Among the many tasks being undertaken, all lines (ropes) are being replaced, which is an immense job.
On Carrie's boat, Qingdao, she's been busy at work doing her part. In fact, she's doing more than her part.
I don't know how many times I've looked over and noticed that it was Carrie who was doing something productive while a group of men stood around her being useless. Here she's refurbishing a winch while several men of her crew try to figure out if she's doing it right. She's done many, they've done none, and yet they insist on "helping."
I stepped over onto her boat to add to the confusion and she grabbed my camera from me.
In the end, though, it was her hands getting greasy while the rest of us just watched.
In this week I've spent three separate days attending day-long classes in the three specialties I've been assigned; boat engineer (engines, generators, water makers, toilets, etc.), video photographer (schooled in how to compress and download videos while at sea to meet sponsors demands), and here, in the photo below taken in a classroom, radar.
This was a fascinating class, where we used two PC's to simulated both a radar screen and boat functions to operate in realistic conditions in the English Channel and used our radar's software to predict probable collisions to calculate the best evasive maneuver.
Back on my boat, the other RTW's (Round The Worlders) worked on other aspects of the boat and rigging. There's enough to do to keep us busy a month but we'll wrap it up to depart Gosport on Monday, two days away. We'll do a bit more in Liverpool for a week before the actual race start but here it's easiest where we have all the tools and supplies we need.
This blog entry marks a transition of sorts. Tomorrow morning I'll put into storage whatever I'm not taking on the boat and whatever I've not thrown or given away. This includes my laptop. From now on, then, my blog entries won't contain any photos. What ever I post will be just by text from the boat limited at-sea internet capabilities or from some internet cafe in various cities.
There'll be official websites with pictures and even video (of which I will be behind the camera most of the time) but it will be generic in nature, not personal from me.
This is it, then, in a sense. Being such a visual kind of person, I can't imagine communicating without images, but I've got no choice for the time being.
Good night.
