a tradition on tall ships when two or more come into the same anchorage - raiding parties!!! must be a throwback of the days when this kind of ship was used by pirates!
soren larsen spent their last day in port vila yesterday and as a consequence it was our last chance to raid them! but before we could they tried to get us first at 10:30pm... good thing we were watching for them because we caught them before they got even close, hid below the bulwarks where they could not see us and douched them with water when they tied on. they came with the intent of toilet papering our rigging, they didn't get a single square out! we managed to toss a couple of them back into the water, set their dingy afloat and made them swim after it... nice thing was they did bring us a bottle of wine with the words "from Nick and Dan with Love" written on it. still, their raid was a total and utter failure!
then came our turn, at 2:30am. we rowed straight onto their bow, fully expecting to get caught... we figured they would be keeping as vigilant a watch as we were but they had no idea we were there! so with our 3 live chickens in hand and a note saying "Alvei Chicks Rule!" I climbed up the bow, and tossed the chickens on deck! success!
then the boys showed up again immediately afterwards, they had been drinking on deck and noticed the chickens right away... this was the only error in our plan, we had hoped that nobody would notice the chickens until they were setting sail. so the guys showed up at the alvei and tried to raid us again! Still no success! Ha ha ha! we fended them off without difficulty. they were all smashed by now
ALVEI CHICKS RULE!
Monday, November 06, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
the order of things (according to Kat)
starting 30 october, 2006; 20.30 GMT
1. wake up
2. survive till 8 o'clock morning meeting (LMT)
3. survive morning meeting, too
4. express your secrets, wishes, unknown desires and other yearnings in morning meetings
5. fill the day with
a) indulging in pleasures if granted by captain
b) finding and carrying out a repair on board ships or
c) finding kat, after that: recall commands, focus, find tasks, start job, get confused, mess up, start over, finish, clean
6. do not forget to relax
7. do not despair
8. every second day you will have to attend a naughtical lesson (1 hour) in mourning
9. late afternoons and evenings are out of order (so is nr. 5a)
10. semi-order during nights
11. the order of things starts again at 7.30am LMT the following day
Gotta love that girl!
1. wake up
2. survive till 8 o'clock morning meeting (LMT)
3. survive morning meeting, too
4. express your secrets, wishes, unknown desires and other yearnings in morning meetings
5. fill the day with
a) indulging in pleasures if granted by captain
b) finding and carrying out a repair on board ships or
c) finding kat, after that: recall commands, focus, find tasks, start job, get confused, mess up, start over, finish, clean
6. do not forget to relax
7. do not despair
8. every second day you will have to attend a naughtical lesson (1 hour) in mourning
9. late afternoons and evenings are out of order (so is nr. 5a)
10. semi-order during nights
11. the order of things starts again at 7.30am LMT the following day
Gotta love that girl!
Sunday, October 15, 2006
still alive!
so i'm still alive and kicking here in vanuatu, when i started this blog i thought this would be the ideal way to keep in contact with people back home but a big problem arose early on - internet is just toooooo damn slow and expensive here in vanuatu to update my blog! so my internet usage has been kept down to bare minimum, ie: e-mails to my mother and occasionally friends. and also updating pics. but no pics the last couple months from espiritu santo (the island we are on now and have been the last couple months) because it's too slow to download my pics. so when we get back to vila in a couple weeks i'll post them then. we have been in west santo which is very isolated, with docs and dentists on board treating patients. it has been a fabulous couple months and very interesting! we are in vanuatu for another month or so, heading to australia on nov 15th, should be about a 2.5 - 3 week passage. i have enjoyed my sailing season but i am ready for it to end so that i can do normal things, like showering, laundry, going to cafe's... all the things i took for granted back home i have not been able to do for the last 7 months and i am starting to look forwards to an "easier" life. my plan now is to apply for a work visa for 1 year in australia, and stay there, work, travel, etc. etc... sorry to all those who were looking forwards to me coming home, but i'm having too much fun exploring the world!
anyways i'm using free internet at the beachfront resort in luganville because the owner has a free adsl connection, so i can finally update my blog with a bit of news.
will keep updating more from aus in december, until then cheerio!
anyways i'm using free internet at the beachfront resort in luganville because the owner has a free adsl connection, so i can finally update my blog with a bit of news.
will keep updating more from aus in december, until then cheerio!
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
much apologies...
sorry for the lack of posts, internet is prohibitively expensive here in vanuatu, but this is to assure you that i am still alive and sailing the south pacific!!! and of course, there are always loads of pics to prove the point at: http://community.webshots.com/user/zugunruhe in fact i'm uploading more as we speak. or i should say as i write. anyhoo, i'm in port vila, have been in the boonies for months where there is no electricity, no phones, and no stores. will update with stories later, but for now pics will have to do, besides, a picture is worth a thousand words, anyways, right?
Thursday, June 29, 2006
just a quick note to say i made it safe from fiji to vanuatu! now in port vila and heading to sakao tomorrow morning. won't be back online until aug. here in vanuatu for 4 months doing project MARC stuff (Medical Aid to Remote Communities).
now have hair, at least! a 1" mohawk. very cute. will post pics in aug from vanuatu! ciao!
now have hair, at least! a 1" mohawk. very cute. will post pics in aug from vanuatu! ciao!
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
I'M ALIVE!!!! It has been a long trip, 29 days at sea and a category 2 hurricane, we finally made it. I cannot explain how weird it is to go for a month without seeing land, and only once did we see another boat. We're in Suva, Fiji, until next tuesday before sailing to Port Vila, Vanuatu. We have a lot of work to do to get us ready, our steering is shot and we need sails repaired, plus buying enough food for the trip! Tomorrow I'm renting a car to drive around the island. Can't wait to explore!
Sailing is incredible, everything I hoped it would be. I absolutely LOVE it! We had 2 beautiful days sailing up the coast of NZ, from the west coast, through Cooks Pass, and then up the east coast. We had dolphins swimming on our bow for the first 2 days, which was completely magical! In the evening of the 2nd day we hit a small gale, the seas got pretty rough and I got seasick. I spent the next 3 days in my bunk, I was so sick that my only relief was to lay flat on my back. If I sat up, I puked. I tried to come up on deck but I would invariably end up laying on the bench with my head on someone's lap. It was terrible staying in my bunk for days on end, too much like being in a coffin. I barely even noticed the storm, I was so wrapped up in my own suffering. I ate almost nothing for 4 days, and drank very little water. On Saturday, the 4th day, Kat, my watch captain, flung the curtains to my bunk open at dawn and announced "Lisa, girl! You are going to eat this muesli, all of it, and you are going to stay in your bunk for 4 hours, until you have digested it. Understand?" Now, Kat is great. She has a great sense of humour, she knows everything about sailing, but she is also a very stern young German. East German, if you ask her. Anyway, I did as I was told, and spent the next 2 hours attempting to eat and the next 4 laying, digesting my food.
By the time I came out of my bunk the gale had passed, and I was so weak from the seasickness that I could barely get up the ladder onto the deck, and could only stand for a few minutes at a time before I was completely exhausted. But the seasickness passed and I felt fine for the rest of the trip! By this time we were out of sight of land, and wouldn't see it for over 3 weeks again until we were a day away from Fiji. Saturday I spent eating and resting. I brushed my teeth for the first time in 4 days.
The next day I was on watch at 8am. The seas got rough again, the wind had picked up. That days weather said a low pressure system from Antarctica was coming up from the south. I put on another layer of clothes and my foul weather gear. The weather got really bad really fast. The winds were up to 50+ knots, and the waves were 5-6 metres, and breaking over the rail onto the deck. We were standing knee-deep in water for minutes at a time. THe raim was blowing so hard into our faces that it hurt. The ship was rocking way over, back and forth, dipping the rails into the water on each side. Still quite weat, it was all I could do to keep myself seated on the bench, with my left arm hooked around the hand rail and my right hand grasping my right wrist. Kat was having the time of her life at the helm, a death-grip on the wheel, a huge smile on her face and eyes gleaming. When Evan, the skipper, came up on deck at 11:30, he immediately told us to heave-to (lock the steering). We were swinging around wildly, and the winds were even stronger. We locked down all the hatches and staggered below. Kat stayed on deck with Evan and Jared, our 1st mate. Shortly thereafter we were all told to stay below, not to come on deck for any reason. The boat was leaing over on a 45 degree angle. The deck was continuously under water and there was a real danger of being swept overboard. We sat in the galley and watched the waves break over the galley windows, 15 feet above the water line. THe storm that had hit us was actually 3 low pressure systems that had converged directly over us. Winds were up to 90 knots.
The 4 experienced sailors, Evan, Kat, Jared and Sean, stayed up on deck. The rest of us found different ways to deal with our fear. Sharky played his mandolin in his mandolin. Robert prayed on his knees for hours in his cabin, one hand folded in prayer and the other clutching his bunk for balance. 5 of us sat together in the salon, huddled on the settee eating jard of peanut butter and nutella with spoons, watching the water cascade back and forth across the skylights in the deck above us. At about 4:30pm the boat heeled way over so that we were now standing upright on the walls of the ship. Everybody froze and held their breath as the ship paused, laying at 90 degrees in the water. A very long several seconds later she heeled back to port. It was a total relief! We all knew that she could have kept going over and we would have capsized. We found out after the storm that at that moment, more than half the deck was underwater, including the base of the masts.
Minutes later Jared came crashing through the galley hatch and down the steps into the salon, hollered "Is everybody here? Good! Grab a lifejacket and stand by to abandon ship!" and ran back up on deck. We all launched across the salon, grabbed life jackets, then settled back on the settee, and waited, but we never got the order to abandon the ship. After dark when Kat shouted that Evan wanted to have a meeting with all of us. Evan looked concerned. He told us that this was one of the 3 worst storms he had seen in 30 + years of sailing. He said we should be okay, as long as we don't loose a mast. We rehearsed the emergency proceedures we had learned our first day out. Then he told us that the toilet for the duration of the storm was a bucket lashed to the bench in the tool room. Because we couldn't go up on deck, and the head is only accessible from deck, we had been using the engine room bilge as our urinal for most of the day. Our new toilet bucket was in full view of the salon, engine room and chart room, until the 3rd day when someone put a sheet up to shield it. We were to stay below, said Evan, and stay safe while the other 4 took turs on deck.
No one slept that night. The rocking of the ship, violent during the height of the storm, rolled us from one side of our bunks to the other. The only way to stay still was to wedge myself up against the steel wall of my bunk with all my clothes, blanket and pillow. During one violent lurch, 3 people were flung clear out of their bunks. Tom was ejected out of his top bunk, hit the salon table, rolled off it onto the floor, hitting the bench on his way down, and then slid across the floor to the opposite side of the boat. He's lucky he didn't break anything!
I was the only person not suffering from seasickness during the storm (apparently I had gotten it out of my system!) so the duty to cook for everyone fell on me, and Kat helped when she wasn't on deck. Cooking in the galley when the ship is rocking back and forth is incredibly difficult. The floors are varnished wood, which becomes very slippery when wet. To top it off, a bottle of peanut butter burst open and leaked oil all over the floor, turning it into an oil slick. The only way to stay put was to open a drawer on each side of my hips, wedge myself in between them, and lean on the counter to keep my balance. To get across the galley from the sink on the port side to the stove on the starboard side, it was impossible to walk. So I would hang onto the sink, wait for the boat to roll to starboard, then let go, slide across until I hit the wall, and quickly wedge myself behind the stove. Kat became an expert on the slide-and-wedge technique, and could do it with a huge pot of soup without spilling a drop. She would shout "Incoming!" at me, then slide over while I scrambled out of the way.
Chopping veggies was also a challenge, because as soon as I chopped them they would roll off the cutting board and dissapear somewhere on the floor. So veggies had to be chopped directly over the pot, knife in hand, hips wedged between drawers, then slid over to the sink to add water, then to the stove to cook them. And just to make things things very interesting, tins and jars found ways to escape their very secure storage places and become projectiles when I wasn't looking. While cooking dinner and listening to Sharky play his mandolin, a stainless-steel thermos broke free of its holder and launched itself like a missile right at Sharky's head. Sharky ducked and the thermos bonged off the wall behind him, and he never even missed a note of his song. I collapsed on the floor laughing hysterically for several minutes, sliding back and forth on the peanut-oil covered floor, completely unhinged by the stress and fear.
On the third day the storm finally dissipated enough for us to come up on deck. That morning showed us how lucky we really were. We had lost 5 sails. The inner-jib was in 3 pieces, the stay sail was missing entirely. The fore and main gaff sails were damaged but repairable. We had lost hundreds of metres of line. Ropes were all over the deck tangled together and around everything. The steering was broken, and the netting under the bowsprit was shredded. Everything below decks was soaked, including my bunk. Bilge water had splashed up the sides and soaked everything. Food was everywhere in the galley and the salon. A container full of trail mix had opened and scattered over all the ship. About a dozen milk containers were everywhere. A bottle of white vinegar had open and spilled directly into the 1st mates bunk. And of course, there was peanut oil all over everything in the galley. Evan did manage to repair the steering enough for us to get moving, and we untangled the lines, re-led line through the rigging, and took down the sails .
It took us 2 days to repair everything enough for us to continue, though we had been actually heading north during the storm, which had blown us sideways at 6.5 knots. We were all a mass of bruises and cuts, but luckily there were no really serious injuries. We found out later that the storm had been classified as a category 2 hurricane and that it had claimed the lives of 2 families on a smaller yacht 60 miles from us. If the crew hadn't been as experienced as they were we would not have made it out of the storm alive.
So that was my introduction to the life of sailing deep sea!!! The rest of the trip was great, after the storm the weather got better and we could stop the boat and swim in the warm blue sea! And during watch, late at night, Kat and I would pick out constellations in the sky and look at the milky way. I started learning the guitar, as well as all the things I need to know to sail.
Must sign off, running out of time. Tomorrow I'm renting a car with another crew member and driving around the island, very excited to go exploring! We leave in 5 days. I will try to get my pics onto the internet by then!
Ciao!
Sailing is incredible, everything I hoped it would be. I absolutely LOVE it! We had 2 beautiful days sailing up the coast of NZ, from the west coast, through Cooks Pass, and then up the east coast. We had dolphins swimming on our bow for the first 2 days, which was completely magical! In the evening of the 2nd day we hit a small gale, the seas got pretty rough and I got seasick. I spent the next 3 days in my bunk, I was so sick that my only relief was to lay flat on my back. If I sat up, I puked. I tried to come up on deck but I would invariably end up laying on the bench with my head on someone's lap. It was terrible staying in my bunk for days on end, too much like being in a coffin. I barely even noticed the storm, I was so wrapped up in my own suffering. I ate almost nothing for 4 days, and drank very little water. On Saturday, the 4th day, Kat, my watch captain, flung the curtains to my bunk open at dawn and announced "Lisa, girl! You are going to eat this muesli, all of it, and you are going to stay in your bunk for 4 hours, until you have digested it. Understand?" Now, Kat is great. She has a great sense of humour, she knows everything about sailing, but she is also a very stern young German. East German, if you ask her. Anyway, I did as I was told, and spent the next 2 hours attempting to eat and the next 4 laying, digesting my food.
By the time I came out of my bunk the gale had passed, and I was so weak from the seasickness that I could barely get up the ladder onto the deck, and could only stand for a few minutes at a time before I was completely exhausted. But the seasickness passed and I felt fine for the rest of the trip! By this time we were out of sight of land, and wouldn't see it for over 3 weeks again until we were a day away from Fiji. Saturday I spent eating and resting. I brushed my teeth for the first time in 4 days.
The next day I was on watch at 8am. The seas got rough again, the wind had picked up. That days weather said a low pressure system from Antarctica was coming up from the south. I put on another layer of clothes and my foul weather gear. The weather got really bad really fast. The winds were up to 50+ knots, and the waves were 5-6 metres, and breaking over the rail onto the deck. We were standing knee-deep in water for minutes at a time. THe raim was blowing so hard into our faces that it hurt. The ship was rocking way over, back and forth, dipping the rails into the water on each side. Still quite weat, it was all I could do to keep myself seated on the bench, with my left arm hooked around the hand rail and my right hand grasping my right wrist. Kat was having the time of her life at the helm, a death-grip on the wheel, a huge smile on her face and eyes gleaming. When Evan, the skipper, came up on deck at 11:30, he immediately told us to heave-to (lock the steering). We were swinging around wildly, and the winds were even stronger. We locked down all the hatches and staggered below. Kat stayed on deck with Evan and Jared, our 1st mate. Shortly thereafter we were all told to stay below, not to come on deck for any reason. The boat was leaing over on a 45 degree angle. The deck was continuously under water and there was a real danger of being swept overboard. We sat in the galley and watched the waves break over the galley windows, 15 feet above the water line. THe storm that had hit us was actually 3 low pressure systems that had converged directly over us. Winds were up to 90 knots.
The 4 experienced sailors, Evan, Kat, Jared and Sean, stayed up on deck. The rest of us found different ways to deal with our fear. Sharky played his mandolin in his mandolin. Robert prayed on his knees for hours in his cabin, one hand folded in prayer and the other clutching his bunk for balance. 5 of us sat together in the salon, huddled on the settee eating jard of peanut butter and nutella with spoons, watching the water cascade back and forth across the skylights in the deck above us. At about 4:30pm the boat heeled way over so that we were now standing upright on the walls of the ship. Everybody froze and held their breath as the ship paused, laying at 90 degrees in the water. A very long several seconds later she heeled back to port. It was a total relief! We all knew that she could have kept going over and we would have capsized. We found out after the storm that at that moment, more than half the deck was underwater, including the base of the masts.
Minutes later Jared came crashing through the galley hatch and down the steps into the salon, hollered "Is everybody here? Good! Grab a lifejacket and stand by to abandon ship!" and ran back up on deck. We all launched across the salon, grabbed life jackets, then settled back on the settee, and waited, but we never got the order to abandon the ship. After dark when Kat shouted that Evan wanted to have a meeting with all of us. Evan looked concerned. He told us that this was one of the 3 worst storms he had seen in 30 + years of sailing. He said we should be okay, as long as we don't loose a mast. We rehearsed the emergency proceedures we had learned our first day out. Then he told us that the toilet for the duration of the storm was a bucket lashed to the bench in the tool room. Because we couldn't go up on deck, and the head is only accessible from deck, we had been using the engine room bilge as our urinal for most of the day. Our new toilet bucket was in full view of the salon, engine room and chart room, until the 3rd day when someone put a sheet up to shield it. We were to stay below, said Evan, and stay safe while the other 4 took turs on deck.
No one slept that night. The rocking of the ship, violent during the height of the storm, rolled us from one side of our bunks to the other. The only way to stay still was to wedge myself up against the steel wall of my bunk with all my clothes, blanket and pillow. During one violent lurch, 3 people were flung clear out of their bunks. Tom was ejected out of his top bunk, hit the salon table, rolled off it onto the floor, hitting the bench on his way down, and then slid across the floor to the opposite side of the boat. He's lucky he didn't break anything!
I was the only person not suffering from seasickness during the storm (apparently I had gotten it out of my system!) so the duty to cook for everyone fell on me, and Kat helped when she wasn't on deck. Cooking in the galley when the ship is rocking back and forth is incredibly difficult. The floors are varnished wood, which becomes very slippery when wet. To top it off, a bottle of peanut butter burst open and leaked oil all over the floor, turning it into an oil slick. The only way to stay put was to open a drawer on each side of my hips, wedge myself in between them, and lean on the counter to keep my balance. To get across the galley from the sink on the port side to the stove on the starboard side, it was impossible to walk. So I would hang onto the sink, wait for the boat to roll to starboard, then let go, slide across until I hit the wall, and quickly wedge myself behind the stove. Kat became an expert on the slide-and-wedge technique, and could do it with a huge pot of soup without spilling a drop. She would shout "Incoming!" at me, then slide over while I scrambled out of the way.
Chopping veggies was also a challenge, because as soon as I chopped them they would roll off the cutting board and dissapear somewhere on the floor. So veggies had to be chopped directly over the pot, knife in hand, hips wedged between drawers, then slid over to the sink to add water, then to the stove to cook them. And just to make things things very interesting, tins and jars found ways to escape their very secure storage places and become projectiles when I wasn't looking. While cooking dinner and listening to Sharky play his mandolin, a stainless-steel thermos broke free of its holder and launched itself like a missile right at Sharky's head. Sharky ducked and the thermos bonged off the wall behind him, and he never even missed a note of his song. I collapsed on the floor laughing hysterically for several minutes, sliding back and forth on the peanut-oil covered floor, completely unhinged by the stress and fear.
On the third day the storm finally dissipated enough for us to come up on deck. That morning showed us how lucky we really were. We had lost 5 sails. The inner-jib was in 3 pieces, the stay sail was missing entirely. The fore and main gaff sails were damaged but repairable. We had lost hundreds of metres of line. Ropes were all over the deck tangled together and around everything. The steering was broken, and the netting under the bowsprit was shredded. Everything below decks was soaked, including my bunk. Bilge water had splashed up the sides and soaked everything. Food was everywhere in the galley and the salon. A container full of trail mix had opened and scattered over all the ship. About a dozen milk containers were everywhere. A bottle of white vinegar had open and spilled directly into the 1st mates bunk. And of course, there was peanut oil all over everything in the galley. Evan did manage to repair the steering enough for us to get moving, and we untangled the lines, re-led line through the rigging, and took down the sails .
It took us 2 days to repair everything enough for us to continue, though we had been actually heading north during the storm, which had blown us sideways at 6.5 knots. We were all a mass of bruises and cuts, but luckily there were no really serious injuries. We found out later that the storm had been classified as a category 2 hurricane and that it had claimed the lives of 2 families on a smaller yacht 60 miles from us. If the crew hadn't been as experienced as they were we would not have made it out of the storm alive.
So that was my introduction to the life of sailing deep sea!!! The rest of the trip was great, after the storm the weather got better and we could stop the boat and swim in the warm blue sea! And during watch, late at night, Kat and I would pick out constellations in the sky and look at the milky way. I started learning the guitar, as well as all the things I need to know to sail.
Must sign off, running out of time. Tomorrow I'm renting a car with another crew member and driving around the island, very excited to go exploring! We leave in 5 days. I will try to get my pics onto the internet by then!
Ciao!
Friday, May 05, 2006
the refit is finally done!!! everyone jump for joy! after 5 weeks of grinding, scraping, painting, welding, more grinding, more painting... etc... (you get the point), we are now ready to sail! we leave monday. and no more delays, because we have already cleared customs. so today is our last day in town to provision ourselves for the trip, the ship provides the basic 3 meals a day plus snacks, but as we have no refrigeration on board, it is mostly rice, beans, potatoes and bread that will make up our diets. today we are all buying our secret stashes of food to keep in our bunks. mine consists of:
12 avocadoes
3 bunches bananas
1 crate apples
24 mandarin oranges
4 honeydew melons
1 kilo walnuts
12 kiwi fruits
2 bags fresh garlic
4 bottles red wine
2 cases (x15) Speights beer
1 bottle rum
1 box instant coffee mix
1 box instant noodle mix
1 tub peanut butter
1 whole salami
hopefully that will be enough to keep me going for the 3 week passage to fiji! maybe i need more liquor...
sea trials tomorrow, just testing out the engine and steering and working out any kinks. then we leave first thing monday morning with the tide to fuel up and then north up the west coast of NZ for 1 week passage to cape reinga, then 2 weeks of open sea crossing to fiji!
i'm on watch from 8-12 (am and pm) every day with Kat (our uber-engineer) and tom, new crew from aus. we have been dubbed the "rigging monkeys" because we all love working aloft so much. i wear a safety harness when i'm aloft, but forget to clip in unless i'm on the t'gallant yard (the highest yard on the ship). kat is teaching me about the engine and also how to make bread, and evan (the skipper) is going to teach us all celestial navigation! this is the reward for so much hard work the last month.
my biggest contributions to the refit:
grinding the entire port side hull
scraping the hull of the ship underwater in scuba gear
tarring the rigging (the dirtiest job on the ship - at the end of the day i had more tar on me than on the ship, i looked like i had leprosy)
oh and no more pink hair - after attempts by various members of the crew to cut my hair (and make it look decent), at the end of which i looked like i had mange, jared shaved my head with his beard trimmer. and NO, i am not posting pics. i look like a fuzzy egg. i have to remember to wear a hat when it's cold because my head freezes, and also to sunscreen my entire noggin during the day so that my scalp doesn't burn.
okay, i will post pics of me bald eventually, once we get to fiji as it is my cook day and i have to feed 12 hungry sailors or there will be hell to pay!
(ps if any of my friends want to send me mail you an post stuff to the Royal Suva Yacht Club and they will hold it for me. address it like so:
Lisa Larsen
c/o Schooner Alvei
Royal Suva Yacht Club
Suva, Fiji
and it will be held there until we arrive. my mama sent me some mail and said it was 3.50 CAD to send an envelope.)
ta for now! will post again in 3 weeks from suva, fiji!
12 avocadoes
3 bunches bananas
1 crate apples
24 mandarin oranges
4 honeydew melons
1 kilo walnuts
12 kiwi fruits
2 bags fresh garlic
4 bottles red wine
2 cases (x15) Speights beer
1 bottle rum
1 box instant coffee mix
1 box instant noodle mix
1 tub peanut butter
1 whole salami
hopefully that will be enough to keep me going for the 3 week passage to fiji! maybe i need more liquor...
sea trials tomorrow, just testing out the engine and steering and working out any kinks. then we leave first thing monday morning with the tide to fuel up and then north up the west coast of NZ for 1 week passage to cape reinga, then 2 weeks of open sea crossing to fiji!
i'm on watch from 8-12 (am and pm) every day with Kat (our uber-engineer) and tom, new crew from aus. we have been dubbed the "rigging monkeys" because we all love working aloft so much. i wear a safety harness when i'm aloft, but forget to clip in unless i'm on the t'gallant yard (the highest yard on the ship). kat is teaching me about the engine and also how to make bread, and evan (the skipper) is going to teach us all celestial navigation! this is the reward for so much hard work the last month.
my biggest contributions to the refit:
grinding the entire port side hull
scraping the hull of the ship underwater in scuba gear
tarring the rigging (the dirtiest job on the ship - at the end of the day i had more tar on me than on the ship, i looked like i had leprosy)
oh and no more pink hair - after attempts by various members of the crew to cut my hair (and make it look decent), at the end of which i looked like i had mange, jared shaved my head with his beard trimmer. and NO, i am not posting pics. i look like a fuzzy egg. i have to remember to wear a hat when it's cold because my head freezes, and also to sunscreen my entire noggin during the day so that my scalp doesn't burn.
okay, i will post pics of me bald eventually, once we get to fiji as it is my cook day and i have to feed 12 hungry sailors or there will be hell to pay!
(ps if any of my friends want to send me mail you an post stuff to the Royal Suva Yacht Club and they will hold it for me. address it like so:
Lisa Larsen
c/o Schooner Alvei
Royal Suva Yacht Club
Suva, Fiji
and it will be held there until we arrive. my mama sent me some mail and said it was 3.50 CAD to send an envelope.)
ta for now! will post again in 3 weeks from suva, fiji!
Saturday, April 22, 2006
it's my day off, and thank god for that, i really need it. been working like a dog every day. the engine is put together, going to fire it up tomorrow and if all goes well we'll be going on some day sails next week around Nelson and Marlborough Sounds! finally get to do some sailing after 3 weeks of refitting the ship!
posted some pics, but have more that i have not had time to get done. as i was downloading my pics last week my battery died. bummer! so downloaded them onto jared and tiffany's laptop, which promptly cacked out and so my pics are stuck there until they get a new power cord.
setting sail for fiji pretty soon! we're very close to finished. we have all our food on board for 3 weeks, the work on the hull is complete and the sails are up. still some painting and other superficial work to be done, but aside from seeing how the engine works tomorrow we're basically ready to go.
posted some pics, but have more that i have not had time to get done. as i was downloading my pics last week my battery died. bummer! so downloaded them onto jared and tiffany's laptop, which promptly cacked out and so my pics are stuck there until they get a new power cord.
setting sail for fiji pretty soon! we're very close to finished. we have all our food on board for 3 weeks, the work on the hull is complete and the sails are up. still some painting and other superficial work to be done, but aside from seeing how the engine works tomorrow we're basically ready to go.
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Saturday, April 08, 2006
hello from New Zealand!!!
arrived last Saturday, April 1st here in NZ and a day behind in North America. whisked right away on board the Alvei and put right to work scrubbing sails and painting the hull. since then the work load has increased, we all work from dawn to dusk, monday to saturday, and have sundays off. there are 8 people on board, the captain Evan, 1st mate Jared, his girlfriend Tiffany, Kat the engineer, plus Brittney, Sharky, JP and I who are all regular crew.
so far my days are filled with painting, cleaning, welding, scraping, sewing sails, putting engine parts together with Kat, and basically doing anything required of me. tomorrow i'm climbing to the top of the aft mast to free a block that is stuck. next week i'm getting into scuba gear to scrape the hull. i have never felt more productive in my life! i'm covered in 4 different colours of paint. i have black, white, red, grey and blue paint in my hair. we all collapse into bed exhausted at 9pm and wake up at 630 for breakfast. and it feels great!!
conditions are basic. i have a small cabin to myself. to get on board you swing from a rope tied to the yards from the dock. depending on the wind and tide, this could be as little as a step or as much as a 15 foot swing 20 feet above the water. it's a bit like living in a jungle gym! the toiled (head in nautical terms) is flushed by throwing a bucket tied to a rope overboard and then pouring the contents into the head. no running water, it is operated by a foot pump. we have 2 showers on shore, none on board, so at sea all bathing will be done with a bucket thrown overboard.
getting along great with fellow crew, everyone is very friendly. made good friends right away with Brittney, who I'll be sharing a cabin with once we leave for Fiji. We all take turns cooking. Mostly rice, potatoes, and curry seasoning. Kat makes great fresh bread everyday, loaded with nuts and grains and molasses, which we scarf down because it's the best thing to eat.
running out of time. have some good pics of me working which i'll get burned onto a cd and load up onto my webshots site when i have time. beautiful and sunny today so going to lounge in the sun and read my book. taking advantage of my one day off!
we leave NZ for Fiji in 2 weeks. that's when the vacation begins. for now we just have to get the Alvei ready to sail.
arrived last Saturday, April 1st here in NZ and a day behind in North America. whisked right away on board the Alvei and put right to work scrubbing sails and painting the hull. since then the work load has increased, we all work from dawn to dusk, monday to saturday, and have sundays off. there are 8 people on board, the captain Evan, 1st mate Jared, his girlfriend Tiffany, Kat the engineer, plus Brittney, Sharky, JP and I who are all regular crew.
so far my days are filled with painting, cleaning, welding, scraping, sewing sails, putting engine parts together with Kat, and basically doing anything required of me. tomorrow i'm climbing to the top of the aft mast to free a block that is stuck. next week i'm getting into scuba gear to scrape the hull. i have never felt more productive in my life! i'm covered in 4 different colours of paint. i have black, white, red, grey and blue paint in my hair. we all collapse into bed exhausted at 9pm and wake up at 630 for breakfast. and it feels great!!
conditions are basic. i have a small cabin to myself. to get on board you swing from a rope tied to the yards from the dock. depending on the wind and tide, this could be as little as a step or as much as a 15 foot swing 20 feet above the water. it's a bit like living in a jungle gym! the toiled (head in nautical terms) is flushed by throwing a bucket tied to a rope overboard and then pouring the contents into the head. no running water, it is operated by a foot pump. we have 2 showers on shore, none on board, so at sea all bathing will be done with a bucket thrown overboard.
getting along great with fellow crew, everyone is very friendly. made good friends right away with Brittney, who I'll be sharing a cabin with once we leave for Fiji. We all take turns cooking. Mostly rice, potatoes, and curry seasoning. Kat makes great fresh bread everyday, loaded with nuts and grains and molasses, which we scarf down because it's the best thing to eat.
running out of time. have some good pics of me working which i'll get burned onto a cd and load up onto my webshots site when i have time. beautiful and sunny today so going to lounge in the sun and read my book. taking advantage of my one day off!
we leave NZ for Fiji in 2 weeks. that's when the vacation begins. for now we just have to get the Alvei ready to sail.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
this is what it's all about. well, at least until i can leave for nz...
more pictures at http://community.webshots.com/user/zugunruhe
more pictures at http://community.webshots.com/user/zugunruhe
Monday, March 06, 2006
Thursday, February 09, 2006
mama and papa will be going to mexico march 11-18 and require me to stay here and hold down the fort. (for obvious reasons my brother cannot be allowed to stay in the house alone). so i will be delaying my departure from the end of february to late march instead. which is just as well, as the snowboarding right now is f a n t a s t i c .
in order to make up some time i may have to fly from auckland to nelson to meet the alvei instead of cycling, which would take me 2 weeks. another time, perhaps...
in order to make up some time i may have to fly from auckland to nelson to meet the alvei instead of cycling, which would take me 2 weeks. another time, perhaps...
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