Sort of.
Got most of my gear packed up and it all fits in my old seabag! I made the seabag during the last stretch from Bermuda back to Lunenburg when I was last sailing on the Picton Castle.
My plan is to check the seabag and carry an old cloth backpack on the plane. That will have the absolute bare essentials so that I could still join the ship even if the seabag goes awol. I am flying Westjet so that isn't really a concern, unlike another "Nationally Named" Carrier I could mention.
The tricky bit of the packing was clothes. It is currently really hot in Toronto where we will be starting but who knows what it will be like after we get out into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. I really only need three sets, work clothes, general and travel clothes, and a nicer set to wear if I have to go ashore, and not look like a ruffian from the docks, heh. All that fits in a very small space.
Biggest amount of space taken so far is my foul weather gear it just doesn't fold up very small. I'm also carrying my old rubber boots just in case of cold water, they'll probably never leave the bottom of my seabag.
So tomorrow afternoon my little adventure starts. It'll be fun to just get on the plane and leave all the FB\News\Social madness behind for a couple of weeks.
Updates as I can wrangle them.
Thanks for reading.
KJ
P.S. The current plan is to get the ship ready to leave on the 21st planning to arrive in Lunenberg Sept 1st or 2nd. Between the time I get there on the 17th and the 21st the ship will be involved in some filming which will be interesting to be in on.
Atlantic Rollers
Showing posts with label Packing and Preps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Packing and Preps. Show all posts
Monday, August 15, 2016
Sunday, August 7, 2016
Off to Sea Again
Well.
It has been almost 8 years since I last headed out to Sea on the Picton Castle.
Now I get to go on another passage on this fine Barque.
Two weeks ago I got an email from Maggie, who keeps the administration of the ship moving smoothly, looking for crew to help sail the ship back to Lunenberg.
Thinking about it for all of 4 hours I jumped at the chance!
So on August 16th I'll fly to Toronto to join the Picton Castle for her trip down the St Lawrence and back to Lunenberg.
I've rebuilt my little netbook "EEEbin" with a new OS and have started packing my seabag.
This post will be the start of a new chapter on this blog.
I'll try to write something everyday and, like last time, I'll update when I get a chance.
Wish this old sailor luck in getting my sea legs back!
As always thanks for reading
KJ
It has been almost 8 years since I last headed out to Sea on the Picton Castle.
Now I get to go on another passage on this fine Barque.
Two weeks ago I got an email from Maggie, who keeps the administration of the ship moving smoothly, looking for crew to help sail the ship back to Lunenberg.
Thinking about it for all of 4 hours I jumped at the chance!
So on August 16th I'll fly to Toronto to join the Picton Castle for her trip down the St Lawrence and back to Lunenberg.
I've rebuilt my little netbook "EEEbin" with a new OS and have started packing my seabag.
This post will be the start of a new chapter on this blog.
I'll try to write something everyday and, like last time, I'll update when I get a chance.
Wish this old sailor luck in getting my sea legs back!
As always thanks for reading
KJ
Friday, December 5, 2014
In Mallorca at last!
Monday, November 10th, 2008
This part was remarkably simple, no canceled flights or lost luggage just a little trouble finding my shuttle
driver at Palma airport.
After a stunningly beautiful drive through Switzerland, over a high snowy pass and down into the
“lowlands” back to the airport, I boarded a Swiss Air flight and took off for the sunny south. It was with
some sadness that I said goodbye to Francois and Ursula as they have been truly wonderful hosts and
friends to this wandering sailor without a ship.
I arrived just as the Sun was setting into the Mediterranean. As we drove into Palma from the airport the
setting sun silhouetted not one but TWO sets of lofty spars. It seems that the Picton Castle has company
at the dock. So at least I know “my ship has come in”.
Tomorrow morning I will try to get me and my stuff over to get on board at last. Doesn’t seem real just
yet. Hopefully I can get squared away without too much trouble and begin trying to remember all 130
working lines on the ship :-)
Next post may be after I’m aboard or I’ll edit this one.
Thanks for reading.
KJ
Posted in Ashore, Packing and Preps | 2 Comments »
This part was remarkably simple, no canceled flights or lost luggage just a little trouble finding my shuttle
driver at Palma airport.
After a stunningly beautiful drive through Switzerland, over a high snowy pass and down into the
“lowlands” back to the airport, I boarded a Swiss Air flight and took off for the sunny south. It was with
some sadness that I said goodbye to Francois and Ursula as they have been truly wonderful hosts and
friends to this wandering sailor without a ship.
I arrived just as the Sun was setting into the Mediterranean. As we drove into Palma from the airport the
setting sun silhouetted not one but TWO sets of lofty spars. It seems that the Picton Castle has company
at the dock. So at least I know “my ship has come in”.
Tomorrow morning I will try to get me and my stuff over to get on board at last. Doesn’t seem real just
yet. Hopefully I can get squared away without too much trouble and begin trying to remember all 130
working lines on the ship :-)
Next post may be after I’m aboard or I’ll edit this one.
Thanks for reading.
KJ
Posted in Ashore, Packing and Preps | 2 Comments »
Hiccups on the route
Thursday, November 6th, 2008
So…
I’m posting this from the Terminal in Toronto where I now have to wait for another 3 hours to go to
Frankfurt because Air Canada cancelled my connecting flight to Zurich!
Hmmm… I thought it was going too smoothly.
At least the checkin agents in Calary didn’t try to send my bags off on that non existent flight. They were
waiting on the domestic carosel just as if it was planned that way. Odd thing is that they assured me they
would be checked all the way to Zurich. Blessings for small miracles I guess.
Next post will hopefully be from Switzerland on the weekend.
Thanks for reading
KJ
Posted in Packing and Preps | No Comments »
So…
I’m posting this from the Terminal in Toronto where I now have to wait for another 3 hours to go to
Frankfurt because Air Canada cancelled my connecting flight to Zurich!
Hmmm… I thought it was going too smoothly.
At least the checkin agents in Calary didn’t try to send my bags off on that non existent flight. They were
waiting on the domestic carosel just as if it was planned that way. Odd thing is that they assured me they
would be checked all the way to Zurich. Blessings for small miracles I guess.
Next post will hopefully be from Switzerland on the weekend.
Thanks for reading
KJ
Posted in Packing and Preps | No Comments »
Of Soap and Sea Water
Sunday, November 2nd, 2008
One of the things that people, shipmates and others that have spent time at sea, have mentioned is that
regular soap doesn’t work in sea water. There are several (relatively) expensive concoctions that claim to
be “sea soap” sold in yachting and outdoor stores however most of the people I’ve talkd too swear by Joy
dishwashing soap.
Unfortunately Joy isn’t available anywhere around here so I started doing some research and found that
the common element amongst all these sea water usable soaps is coconut oil.
So off to Safeway I go looking for coconut oil based soaps and lo and behold there are lots! It seems that
the trend to “organic” cleaners has meant that many soap products are now made, and proudly proclaimed
to be at that, using “natural coconut derived” oils.
But would it work in sea water that is the question.
Time for some science said I :-)
Being in the middle of the continent means sea water is a scarce commodity, google to the rescue. Sea
water is about 35g of salt per Kg of water. So, after whipping up my own personal bit of the great briny, I
tested three different dishwashing soaps, two Organic Earth Friendly ones and one generic lemon based
one. Surprisingly all three worked although of the three the one with the highest level of coconut oil (ie
first on the ingredients list after water) worked the best.
It will be interesting to see how this stuff works on real dirty clothes in real sea water. At least being
organic and “Earth Friendly” and all it’s unlikely to eat my skin if I use it as shampoo too.
On a “man this is expensive note” I filled my anti-malaria prescription…
$350.00 later !!!
Good thing I’m able to save some money on the soap :-)
Thanks for reading.
KJ
Posted in Packing and Preps | No Comments »
One of the things that people, shipmates and others that have spent time at sea, have mentioned is that
regular soap doesn’t work in sea water. There are several (relatively) expensive concoctions that claim to
be “sea soap” sold in yachting and outdoor stores however most of the people I’ve talkd too swear by Joy
dishwashing soap.
Unfortunately Joy isn’t available anywhere around here so I started doing some research and found that
the common element amongst all these sea water usable soaps is coconut oil.
So off to Safeway I go looking for coconut oil based soaps and lo and behold there are lots! It seems that
the trend to “organic” cleaners has meant that many soap products are now made, and proudly proclaimed
to be at that, using “natural coconut derived” oils.
But would it work in sea water that is the question.
Being in the middle of the continent means sea water is a scarce commodity, google to the rescue. Sea
water is about 35g of salt per Kg of water. So, after whipping up my own personal bit of the great briny, I
tested three different dishwashing soaps, two Organic Earth Friendly ones and one generic lemon based
one. Surprisingly all three worked although of the three the one with the highest level of coconut oil (ie
first on the ingredients list after water) worked the best.
It will be interesting to see how this stuff works on real dirty clothes in real sea water. At least being
organic and “Earth Friendly” and all it’s unlikely to eat my skin if I use it as shampoo too.
On a “man this is expensive note” I filled my anti-malaria prescription…
$350.00 later !!!
Good thing I’m able to save some money on the soap :-)
Thanks for reading.
KJ
Posted in Packing and Preps | No Comments »
New Toy
Saturday, November 1st, 2008
I’m writing this on a shiny new Asus EEE PC 701.
This lovely little sub notebook will be my link to all of you while I’m on my travels.
It is my one (fantastic) piece of “corporate sponsorship” donated by Tremar Computer Solutions of
Cochrane Alberta. Thank You Guys!
If you haven’t seen one of these little beauties they are about the size of a trade paperback book. This one
has an 1Ghz Intel (R) mobile processor which is underclocked to 630 Mhz for stability and power reasons.
There is 512 MB of RAM and 4 Gigabytes of solid state hard drive storage. An SD Flash card slot and 3 USB 2.0 ports will allow me to move pictures from my camera easily. It has built in wireless and Ethernet
and even has pretty good sound (actualy better than my usual laptop). It runs a custom Xandros Linux
distubution which is very nicely laid out. The screen is about 7″ across but pretty bright, I can use it
outside as long as the sun isn’t shining directly on the screen.
Here is a picture of one:
Did I mention that this is a COOL THING (TM).
So now in addition to packing and making sure all the myriad details of getting ready to leave are handled
I have to make sure I know how to make this baby do all the things I will need it to do on my travels.
KJ
Posted in Packing and Preps | No Comments »
I’m writing this on a shiny new Asus EEE PC 701.
This lovely little sub notebook will be my link to all of you while I’m on my travels.
It is my one (fantastic) piece of “corporate sponsorship” donated by Tremar Computer Solutions of
Cochrane Alberta. Thank You Guys!
If you haven’t seen one of these little beauties they are about the size of a trade paperback book. This one
has an 1Ghz Intel (R) mobile processor which is underclocked to 630 Mhz for stability and power reasons.
There is 512 MB of RAM and 4 Gigabytes of solid state hard drive storage. An SD Flash card slot and 3 USB 2.0 ports will allow me to move pictures from my camera easily. It has built in wireless and Ethernet
and even has pretty good sound (actualy better than my usual laptop). It runs a custom Xandros Linux
distubution which is very nicely laid out. The screen is about 7″ across but pretty bright, I can use it
outside as long as the sun isn’t shining directly on the screen.
Here is a picture of one:
So now in addition to packing and making sure all the myriad details of getting ready to leave are handled
I have to make sure I know how to make this baby do all the things I will need it to do on my travels.
KJ
Posted in Packing and Preps | No Comments »
Another Week down.
Sunday, October 26th, 2008
So another week has blazed by.
Just 12 days till I get on a plane and leave my current life behind.
I get an odd reaction when I sit down long enough to think about that, part fear and part excitement. It’s a
bit like when I was a kid, I’d always get this same odd feeling the last two weeks of August before heading
back to school.
Luckily I haven’t had much time for doing that kind of thinking.
Mark from Tremar Computer Solutions, who along with his team will be looking after my day job for the
next couple of months, started job shadowing me this week. I figured that would be better than hoping my
documentation was good enough that he didn’t get blindsided by anything I forgot. Turns out that was a good call.
There is an amazing number of subtle and odd details in my day to day work. Things that I do
automatically and don’t even think to write down, even when I’m trying to document a process in detail.
Working with Mark this week showed me lots of places where such details were mysteriously absent from
my documentation. Blah.
Yesterday (Saturday) was spent setting up a new mainfloor “utility room” to house our new portable
washer. I also moved a lot of junk around and tried to rationalize the layout of our living room to make
things a bit easier for Jayne while I’m away.
I also started (again) reviewing my lists of stuff. Packing will start in earnest this week. Jayne suggested I
should post a picture of everything laid out before it gets mashed into my duffel bag, just for the record.
Everybody tells me not to take too much stuff and that I can get anything I’m missing through the magic
of plastic money but my mind fixes on “6 months!” and wants me to cover every eventuality. I would end
up looking like an overloaded packhorse if I did that.
One of my clients mentioned he had a friend who went to Australia for a year and took a huge pile of stuff
but came back with a single backpack’s worth. Whenever I have traveled in the past I always took way
more stuff than I ever used or even touched so I’ll just have to be aware of that tendency. I suspect the
contrast between the pile of things to pack and the volume of space in which to pack it will help.
There is one aspect of this trip I hadn’t thought much about before now and that is preparing food for 40
people when my turn on “Galley Duty” coincides with the cook’s day off which is Sunday. So I’m
interested in any recipes for easy things to cook for 40ish people, preferably with simple ingredients or
easily substitutable ones. If you have any suggestions/recipes/ideas feel free to include them in a
comment.
Thanks for reading.
KJ
Posted in Packing and Preps | No Comments »
So another week has blazed by.
Just 12 days till I get on a plane and leave my current life behind.
I get an odd reaction when I sit down long enough to think about that, part fear and part excitement. It’s a
bit like when I was a kid, I’d always get this same odd feeling the last two weeks of August before heading
back to school.
Luckily I haven’t had much time for doing that kind of thinking.
Mark from Tremar Computer Solutions, who along with his team will be looking after my day job for the
next couple of months, started job shadowing me this week. I figured that would be better than hoping my
documentation was good enough that he didn’t get blindsided by anything I forgot. Turns out that was a good call.
There is an amazing number of subtle and odd details in my day to day work. Things that I do
automatically and don’t even think to write down, even when I’m trying to document a process in detail.
Working with Mark this week showed me lots of places where such details were mysteriously absent from
my documentation. Blah.
Yesterday (Saturday) was spent setting up a new mainfloor “utility room” to house our new portable
washer. I also moved a lot of junk around and tried to rationalize the layout of our living room to make
things a bit easier for Jayne while I’m away.
I also started (again) reviewing my lists of stuff. Packing will start in earnest this week. Jayne suggested I
should post a picture of everything laid out before it gets mashed into my duffel bag, just for the record.
Everybody tells me not to take too much stuff and that I can get anything I’m missing through the magic
of plastic money but my mind fixes on “6 months!” and wants me to cover every eventuality. I would end
up looking like an overloaded packhorse if I did that.
One of my clients mentioned he had a friend who went to Australia for a year and took a huge pile of stuff
but came back with a single backpack’s worth. Whenever I have traveled in the past I always took way
more stuff than I ever used or even touched so I’ll just have to be aware of that tendency. I suspect the
contrast between the pile of things to pack and the volume of space in which to pack it will help.
There is one aspect of this trip I hadn’t thought much about before now and that is preparing food for 40
people when my turn on “Galley Duty” coincides with the cook’s day off which is Sunday. So I’m
interested in any recipes for easy things to cook for 40ish people, preferably with simple ingredients or
easily substitutable ones. If you have any suggestions/recipes/ideas feel free to include them in a
comment.
Thanks for reading.
KJ
Posted in Packing and Preps | No Comments »
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