So we finally made it to Shanghai. The passage over was a little longer than expected, and more than one catastrophic event happened, I think there was almost one for every day at sea! The first morning out I noticed that the anchor had loosed itself and was hanging inboard by the lifelines....oops, good thing it was the windward anchor and not the leeward one which would have fell into the water instead of the boat.
Then, the stove broke... so we rigged it up with a fire-bucket over the stove pipe so it would stop blowing itself out, although I think that even after that it still isn't cooking quite right and Katie and Gillian are most likely beyond frustrated, but they are putting on a very good face!
Then, forestay broke...I was actually on watch for this too, and it wasnt the forestay exactly, it was the bail (big 1-2in steel ring) that snapped in half. I was standing back in the stern as per usual, and we heard something and notice the main gaff jump, we all immediatly looked up and couldn't find anything wrong, even under scrutiny of the binoculars, but no wonder we couldn't find anything, we were looking at the wrong part of the ship. It was waaay up forward the stay that holds the masts forward that had come down and was now trailing along in the water. Jordan finally noticed about an hour later as he went aloft to untangle a flag halyard on the foremast. That took a bit to fix, and we couldn't go anywhere in the meantime, we had to back off our engines and just heave to while we rigged up some temporary forestays.
Then there was the maze of fish boats and deep seas to navigate through. We were all on watch for a part of this. My top numbers where more than 60 boats visable to me on deck, plus another 20-30 being monitored electronically! Did I mention this was all in the middle of the night! The fish boats where especially scary beacause they didn't really pay attention to anything like right of way or collision regulations, they would just dart out in front of you in all directions trailing nets, to boot.
Then, the hydraulic lines broke, I was actually asleep for this, but Bonice's long will attest to all the mess than this made.
Now, just so you don't all think that I am a lazy but...I was sleeping because I was sick and so exhausted I couldn't function anymore. I left Okinawa with a mild sore throat that went away, but the next day it started developing into more of a chest infection and then a head cold and then standing watch for four hours in the middle of every night eventually just took it all out of me. So it was a good thing that Jordan was able to stand watch for me that night. But don't feel sorry for just me, all the crew had been sick to some degree or another on that passage.
Now I am in Bejing, after leaving Shanghai last night on the overnight train. Today I saw the Forbidden City (beautiful and just as elaborate, and intricately overdone as Verasaille, or at least it kind of reminded me of that) Tiananmen Square, some shopping markets, the night market (where we bought dinner) the Bejing Opera, and tomorrow we are off to the Great Wall. Highlights of the trip were definately the hot shower that I go to have today (first shower since the bath house in Okinawa, and no China has no such thing...)
But really its a lucky thing we got here at all. I hadn't been into Shanghai yet, between trying to rest and ships keep the first day and half in Shanghai, so I let other peopl buy my tickets and arrange hostels... that'll teach me for not taking responsibility for my own travel arrangements. We ended up going the wrong way of the metro, finding the right way (which turned out to be the wrong way, and we should've gone to the first way) because we ended up at the wrong railway station, and had to book it in a taxi to find our train, and then make it with minutes to spare, pheww! sigh of relief.
Lessons learned:
1) always wear shoes to the head (Jose...)
2) always bring your own toilet paper
3) be prepared to detach street vendors from your person if you don't want to buy what they have offered
4)Chinese beer tastes like "Perrier Natural Springs"
5)if you go months in flip flops, your feet will change shape, and your runners won't fit, and then you will get blisters, so bring bandaids....
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