Titanic "Ship of Lost Dreams" :: A La Carte Resturaunt

Titanic "Ship of Lost Dreams" :: A La Carte Resturaunt :: Picton Castle barque ~ Runboard

Titanic "Ship of Lost Dreams"
A La Carte Resturaunt
Picton Castle barque

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MurdochsAid
Lady of the Sea

Posts: 1968
Rivets: 15 (+21/-6)
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Picton Castle barque

Picton Castle

In next week's August 7-13, 2006 TV Guide, there's an article titled "Campbell's Sloop" by 4400 star, Billy Campbell.

He tells of his recent life experience as a deckhand in training aboard the above barque. Also, Campbell will rejoin the ship for its Caribbean program this winter. Go to picton-castle.com and you may see him aboard.

If you don't pick up your own copy of the mentioned TV Guide, with the CSI hot guys on the front cover...shall I go ahead and share with you Billy's already wrote experience with you guys?
emoticon

-MA

Last edited by MurdochsAid, Aug/4/2006, 8:11 am

Aug/1/2006, 6:03 pm

MurdochsAid
Lady of the Sea

Posts: 1968
Rivets: 15 (+21/-6)
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Re: Picton-Castle Barque

In Billy Campbell's own words...

Life as a deckhand was mmm-mmm good for one 4400 star. I have always needed the sea. I just never knew it until working 13 months aboard the barque Picton-Castle, which in June completed her fourth 30,000-mile circumnavigation of the planet.
    We sailed from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, our hold filled with tons of school books, clothing and construction supplies to be donated to isolated villages strung throughout the sparkling seas before us.
    Goodwill aside, the training ship is a living school of the ancient art of square-rig sailing. I was among 49 inexperienced people training as deckhands, under the keen eye of our surly, tattoed captain, Daniel Moreland. We kept watch round the clock, scrubbing toilets, scraping rust, scrambling aloft on windy, wet, moonless nights--nine stories above a rolling deck--to furl sail before it might be blown to ribbons. Squalls, seasickness, piracy, an acting career on hold: Was I afraid to go? Afraid not to, actually.
    Good thing, too. I might have missed the barefoot children. Dozens visited wherever we lay at anchor, shy at first, then dancing, singing, begging to stay. They'd return, paddling out after school to hang off the ship's sides till nightfall. Around the world, children think of our vessel as their own, and she is.
    I'd also have missed diving into a Pacific so clear it gave me underwater vertigo.
   I'd have missed the minke whale that, enticed by my fiddle, frolicked like a puppy alongside the ship.
   I'd have missed sailing into rough-hewn Pitcairn Island, where the descendants of the HMS Bounty mutineers persit. They're old friends of the captain, and family of the ship's lead seaman Pania Warren. She wept to behold her home from the deck of a square-rigger, as her forefather, Fletcher Christian, first had. Pania had been one of those barefoot kids pestering the ship on its previous visits, until the captain signed her aboard ("Just to shut her up," the Old Man says).
   I'd have missed climbing wet, weary, cold into my bunk, to find Chibley, the ship's cat, warming it for me. Then I sank to sleep as the ship, running before an African gale--decks awash, lifelines strung taut--joyously cut her way through mountainous seas.
   Whether I was bush-whacking through a Maori ruin or struggling up an active volcano, the ship was always in mind, often in sight, resting watchfully in the harbor. To step aboard was always to come home to family. Sure, no family's perfect, but there's no avoiding it on a ship. And therein lies the real treasure of a year, month, or week "before the mast" on the Picton Castle: What makes a better shipmate--serenity, hard work, good cheer--makes a happier person, and world, ashore.

~.~.~.~

Hope you enjoy reading of Billy's experience? :dol: :boat:

-MA

Last edited by MurdochsAid, Aug/1/2006, 6:50 pm

Aug/1/2006, 6:49 pm