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Lexington - 3/18/17. 9° 56'. south. 129°. 21' west.



It is my turn in the barrel again. It is 1 a.m. We had a good day sailing. Winds were a tad light but satisfactory. We started to take down our twin head sails but the wind picked up a little so we reversed what we had done and kept the twin head sails up. It is a dark night again tonight. The moon will come up later. There are few clouds so the stars are bright. We had a little celebration tonight. It was just an excuse to have a little happy hour with a glass of wine. We are normally dry sailors but we decided to celebrate passing the 600 mile mark. So we are sailing along on a well traveled route, with excellent communication, with companion boats, with spot-on GPS positioning and charts of the whole of our travels, knowing that we are in time honored trade wind areas and we are a little anxious to get there. Can you imagine how very early sailors got along and thought. One thing I do know is that it was common practice to give each crew member a ration of alcohol each day. I am sure it varied but often they got a dram of rum each day. It would be interesting to know when they got it. I would think it may have been to help them sleep. I do not know at all it may have been given to get them thru the day. I was thinking today about how important the person in the crow's nest must have been. Crow's nest is a platform high up on the mast for a lookout position. In reverse there are small porches on the roofs of captains houses, called widow's porches or perches. From this lookout position the lonely wives would look out for their returning husbands. The more she used it the more likely she might be a widow. We look out towards the horizon and it is only about 4 miles away. A good crew member with a telescope 75 feet up the mast would have been able to see a much greater distance. Just think of the whalers who sailed along looking for whales. The lookout could cover a much greater area and thereby markedly improve their harvest. Just think of the explorers not knowing where they were or where land was. That spotter was a very important job. If you are short of water or food, you do not want to sail by land without seeing it. I have very limited knowledge but I think early sailors used a lot of signs to help them navigate. What birds are seen is a sign of how far away land is. The Polynesians in their dugout canoes used the stars and the direction of the swell to navigate. Clouds are more likely to form over land masses so that may have been a clue as well. My bet is the captain kept the crew laced with rum enough that they did not think about it as much as we do. They were glad to get three square meals a day and their ration of rum. May fair winds fill your sails with good sights from your crows nest! Bob

 


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