kind on the cannon vs. gun issue. I've seen breakdowns of complements on various ships that refer to numbers of guns, rather than cannon, with specifics (bow gun, forward gun, aft gun), but I've also seen reference to cannon as well.

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

It's Wikipedia, but, even so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_artillery

In naval vernacular the word "cannon" is never used to describe naval guns.

But of course there's also this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_artillery_in_the_Age_of_Sail

...which rattles on about cannon.

Naval Artillery

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

The "naval artillery" page seems entirely about modern naval weaponry, I wonder if they mean MODERN naval guns are never called cannons. Which is something I'd agree with, I wouldn't call the guns on a modern battleship cannons. And that might explain the misconception -- some guys came into tallships from the navy with "they're never cannons!" drilled into them and just wildly assumed the same was true for historical weaponry. Hmmmm

[beki.livejournal.com]

Ever notice that if you look at the word Sequim, it phonetically spells mucous backwards?

Yeah, I know, I am weird.

I thought you were going to be sailing in to Seattle around the 30th? Or am I just confused?

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Yeah from 04/30 to 05/02 and then again for longer at the end of June. See also: http://www.historicalseaport.org/store/ship-dates.php

[elvenforever.livejournal.com]

That's a fabulous picture -- I love it!!

[mummimamma.livejournal.com]

the important thing when singing shanties isn't the melody, it's the rhythm, so I bet you'll do fine.

[wyldemusick.livejournal.com]

Hey, if I can hack my way through a solo four-part performance of "Poor Old Horse" I sure our lad here would be fine with the backup.

And that's indeed the point of the Shanty...work rhythms. I've heard many a performance of many a shanty, and by god you'd not call even the lead a particularly good singer/ Voices that could cut steel pipe, oh yes, but that's what it calls for.

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

What ho that's what they'll get!

[technophobe1975.livejournal.com]

I love Doctor Who, and have done for years, but the fans can get pretty scary!

[pouncing-tiger.livejournal.com]

Awesome Pics!

I'z a Who fan too. =)