While in Tonga the skies were overcast most of the time, but we had only brief, light showers. That is, until our last day when we had several torrential downpours of rain. We were scheduled to be all hands on the ship by 1300. When I saw how bad the weather was, I thought we might delay our departure another day. (It wouldn’t be the first time.) However, the weather forecast was for continued bad weather for three or four days while a low pressure system worked its way through the region. So, rather than wait, we set sail knowing that we would likely encounter some bad weather at sea. I guess the Captain considers our crew to be well seasoned enough to handle whatever squalls come along.
When we set sail the First Mate, Sam, announced a few changes to the watch bill. I continued on the 8 to 12 watch which was mostly the same people I had been on watch with from Palmerston to Tonga. 8 to 12 is nicknamed the “housekeeping” watch because every morning at 8 am we start by cleaning all the living spaces below decks; in the evening we clean the galley thoroughly. As more people have become “daymen” (riggers, sailmakers, carpenter) and are not included in the watches, we have fewer people on each watch and the “domestics” chores take longer to do, especially when some of our watch have gone aloft to help change out a sail. So, on this passage we got some assistance from the daymen with domestics.
We encountered quite a bit of rain in our short passage from Tonga to Fiji. One memorable night I was on lookout from 2250 to 2350. It had rained earlier in the evening and had been threatening to rain since we came on deck at 2000. About 20 minutes after I started my lookout the rain began. It rained lightly for a few minutes, then rained progressively harder and harder as the wind increased simultaneously. The wind was driving the rain horizontally across the deck and visibility was nearly zero. I had not worn my foul weather pants, so by the time I went below at 0030 I was thoroughly saturated from feet to waist.
The last night before we arrived in Fiji, the sky was completely clear and there was no moon which made for a wonderful star gazing night. After finishing my stint of galley cleaning duty, I borrowed one of Sam’s star books, The Stars, by H.A. Rey (author of “Curious George” books) and spent well over an hour learning new constellations and stars. It’s a great book and it makes things a lot easier to find. Among others, I was able to find Pegasus, Andromeda, the Lyre, Eagle and Swan.
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