On board STV Asgard II, thoughts

I haven't said much, yet, about how it feels to live in close quarters on a tallship. For the first three days, I spent entirely too much time wishing for shore, a proper bed, warmth, comfort, privacy, dryness. The damp gets into everything, you see, and it doesn't take very long. No matter what you wear, you're either too hot or too cold; on watch, when it rains, you get soaked - damp even in oilskins - and then the wind blows up, and if you're not on lookout you huddle in the shelter of the pilot house and try to stay out of the worst of it. But if you're on lookout in bad weather, you spend a whole lot of time hunched in on yourself, trying to trap a ghost of the memory of warmth - during my stint on Saturday, I swear I thought I'd never be warm or dry again. For a while I almost forgot what it felt like.

Ropes are hard on the hands: cold and wet ropes, harder still. Down below, once you get used to the fact that you're living here, it becomes a forest of drying jumpers and jackets, occasionally trousers too, hung up in whatever corner or pipe or line of twine will do. You're stuck in close quarters with nineteen other people, and by the end of the week the jokes are getting old, you've heard it all before, and god won't you just shut up for five minutes, you weirdo? Things feel cramped but friendly most of the time, although the casual sexism and homophobia among the boys was more than slightly annoying at times. You'd better be friends, because you've nowhere to go to get away if you're not: you know who snores, how they like their breakfast, who eats meat and who eats veg, who's in the heads and whether they shat or not. You're lending towels and hats and moisturiser and aftersun and borrowing the same, finding other people's dead socks in your bunk and falling over their shoes and dirty t-shirts. It's a world you can get from one end to the other of in less than two minutes, and even out on the tippy-tip of the bowsprit or on the yardarm you're still within call.

You try to stay on deck, because belowdecks there's no space to move, and after the second day, no clean air to breathe. The place is rank with the smell of unwashed people, sweat, feet, greasy hair, dirty clothes, cooking from the galley, damp. Down below you can lie in your bunk (no good if you feel even slightly claustrophobic) or sit at the mess table, that's it. Above, you have poop and amidships and fo'c'sle, rig and bowsprit, and clean air. It's more bearable, except when it's absolutely pissing rain and howling.

You get used to how fragile the world is, and how small, a world of wood and rope, twelve small paces across, that goes up and down constantly on the vastness of a sea where the horizon has no bounds. Out of sight of land (which, very briefly, we were) you could be the only people alive in the world, and only the loud broadcast of the Coastguard weather report lets you know you're not. You get used to being rank and manky, greasy and stinking of yourself and the ship and brass polish and the galley and the damp and nineteen other people. You get used to the constant presence of nineteen other people squashed in beside you, and you lose your sense of personal space. You grab their shoulders and tousle their hair and smack them upside the head when they get too mouthy at you, sitting leg on leg and shoulder pressed by shoulder at the mess table, hearing every fart, every belch, every snore, living in their body heat and the rank odour of all of you together, joking and arguing and eating and sleeping and working. By the third or fourth day you're a team, and it becomes strange and unnatural when you're ashore to be somewhere without at least a couple of other people from your crew at your back: you start to understand, too, why ships' crews drink together, go to the same pubs; why, in the golden age of sail, ships' crews were famous for brawling with each other.

Because it's your ship, by then. And your crew. And no other ship is a patch on her, or them.

And you start to understand, too, why sailors in the golden age of sail were a clannish lot with their customs and their preferences. Because it was an even harder, more fragile, more dangerous life then, dependent on the absolute whim of your officers and the good will of your crewmates and luck and fortune and the vagaries of the weather, isolated from family, from news, from the landbound world - it would be another universe, a kingdom unto itself.

The first any officer or crew would've known of changes to the world would be if there were flag signals flying when they came in to a harbour. Nothing before then.

After a while, the world feels odd when it's not moving, when you're moored and almost stationary beside a pier, lying in your bunk with no swell to rock you to sleep, no whoosh-THUNK-gurgle of the bow going up then down again on the waves; or when you step out onto dry land and walk oddly because you expect the deck - no, it's ground now - to move and you're braced to compensate, and, treacherously, it stays still and confounds your expectations. So you go about swaying slightly, with an odd, flat-footed canted walk, and more so when you're tired.

And we had it easy, harbour-hopping around the west and north coast. Transatlantic or otherwise serious sailing would be a different story entirely, and a much less comfortable one.

On board STV Asgard II, thoughts

I haven't said much, yet, about how it feels to live in close quarters on a tallship. For the first three days, I spent entirely too much time wishing for shore, a proper bed, warmth, comfort, privacy, dryness. The damp gets into everything, you see, and it doesn't take very long. No matter what you wear, you're either too hot or too cold; on watch, when it rains, you get soaked - damp even in oilskins - and then the wind blows up, and if you're not on lookout you huddle in the shelter of the pilot house and try to stay out of the worst of it. But if you're on lookout in bad weather, you spend a whole lot of time hunched in on yourself, trying to trap a ghost of the memory of warmth - during my stint on Saturday, I swear I thought I'd never be warm or dry again. For a while I almost forgot what it felt like.

Ropes are hard on the hands: cold and wet ropes, harder still. Down below, once you get used to the fact that you're living here, it becomes a forest of drying jumpers and jackets, occasionally trousers too, hung up in whatever corner or pipe or line of twine will do. You're stuck in close quarters with nineteen other people, and by the end of the week the jokes are getting old, you've heard it all before, and god won't you just shut up for five minutes, you weirdo? Things feel cramped but friendly most of the time, although the casual sexism and homophobia among the boys was more than slightly annoying at times. You'd better be friends, because you've nowhere to go to get away if you're not: you know who snores, how they like their breakfast, who eats meat and who eats veg, who's in the heads and whether they shat or not. You're lending towels and hats and moisturiser and aftersun and borrowing the same, finding other people's dead socks in your bunk and falling over their shoes and dirty t-shirts. It's a world you can get from one end to the other of in less than two minutes, and even out on the tippy-tip of the bowsprit or on the yardarm you're still within call.

You try to stay on deck, because belowdecks there's no space to move, and after the second day, no clean air to breathe. The place is rank with the smell of unwashed people, sweat, feet, greasy hair, dirty clothes, cooking from the galley, damp. Down below you can lie in your bunk (no good if you feel even slightly claustrophobic) or sit at the mess table, that's it. Above, you have poop and amidships and fo'c'sle, rig and bowsprit, and clean air. It's more bearable, except when it's absolutely pissing rain and howling.

You get used to how fragile the world is, and how small, a world of wood and rope, twelve small paces across, that goes up and down constantly on the vastness of a sea where the horizon has no bounds. Out of sight of land (which, very briefly, we were) you could be the only people alive in the world, and only the loud broadcast of the Coastguard weather report lets you know you're not. You get used to being rank and manky, greasy and stinking of yourself and the ship and brass polish and the galley and the damp and nineteen other people. You get used to the constant presence of nineteen other people squashed in beside you, and you lose your sense of personal space. You grab their shoulders and tousle their hair and smack them upside the head when they get too mouthy at you, sitting leg on leg and shoulder pressed by shoulder at the mess table, hearing every fart, every belch, every snore, living in their body heat and the rank odour of all of you together, joking and arguing and eating and sleeping and working. By the third or fourth day you're a team, and it becomes strange and unnatural when you're ashore to be somewhere without at least a couple of other people from your crew at your back: you start to understand, too, why ships' crews drink together, go to the same pubs; why, in the golden age of sail, ships' crews were famous for brawling with each other.

Because it's your ship, by then. And your crew. And no other ship is a patch on her, or them.

And you start to understand, too, why sailors in the golden age of sail were a clannish lot with their customs and their preferences. Because it was an even harder, more fragile, more dangerous life then, dependent on the absolute whim of your officers and the good will of your crewmates and luck and fortune and the vagaries of the weather, isolated from family, from news, from the landbound world - it would be another universe, a kingdom unto itself.

The first any officer or crew would've known of changes to the world would be if there were flag signals flying when they came in to a harbour. Nothing before then.

After a while, the world feels odd when it's not moving, when you're moored and almost stationary beside a pier, lying in your bunk with no swell to rock you to sleep, no whoosh-THUNK-gurgle of the bow going up then down again on the waves; or when you step out onto dry land and walk oddly because you expect the deck - no, it's ground now - to move and you're braced to compensate, and, treacherously, it stays still and confounds your expectations. So you go about swaying slightly, with an odd, flat-footed canted walk, and more so when you're tired.

And we had it easy, harbour-hopping around the west and north coast. Transatlantic or otherwise serious sailing would be a different story entirely, and a much less comfortable one.

On board STV Asgard II, day 2 (Inisboffin to Clare Island)

I woke before all hands call again at Inisboffin, stiff and aching from the tiny bunk. The sun came up behind the island; we set mainsail and main staysail and motored out of the harbour, then set the two lower squares, main topmast staysail, jib and fore staysail.

The wind was northeast, and the Asgard II can only sail sixty degrees to the wind. I'm not sure what the captain's plan was originally: force six, force seven winds were expected that day and evening, and I believe after that the wind was expected to swing around to the southwest. Between Donegal Bay and Rathmullen, apparently, there are no good harbours to wait out gale force winds.

Our initial heading was north, under motor and sail, with the lookouts on watch for lobster pots (very dangerous if they get wrapped around the engine prop) and other boats. Small craft warning in effect; gale force warning in effect: we all got very used to the hourly, "This is a repetition of the sea area forecast, Mizzen Head to Malin Head," sounding loudly from the radio in the charthouse. By nine o'clock the wind had gotten up; by ten people were being ill over the side again. Lunch was a miserable rocking affair: curry, which few people could eat, and the twelve o'clock sea area forecast revised expectations for longer, stronger winds.

Sometime around lunch we wore ship, I think, and headed in towards Achill Island. (I know we wore ship at one point, and it might have been the previous day. We definitely tacked Saturday, though.)

The afternoon was a miserable affair of rain and high winds and howling and trying to shout loud enough to be heard, the ship heaving first up one way, then up the other, fore and aft, port and starboard. Being miserably wet and freezing cold, and hauling on ropes, and noticing that the bosun and the engineer had run safety lines amidships port and starboard from the poop to the fo'c'sle, and needing to use them to get around, and clipping in to those lines when hauling on ropes, and trying to keep your balance in the wind and the up and down miserable heaving, and seeing water wash in amidships every time the bow whoosh-thunked down from a wave.

I couldn't give you specifics of what we did. I was too wet, too cold, too miserable, too queasy.

Around four in the afternoon we tacked ship, I think - you haul in the mainsail and the main staysail to the centre of the ship, first, then move the preventers on their booms from one side of the ship to the other. Then you tack the jib and fore staysail, make up the lines - but no time to coil the ropes: you have to run back to bracing stations and brace the squares around, otherwise the ship could get caught in irons or taken aback, which puts an unpleasant strain on the rig, apparently - and headed in for the back of Clare Island, to get out of the worst of the wind and the chop.

It took half a cold forever to come around the back of Clare Island to the quay. We didn't get in till around half five, and we ended up going in and out and in of the harbour (the captain'd thought we could berth at the end of the pier, but the ferry was still there, and not leaving, of course). At six the permanent crew sent us below to eat while they kept moving around looking for a decent mooring.

So we're all below, just finishing dinner, and we hear this shout from the engine room, "Out of gear! Out of gear! The prop's caught!" and the engine cuts out. A minute later, we hear the rattle-rattle-clunk, rattle-rattle-clunk, rattle-rattle-clunk-boom of the anchor going down to keep us from drifting onto the rocks.

Long story short: us trainees stayed below that evening, playing Scrabble and Monopoly and cards and reading - those of us who'd brought a book. Above, the permanent crew and a diver from the island got the prop uncaught - prop was fine - moored the ship on a buoy, and tried to raise the anchor.

No go. The anchor, now, was caught. So while we took it easy below, the permanent crew were at work until five in the morning, when they finally gave up to wait for low tide and daylight, trying to get the anchor uncaught (at four am, all of us foreward woke to rattle-rattle-clunk, but they didn't manage to raise it that time).

That night, we really started to notice the fact we hadn't washed since Thursday morning.

Map. We didn't go very far, all told, Saturday: Inisboffin to Clare Island is a trip of about four miles.

On board STV Asgard II, day 2 (Inisboffin to Clare Island)

I woke before all hands call again at Inisboffin, stiff and aching from the tiny bunk. The sun came up behind the island; we set mainsail and main staysail and motored out of the harbour, then set the two lower squares, main topmast staysail, jib and fore staysail.

The wind was northeast, and the Asgard II can only sail sixty degrees to the wind. I'm not sure what the captain's plan was originally: force six, force seven winds were expected that day and evening, and I believe after that the wind was expected to swing around to the southwest. Between Donegal Bay and Rathmullen, apparently, there are no good harbours to wait out gale force winds.

Our initial heading was north, under motor and sail, with the lookouts on watch for lobster pots (very dangerous if they get wrapped around the engine prop) and other boats. Small craft warning in effect; gale force warning in effect: we all got very used to the hourly, "This is a repetition of the sea area forecast, Mizzen Head to Malin Head," sounding loudly from the radio in the charthouse. By nine o'clock the wind had gotten up; by ten people were being ill over the side again. Lunch was a miserable rocking affair: curry, which few people could eat, and the twelve o'clock sea area forecast revised expectations for longer, stronger winds.

Sometime around lunch we wore ship, I think, and headed in towards Achill Island. (I know we wore ship at one point, and it might have been the previous day. We definitely tacked Saturday, though.)

The afternoon was a miserable affair of rain and high winds and howling and trying to shout loud enough to be heard, the ship heaving first up one way, then up the other, fore and aft, port and starboard. Being miserably wet and freezing cold, and hauling on ropes, and noticing that the bosun and the engineer had run safety lines amidships port and starboard from the poop to the fo'c'sle, and needing to use them to get around, and clipping in to those lines when hauling on ropes, and trying to keep your balance in the wind and the up and down miserable heaving, and seeing water wash in amidships every time the bow whoosh-thunked down from a wave.

I couldn't give you specifics of what we did. I was too wet, too cold, too miserable, too queasy.

Around four in the afternoon we tacked ship, I think - you haul in the mainsail and the main staysail to the centre of the ship, first, then move the preventers on their booms from one side of the ship to the other. Then you tack the jib and fore staysail, make up the lines - but no time to coil the ropes: you have to run back to bracing stations and brace the squares around, otherwise the ship could get caught in irons or taken aback, which puts an unpleasant strain on the rig, apparently - and headed in for the back of Clare Island, to get out of the worst of the wind and the chop.

It took half a cold forever to come around the back of Clare Island to the quay. We didn't get in till around half five, and we ended up going in and out and in of the harbour (the captain'd thought we could berth at the end of the pier, but the ferry was still there, and not leaving, of course). At six the permanent crew sent us below to eat while they kept moving around looking for a decent mooring.

So we're all below, just finishing dinner, and we hear this shout from the engine room, "Out of gear! Out of gear! The prop's caught!" and the engine cuts out. A minute later, we hear the rattle-rattle-clunk, rattle-rattle-clunk, rattle-rattle-clunk-boom of the anchor going down to keep us from drifting onto the rocks.

Long story short: us trainees stayed below that evening, playing Scrabble and Monopoly and cards and reading - those of us who'd brought a book. Above, the permanent crew and a diver from the island got the prop uncaught - prop was fine - moored the ship on a buoy, and tried to raise the anchor.

No go. The anchor, now, was caught. So while we took it easy below, the permanent crew were at work until five in the morning, when they finally gave up to wait for low tide and daylight, trying to get the anchor uncaught (at four am, all of us foreward woke to rattle-rattle-clunk, but they didn't manage to raise it that time).

That night, we really started to notice the fact we hadn't washed since Thursday morning.

Map. We didn't go very far, all told, Saturday: Inisboffin to Clare Island is a trip of about four miles.

On board STV Asgard II, day 3 (ashore on Clare Island)

Breakfast on Saturday was eight o'clock. We had cleaning stations at half nine - a damp day - and more Scrabble and cards before lunch. At that point we knew the story: we were staying at Clare Island all day because the winds didn't do the expected, the permanent crew were waiting for low tide at two to try again with the anchor, and also, they really needed some sleep.

So after lunch Donal ran us across (the RIB takes loads of six) to the pier in batches, and we had an afternoon to sightsee.

A tiny island, isolate, green and grey and hilly and windswept, but very interesting. There are about twenty-five, I think, recognised national heritage sites on the island: a bike rental place, a campsite, a B&B, a quay, a community centre, a hotel, and a Blue Flag beach.

Clare Island was one of the holdings of Grace O'Malley (Gráinne Mhaol Uí Mhallaigh) in the sixteenth century, and an O'Malley stronghold for a while before that. Still today, apparently, O'Malleys, O'Gradys, and another O (O'Day, maybe? can't recall) are the main families on the island.

You come off the quay - the hill in the background, amusingly enough, is called Glen - and on your left, you come upon a tower fort, allegedly Grace O'Malley's summer residence. It's a square blocky building of about three storeys, solidly defensible. Passages for access to the upper storeys and upper storey rooms run between the outer wall and the inner wall - it's, basically, a large square with a slightly smaller square inside it. You could get inside it: this a view of the interior looking sort of up, and this is a view of the main (only) groundfloor rooom with hearth, looking in from the entryway.

Walked with Graeme (who also wanted to find a shop) up to the community centre to inquire for directions. The others mostly rented bikes and headed to the far end of the island (6km uphill) to see the abandoned lighthouse. Graeme and Jonathon also rented bikes, and headed in the direction of the shop, 3km west towards the Atlantic side of the island. I, on foot, had a good headstart on them, and arrived on slightly behind them.

Clare Island has: sheep, cows, lambs, calves, donkeys, gorgeous fluffy friendly collies, friendly if laid-back and not too outgoing people, hills, and a green smell of ferns. That day it also had fairly frequent rain showers.

At the shop, Jonathon, who'd been to the island before and knew about a medieval church with original fifteenth-century wallpaintings, asked the (Dutch!) woman behind the counter if it was open. She said no, but ask the neighbour, he has the key. So Jonathon goes and gets the key - by this point Mike and Andrew, also on foot, have come up by us. The medieval church, beside the modern church and graveyard, is right across from the shop and post office.

this is it. It supposedly contains the tomb of Grace O'Malley. Part of it was re-roofed during conservation work by the OPW, but the bit with the wall-paintings has an original roof. The wall-paintings are red and yellow and black, hounds and wolves and deer, a harper and hunters and archers and men making war, on plaster that by some miracle has mostly survived the last five hundred years. They're somewhat fragmentary, of course, but it's astonishing they survived at all, over the walls and ceiling. There's a variant of the O'Malley coat of arms, with ships, a boar, and some other things (I would've taken pictures, but the OPW had a sign asking visitors not to), and the legend Terra Maria Potens, and beside it in the wall of the nave a canopied tomb.

Another view of the exterior. A Clare Island donkey.

Mike and Andrew and I headed back down to the quay, where we met Clare and Dee, who'd found the community centre had pay-as-you-go showers and stopped right there. So we all repaired to the community centre's tiny bar, where the cyclists joined us, and Cormac got out his accordion and Pat his concertina, the sixteen-year-olds found a dart board, and we basically took over the place until it was time to go back to the ship for dinner.

After dinner, back to the island, where the boys headed for the showers and I headed for the beach, because by god I wanted to be clean without having to pay for it. In this shot you can see most of the beach: I swam just out of the picture - well, got in, got wet, scrubbed off, and got out again, anyway. The water was wonderfully clear but goddamn fucking freezing; the wind, which had felt chill to me all day, felt warm when I got out.

After swimming, went by the showers to see if any of the boys were clean, and headed up to the hotel bar with them, where we found the permanent crew save for the captain, and all sat at the bar swaying slightly. There were twenty of us and five locals, and later on Cormac and Pat got out their instruments again and Kevin the amazing cook got out three juggling balls and did some fancy juggling tricks in time with the music.

Got back on the ship around midnight. I'd volunteered for the four am watch again, since we'd be sailing at five and I wanted to be awake before then, and I was tired enough that Ronan had to call me twice to get me up.

That was the fourth day.

On board STV Asgard II, day 3 (ashore on Clare Island)

Breakfast on Saturday was eight o'clock. We had cleaning stations at half nine - a damp day - and more Scrabble and cards before lunch. At that point we knew the story: we were staying at Clare Island all day because the winds didn't do the expected, the permanent crew were waiting for low tide at two to try again with the anchor, and also, they really needed some sleep.

So after lunch Donal ran us across (the RIB takes loads of six) to the pier in batches, and we had an afternoon to sightsee.

A tiny island, isolate, green and grey and hilly and windswept, but very interesting. There are about twenty-five, I think, recognised national heritage sites on the island: a bike rental place, a campsite, a B&B, a quay, a community centre, a hotel, and a Blue Flag beach.

Clare Island was one of the holdings of Grace O'Malley (Gráinne Mhaol Uí Mhallaigh) in the sixteenth century, and an O'Malley stronghold for a while before that. Still today, apparently, O'Malleys, O'Gradys, and another O (O'Day, maybe? can't recall) are the main families on the island.

You come off the quay - the hill in the background, amusingly enough, is called Glen - and on your left, you come upon a tower fort, allegedly Grace O'Malley's summer residence. It's a square blocky building of about three storeys, solidly defensible. Passages for access to the upper storeys and upper storey rooms run between the outer wall and the inner wall - it's, basically, a large square with a slightly smaller square inside it. You could get inside it: this a view of the interior looking sort of up, and this is a view of the main (only) groundfloor rooom with hearth, looking in from the entryway.

Walked with Graeme (who also wanted to find a shop) up to the community centre to inquire for directions. The others mostly rented bikes and headed to the far end of the island (6km uphill) to see the abandoned lighthouse. Graeme and Jonathon also rented bikes, and headed in the direction of the shop, 3km west towards the Atlantic side of the island. I, on foot, had a good headstart on them, and arrived on slightly behind them.

Clare Island has: sheep, cows, lambs, calves, donkeys, gorgeous fluffy friendly collies, friendly if laid-back and not too outgoing people, hills, and a green smell of ferns. That day it also had fairly frequent rain showers.

At the shop, Jonathon, who'd been to the island before and knew about a medieval church with original fifteenth-century wallpaintings, asked the (Dutch!) woman behind the counter if it was open. She said no, but ask the neighbour, he has the key. So Jonathon goes and gets the key - by this point Mike and Andrew, also on foot, have come up by us. The medieval church, beside the modern church and graveyard, is right across from the shop and post office.

this is it. It supposedly contains the tomb of Grace O'Malley. Part of it was re-roofed during conservation work by the OPW, but the bit with the wall-paintings has an original roof. The wall-paintings are red and yellow and black, hounds and wolves and deer, a harper and hunters and archers and men making war, on plaster that by some miracle has mostly survived the last five hundred years. They're somewhat fragmentary, of course, but it's astonishing they survived at all, over the walls and ceiling. There's a variant of the O'Malley coat of arms, with ships, a boar, and some other things (I would've taken pictures, but the OPW had a sign asking visitors not to), and the legend Terra Maria Potens, and beside it in the wall of the nave a canopied tomb.

Another view of the exterior. A Clare Island donkey.

Mike and Andrew and I headed back down to the quay, where we met Clare and Dee, who'd found the community centre had pay-as-you-go showers and stopped right there. So we all repaired to the community centre's tiny bar, where the cyclists joined us, and Cormac got out his accordion and Pat his concertina, the sixteen-year-olds found a dart board, and we basically took over the place until it was time to go back to the ship for dinner.

After dinner, back to the island, where the boys headed for the showers and I headed for the beach, because by god I wanted to be clean without having to pay for it. In this shot you can see most of the beach: I swam just out of the picture - well, got in, got wet, scrubbed off, and got out again, anyway. The water was wonderfully clear but goddamn fucking freezing; the wind, which had felt chill to me all day, felt warm when I got out.

After swimming, went by the showers to see if any of the boys were clean, and headed up to the hotel bar with them, where we found the permanent crew save for the captain, and all sat at the bar swaying slightly. There were twenty of us and five locals, and later on Cormac and Pat got out their instruments again and Kevin the amazing cook got out three juggling balls and did some fancy juggling tricks in time with the music.

Got back on the ship around midnight. I'd volunteered for the four am watch again, since we'd be sailing at five and I wanted to be awake before then, and I was tired enough that Ronan had to call me twice to get me up.

That was the fourth day.

On board STV Asgard II, days 4 and 5 (Clare Island nonstop to Greencastle)

Being clean and around mostly clean people was great, I tell you that for nothing. We headed out of Clare Island at 0500 Monday morning, scheduled to sail all day and all night and a good bit of the next day to reach Greencastle, Co Donegal, since the wind was due to come about southwesterly Tuesday night, with winds of Force 7 and 8 expected Tuesday night and Wednesday, and the captain wanted to get us in an area with decent harbours before that happened.

Also, because of the anchor problem at Clare Island, we were, let's say, running slightly behind where he would've liked us to be.

All hands call to set sails was 0600, but Monday was a boringly calm day. We had main and main staysail and fore staysail set, and briefly the two lower squares, but mostly we were under engines. Without the need to set and strike, the watches had it easy, with only cleaning stations, steering and lookout necessary, keeping an eye out for lobster pots and boats.

This is me on lookout, coming out past Achill Sound. Note the fabulous goofy-looking floppy hat. We went up Donegal Bay, passing for a couple of hours out of sight of the mainland, if not rocky islets like this one. I was on galley duty, so I got to go below and get bruised and dizzy falling around helping serve and clean up lunch (and dinner, and the next morning's breakfast, but it meant I could sleep through the night watch of midnight to four, sailing in the cold dark, so I was perfectly happy). Intermittent sun, but mostly pale cloud.

In the afternoon, we learned how to splice a rope, since Donal had to fix one of the lines they'd snapped trying to get the anchor up, and decided to make it a practical demonstration. We also were talked through what the various lines on the midships deck do, again, and on the poop.

Engineer got pissed off when the heads blocked five times that day.

That was it. Turned in after dinner, and slept well, rocked by the swell and the comforting swoosh-THUNK-gurgle of the bow through the waves. Had galley call at 0730, cleaning stations after breakfast. My sunburn had at this point started to heal, and was peeling badly; and my lips had started to get quite nastily chapped.

It was a cool day, and cloudy. Mostly under engines, but a bit of sailing up around the northwest tip of Donegal. Pictures one, two, three. Some very stark coastline.

Greencastle is on Lough Foyle (I like this picture for the lowering clouds and the windy chop: it gives you a real feel for the day). Interesting place, Lough Foyle, with headland and lighthouse and County Derry across the way. It was raining in Derry: you could see the rain falling on the hills across the lough.

Coming up on Greencastle, I got to go out on the bowsprit with Donal and Jonathan and Alan and learn how to stow the jib and fore staysail. It's cool out there, bouncing up and down, folding the sail across itself like a concertina, making straight lines and clean creases, balancing and overbalancing and grabbing on. It's hard awkward work, but fun.

Also got to help stow the main staysail, which was also very cool.

Got in to Greencastle after midday. Helped moored the ship - flaked out mooring lines so they'd run easily, etc - and helped sort out the gangway. There was fresh water in Greencastle - apparently it's Kevin O'Leary's (the ship's cook) home port (though he had an American accent), so brushes were handed out and the deck was hosed and scrubbed. Afterwards drew numbers for showers: I was number sixteen, so had time to find the shop and the rest of the town. There's not much in Greencastle: three pubs, the National Fisheries College, and a maritime museum. We brought the nightlife with us when we came and took it away with us when we left.

(I ended up with two pint glasses from the Ferryport Bar, Greencastle, even though I never went in: the bar gave them away to a couple of people who decided they didn't want them.)

In the mess, waiting for showers. You can see how small it is down there.

Most of the others were showered early and went off to see what there was to see in town before dinner. Being still there, me and a couple of the guys were drafted to help decorated a cake by the cook - it was Cormac's seventeenth birthday that day: chocolate fudge cake, with a very wobbly "Happy 17th B'day, Cormac!" on it in green and red icing and other strange abstract decorations - then had my shower: half a minute in water, turn water off, soap up, half a minute's water to rinse off. We impressed Shane the engineer, I think: twenty showers from the tank which (he said) normally only gives eight or so.

A tasty roast dinner, with fudge cake for desert (anyone who put their bowl down was asked, 'Are you finishing that?' and if the answer was 'No,', three forks would descend at once). Then I was on watch, eight till ten: the others went to the pub, and I went to my bunk, woken at half past midnight by dancing and singing and giggling as Cormac and surfer boy Kev from Lahinch and Clare came in and wobbled into their bunks (across from and above mine, respectively).

(Cormac, incidentally, was a very nice lad and a good musician, far and away one of the least annoying people on the ship even if I do think the dead socks I found in my bunk one afternoon were his: his stuff tended to spill all over the place.)

At dinner, we were told we'd be sailing at 0830 in the morning for Bangor, where the captain had booked a berth. SW winds of Force 8 expected. We were also advised that we were sailing in luxury, with showers at Clare Island, Greencastle, and probably in Bangor: some cruises had none.

That was the fifth and sixth days.

On board STV Asgard II, days 4 and 5 (Clare Island nonstop to Greencastle)

Being clean and around mostly clean people was great, I tell you that for nothing. We headed out of Clare Island at 0500 Monday morning, scheduled to sail all day and all night and a good bit of the next day to reach Greencastle, Co Donegal, since the wind was due to come about southwesterly Tuesday night, with winds of Force 7 and 8 expected Tuesday night and Wednesday, and the captain wanted to get us in an area with decent harbours before that happened.

Also, because of the anchor problem at Clare Island, we were, let's say, running slightly behind where he would've liked us to be.

All hands call to set sails was 0600, but Monday was a boringly calm day. We had main and main staysail and fore staysail set, and briefly the two lower squares, but mostly we were under engines. Without the need to set and strike, the watches had it easy, with only cleaning stations, steering and lookout necessary, keeping an eye out for lobster pots and boats.

This is me on lookout, coming out past Achill Sound. Note the fabulous goofy-looking floppy hat. We went up Donegal Bay, passing for a couple of hours out of sight of the mainland, if not rocky islets like this one. I was on galley duty, so I got to go below and get bruised and dizzy falling around helping serve and clean up lunch (and dinner, and the next morning's breakfast, but it meant I could sleep through the night watch of midnight to four, sailing in the cold dark, so I was perfectly happy). Intermittent sun, but mostly pale cloud.

In the afternoon, we learned how to splice a rope, since Donal had to fix one of the lines they'd snapped trying to get the anchor up, and decided to make it a practical demonstration. We also were talked through what the various lines on the midships deck do, again, and on the poop.

Engineer got pissed off when the heads blocked five times that day.

That was it. Turned in after dinner, and slept well, rocked by the swell and the comforting swoosh-THUNK-gurgle of the bow through the waves. Had galley call at 0730, cleaning stations after breakfast. My sunburn had at this point started to heal, and was peeling badly; and my lips had started to get quite nastily chapped.

It was a cool day, and cloudy. Mostly under engines, but a bit of sailing up around the northwest tip of Donegal. Pictures one, two, three. Some very stark coastline.

Greencastle is on Lough Foyle (I like this picture for the lowering clouds and the windy chop: it gives you a real feel for the day). Interesting place, Lough Foyle, with headland and lighthouse and County Derry across the way. It was raining in Derry: you could see the rain falling on the hills across the lough.

Coming up on Greencastle, I got to go out on the bowsprit with Donal and Jonathan and Alan and learn how to stow the jib and fore staysail. It's cool out there, bouncing up and down, folding the sail across itself like a concertina, making straight lines and clean creases, balancing and overbalancing and grabbing on. It's hard awkward work, but fun.

Also got to help stow the main staysail, which was also very cool.

Got in to Greencastle after midday. Helped moored the ship - flaked out mooring lines so they'd run easily, etc - and helped sort out the gangway. There was fresh water in Greencastle - apparently it's Kevin O'Leary's (the ship's cook) home port (though he had an American accent), so brushes were handed out and the deck was hosed and scrubbed. Afterwards drew numbers for showers: I was number sixteen, so had time to find the shop and the rest of the town. There's not much in Greencastle: three pubs, the National Fisheries College, and a maritime museum. We brought the nightlife with us when we came and took it away with us when we left.

(I ended up with two pint glasses from the Ferryport Bar, Greencastle, even though I never went in: the bar gave them away to a couple of people who decided they didn't want them.)

In the mess, waiting for showers. You can see how small it is down there.

Most of the others were showered early and went off to see what there was to see in town before dinner. Being still there, me and a couple of the guys were drafted to help decorated a cake by the cook - it was Cormac's seventeenth birthday that day: chocolate fudge cake, with a very wobbly "Happy 17th B'day, Cormac!" on it in green and red icing and other strange abstract decorations - then had my shower: half a minute in water, turn water off, soap up, half a minute's water to rinse off. We impressed Shane the engineer, I think: twenty showers from the tank which (he said) normally only gives eight or so.

A tasty roast dinner, with fudge cake for desert (anyone who put their bowl down was asked, 'Are you finishing that?' and if the answer was 'No,', three forks would descend at once). Then I was on watch, eight till ten: the others went to the pub, and I went to my bunk, woken at half past midnight by dancing and singing and giggling as Cormac and surfer boy Kev from Lahinch and Clare came in and wobbled into their bunks (across from and above mine, respectively).

(Cormac, incidentally, was a very nice lad and a good musician, far and away one of the least annoying people on the ship even if I do think the dead socks I found in my bunk one afternoon were his: his stuff tended to spill all over the place.)

At dinner, we were told we'd be sailing at 0830 in the morning for Bangor, where the captain had booked a berth. SW winds of Force 8 expected. We were also advised that we were sailing in luxury, with showers at Clare Island, Greencastle, and probably in Bangor: some cruises had none.

That was the fifth and sixth days.

On board STV Asgard II, day 6 (Greencastle to Bangor)

Breakfast at 0730, on watch at 0800. Because of Tuesday's freshwater scrub, cleaning stations weren't much on deck, and it was too damp to do brasses.

Good sailing weather, with a nice fresh wind down the lough. See this flag? It was flapping quite loudly. We set the mainsail, and the captain had Donal reef it - you reef the mainsail on the Asgard II by using a lever to roll the boom so that you wrap part of the mainsail around the boom (the boom is on a kind of pivot at the mast), and yes, slacking and hauling at peak, throat and topping lifts goes on during this - set main staysail, main topmast staysail, fore staysail, jib, topsail and course. View up to course and main topmast staysail from amidships.

We sailed around the head of Ireland, passing the Giants' Causeway - I got to steer under sail - and entered Rathlin Sound, where the tides make a current of four knots. The hull speed of the Asgard is nine knots, I was told: at lunch the captain came through the mess and said as he moved, "Ten point seven knots!"

After lunch a squall blew up: we were all on deck, and the ship had heeled right up on her port side, with her course yard only about two metres from the water, and water rushing in over the lee rail, wind howling and gusting and sails and ropes flapping, and the guys on the lee side wet up to the knee. The mate shouts, "Strike the course!" and the bosun shouts, "Strike the course!" and the freaking engineer's on deck shouting "Will ye ever fooking heave on those fooking ropes baiys!" (Cork accent) and I'm hauling on the clewline with Andrew M. tailing shouting "Two six! Heave!" because the bosun isn't and the boys on the bunts are standing with their fucking hands in their fucking pockets as though the world hasn't tipped up on its freaking side and god, boys, if the sail rips or the boat tips further or anything happens to the rig we'll be in fucking trouble then, won't we?

So we get down the course and strike the jib and the main topmast staysail, and the world goes back to being only moderately bouncy. (Apparently the wind gusts reached fifty knots and the ship was making thirteen knots at one point.) It was an interesting few minutes. Because we've struck the course, Donal gets us to get out the fore topmast staysail, and we rig it on the foredeck, ropes whipping around, us bouncing and wobbling and clinging and everything feeling quite dangerous, thank you. Run it up its proper stay, and then the burst of hectic activity - sailing is periods of boredom interspersed with manic activity - can die back to normal operations; ie, lookouts and watch, since the captain's on the wheel.

Crazy stuff there for a while, though.

After things calmed down a bit and we headed round the top of Antrim (see pictures one and two - sadly, my last exposure) with the Mull of Kintyre less than twenty miles away and Rathlin Island. Then we turned south, and I stuck my head into the charthouse to find out where we were (a bit above the top of Lough Lagan, I think). Donal took pity on my interest and demonstrated navigation by GPS, longitude and latitude, and radar. Apparently the US can turn GPS off any time they feel like it, and did on Sept. 11, which worried a lot of ships, so the backup method when near land is to find the shape of a headland or island by radar and match it to the chart.

The afternoon was fairly lazy. Was off watch after lunch, so apart from the interesting moments in Rathlin Sound, or when hands were needed on ropes or bracing stations, which was seldom, a bunch of us just sat on the lockers around the doghouse and enjoyed the day. The sun came out, and spray would occasionally wash inboard and wet us, and for a while we were told to make sure we clipped our harness to something unless we were moving about.

The evening was hard work. Had dinner, then on watch, and then during the watch we came into Bangor, needing to strike and stow sails and flake out mooring lines on deck (long zigzag coils) for ease of use. Lost the button on my trousers when on the foredeck hauling down the fore staysail, and spent the rest of the time using my safety harness to help keep my trousers up. Didn't go up the mast, although I wanted to: I went in the RIB to the quay to help the mooring from there.

We moored at Bangor pier beside another tallship, a privately-owned schooner by name Ruth out of Penzance, and had ourselves an audience for stowing the sails (sitting on the bowsprit to stow sails, still hard work, still fun), including an American woman who wanted to know everything. Then set up the gangway (the long gangway rather than the short one, and wasn't that fun to go up and down of, with a drop of a couple metres at low tide) and re-stowed the fore topmast staysail in its bag on the quay.

It was after ten pm before we got shore leave, with a curfew of 0030. I just walked out to find a payphone and back: nice people in Bangor, especially the guy in the Salty Dog pub at the end of the pier who gave me friendly directions: thanks, man, you saved me getting lost. Very much a pretty town in the neat British-seaside-resort mode, though, although you can see some of its medieval bones showing through even still. I'd've liked to see it in the daylight.

(There's a twee little song about Bangor, incidentally.)

Went to my bunk then, since I had to be up for the four am watch again, and with the Ruth moored alongside us starboard and the pier to port, I needed to be awake for it. I think that watch is technically part of Day 7's adventures, so I'll talk about it then.

That was the seventh day.

On board STV Asgard II, day 6 (Greencastle to Bangor)

Breakfast at 0730, on watch at 0800. Because of Tuesday's freshwater scrub, cleaning stations weren't much on deck, and it was too damp to do brasses.

Good sailing weather, with a nice fresh wind down the lough. See this flag? It was flapping quite loudly. We set the mainsail, and the captain had Donal reef it - you reef the mainsail on the Asgard II by using a lever to roll the boom so that you wrap part of the mainsail around the boom (the boom is on a kind of pivot at the mast), and yes, slacking and hauling at peak, throat and topping lifts goes on during this - set main staysail, main topmast staysail, fore staysail, jib, topsail and course. View up to course and main topmast staysail from amidships.

We sailed around the head of Ireland, passing the Giants' Causeway - I got to steer under sail - and entered Rathlin Sound, where the tides make a current of four knots. The hull speed of the Asgard is nine knots, I was told: at lunch the captain came through the mess and said as he moved, "Ten point seven knots!"

After lunch a squall blew up: we were all on deck, and the ship had heeled right up on her port side, with her course yard only about two metres from the water, and water rushing in over the lee rail, wind howling and gusting and sails and ropes flapping, and the guys on the lee side wet up to the knee. The mate shouts, "Strike the course!" and the bosun shouts, "Strike the course!" and the freaking engineer's on deck shouting "Will ye ever fooking heave on those fooking ropes baiys!" (Cork accent) and I'm hauling on the clewline with Andrew M. tailing shouting "Two six! Heave!" because the bosun isn't and the boys on the bunts are standing with their fucking hands in their fucking pockets as though the world hasn't tipped up on its freaking side and god, boys, if the sail rips or the boat tips further or anything happens to the rig we'll be in fucking trouble then, won't we?

So we get down the course and strike the jib and the main topmast staysail, and the world goes back to being only moderately bouncy. (Apparently the wind gusts reached fifty knots and the ship was making thirteen knots at one point.) It was an interesting few minutes. Because we've struck the course, Donal gets us to get out the fore topmast staysail, and we rig it on the foredeck, ropes whipping around, us bouncing and wobbling and clinging and everything feeling quite dangerous, thank you. Run it up its proper stay, and then the burst of hectic activity - sailing is periods of boredom interspersed with manic activity - can die back to normal operations; ie, lookouts and watch, since the captain's on the wheel.

Crazy stuff there for a while, though.

After things calmed down a bit and we headed round the top of Antrim (see pictures one and two - sadly, my last exposure) with the Mull of Kintyre less than twenty miles away and Rathlin Island. Then we turned south, and I stuck my head into the charthouse to find out where we were (a bit above the top of Lough Lagan, I think). Donal took pity on my interest and demonstrated navigation by GPS, longitude and latitude, and radar. Apparently the US can turn GPS off any time they feel like it, and did on Sept. 11, which worried a lot of ships, so the backup method when near land is to find the shape of a headland or island by radar and match it to the chart.

The afternoon was fairly lazy. Was off watch after lunch, so apart from the interesting moments in Rathlin Sound, or when hands were needed on ropes or bracing stations, which was seldom, a bunch of us just sat on the lockers around the doghouse and enjoyed the day. The sun came out, and spray would occasionally wash inboard and wet us, and for a while we were told to make sure we clipped our harness to something unless we were moving about.

The evening was hard work. Had dinner, then on watch, and then during the watch we came into Bangor, needing to strike and stow sails and flake out mooring lines on deck (long zigzag coils) for ease of use. Lost the button on my trousers when on the foredeck hauling down the fore staysail, and spent the rest of the time using my safety harness to help keep my trousers up. Didn't go up the mast, although I wanted to: I went in the RIB to the quay to help the mooring from there.

We moored at Bangor pier beside another tallship, a privately-owned schooner by name Ruth out of Penzance, and had ourselves an audience for stowing the sails (sitting on the bowsprit to stow sails, still hard work, still fun), including an American woman who wanted to know everything. Then set up the gangway (the long gangway rather than the short one, and wasn't that fun to go up and down of, with a drop of a couple metres at low tide) and re-stowed the fore topmast staysail in its bag on the quay.

It was after ten pm before we got shore leave, with a curfew of 0030. I just walked out to find a payphone and back: nice people in Bangor, especially the guy in the Salty Dog pub at the end of the pier who gave me friendly directions: thanks, man, you saved me getting lost. Very much a pretty town in the neat British-seaside-resort mode, though, although you can see some of its medieval bones showing through even still. I'd've liked to see it in the daylight.

(There's a twee little song about Bangor, incidentally.)

Went to my bunk then, since I had to be up for the four am watch again, and with the Ruth moored alongside us starboard and the pier to port, I needed to be awake for it. I think that watch is technically part of Day 7's adventures, so I'll talk about it then.

That was the seventh day.

On board STV Asgard II, days 7 and 8 (Bangor to Belfast)

I woke up at 0311 Thursday morning, when four people were having what sounded like a snore-off. Had the news from the people on watch that there'd been ructions about the curfew, with some people not in until nearly an hour late, and people signed in who weren't back and all sorts. Apparently they got a right bollocking, and I slept through it.

(There'd been showers in Bangor, but I was too tired to take advantage. I regretted that, when we got into Belfast, because although I couldn't smell myself I felt so greasy.)

Graeme and I on watch: about five thirty, we had to wake the duty officer (Shane the engineer) because the boat had slipped from the fenders and her hull was rubbing against the pier. So fifteen minutes spent getting that sorted, and then it was nearly time to wake F. and quiet Kev (neither of whom wanted to wake up) for their watch. Graeme went back to his wide deep bunk, and rather than go back to the snores and stink of feet below, I curled up in the doghouse and got about another hour's solid kip, waking only at breakfast.

We had cleaning stations in Bangor, and left the pier around ten. Had about four seasons in the one day, sailing around Lough Lagan: sunshine, squalls, fierce rain, sunshine. We had to be in Belfast by four to get the berth, so while there was more tacking and hauling on ropes than I'd experienced yet - the mainsail got a crease in it while they were trying to reef it, and there was a lot of heaving and slacking at peak, throat and topping lifts while Donal and John and the captain tried to fix the problem. (Crease in the sail, apparently, can result in the sail ripping if the wind hits it wrong.) - we weren't out for more than four or five hours.

Hard work, though.

Belfast is a shitty little city surrounded by pleasant green hilly countryside and nice small towns. It's all dock and industrial shite, with a few awkward-to-get-to places of historical interest, and I wasn't impressed with the people, or the berth. (Neither were the permanent crew, for that matter.)

Belfast was going to have a maritime festival that weekend. The Jeanie Johnston came in after us and moored foreward - a big ship compared to the Asgard, if not compared to the ferries we passed on the way up the docks - and there were a few other tallships on the far side of where we were moored. Apparently the Jeanie doesn't sail that well, and Donal wasn't impressed with the upkeep of her rig - but they use the traditional 19th century rig and tar the shrouds and ratlines, unlike the slightly more modern Asgard which uses wooden ratlines and rope-wrapped wire for the shrouds.

We had dinner and I begged off watch, having been on-watch every night we had watches apart from my night off due to galley duty. Many peoples repaired to the pub thirty seconds away, the Rotterdam. I went for about half an hour, sat swaying with tiredness as well as too much seatime, and came back to the ship, where I wrote up notes. Apparently the others went on to a music session in a pub called the Duke of York later.

Slept until one am, when peoples tripped in from the pub. Kev comes in, staggering, "Jesus Christ the boat's moving!" and I stick my (annoyed and sleepy) head out of my bunk to say, "No, Kev. Just you."

"Oh," he says, and collapses into his bunk, while Cormac, coming in behind him and now down to his boxers, stumbles so I'm staring right at his arse and manky underwear. (Close quarters. What the fuck can you say?)

"Nice arse, Cormac, but I really don't need to see it!"

"Sorry," says he, and clambers up into his own bunk. "Oich' mhaith."

And then silence, save for snoring, and the ship is disconcertingly still.

Breakfast call is 0800. I'm up at 0730, but no one else wants to wake up. It's a slow breakfast and a slow start to the day, but we're at cleaning stations by nine fifteen, with our gear packed and out of the way on top of the doghouse. Clean below, scrub decks, polish brasses - freaking hard work after seven days - and then we're done. We have a whip-round for the crew by way of thanks (enough for three rounds each, at least, and quite possible five), signed off ship's articles, and crammed into the mess for the captain and permanent crew to give us a brief post-mortem of the trip: roughly four hundred nautical miles, three hundred mostly under engines, and Wednesday, one hundred under sail. Captain said more things had gone against him that trip than any other trip in the last five years (high winds, engine prop, anchor, no wind, more high winds, a freezer melt-down) but hey, we're all alive and uninjured, and unlike some trips, all welcome to come back.

And then I walked off through ugly Belfast to find the train station, an ATM, and lunch: made the train station at 1130, waited for the 1230 train to Dublin, which some of the others were also catching - we were so loud, all of us, having spent the week practically shouting to be heard over the sound of the ship, the wind, the sails, each other, that we'd forgotten how to speak normally.

I got off the train at my stop, and the rest you know.

I'll definitely go back and do that again sometime, though. I think a leg of the 2010 tallships race runs from Istanbul to Greece: I have my eye on that one, but yeah, definitely go back. Despite the smell, the damp, the chill, the heat, and the close quarters, and the icky itchy grimy feel of going more than three days without a shower, it was fun. It was a good crew, even if a couple of people were mysteriously absent when work was to be done, quiet Kev was painfully shy, and the weird Andrew from Louth turned out disturbingly, annoyingly weird.

It was fun.

Previous entries in this series, which has now topped out around ten thousand words' worth of talking:

Day 0
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Days 4 and 5
Day 6
more general thoughts

And, you know. I'm perfectly happy to talk some more about this if anyone wants me to. :)

On board STV Asgard II, days 7 and 8 (Bangor to Belfast)

I woke up at 0311 Thursday morning, when four people were having what sounded like a snore-off. Had the news from the people on watch that there'd been ructions about the curfew, with some people not in until nearly an hour late, and people signed in who weren't back and all sorts. Apparently they got a right bollocking, and I slept through it.

(There'd been showers in Bangor, but I was too tired to take advantage. I regretted that, when we got into Belfast, because although I couldn't smell myself I felt so greasy.)

Graeme and I on watch: about five thirty, we had to wake the duty officer (Shane the engineer) because the boat had slipped from the fenders and her hull was rubbing against the pier. So fifteen minutes spent getting that sorted, and then it was nearly time to wake F. and quiet Kev (neither of whom wanted to wake up) for their watch. Graeme went back to his wide deep bunk, and rather than go back to the snores and stink of feet below, I curled up in the doghouse and got about another hour's solid kip, waking only at breakfast.

We had cleaning stations in Bangor, and left the pier around ten. Had about four seasons in the one day, sailing around Lough Lagan: sunshine, squalls, fierce rain, sunshine. We had to be in Belfast by four to get the berth, so while there was more tacking and hauling on ropes than I'd experienced yet - the mainsail got a crease in it while they were trying to reef it, and there was a lot of heaving and slacking at peak, throat and topping lifts while Donal and John and the captain tried to fix the problem. (Crease in the sail, apparently, can result in the sail ripping if the wind hits it wrong.) - we weren't out for more than four or five hours.

Hard work, though.

Belfast is a shitty little city surrounded by pleasant green hilly countryside and nice small towns. It's all dock and industrial shite, with a few awkward-to-get-to places of historical interest, and I wasn't impressed with the people, or the berth. (Neither were the permanent crew, for that matter.)

Belfast was going to have a maritime festival that weekend. The Jeanie Johnston came in after us and moored foreward - a big ship compared to the Asgard, if not compared to the ferries we passed on the way up the docks - and there were a few other tallships on the far side of where we were moored. Apparently the Jeanie doesn't sail that well, and Donal wasn't impressed with the upkeep of her rig - but they use the traditional 19th century rig and tar the shrouds and ratlines, unlike the slightly more modern Asgard which uses wooden ratlines and rope-wrapped wire for the shrouds.

We had dinner and I begged off watch, having been on-watch every night we had watches apart from my night off due to galley duty. Many peoples repaired to the pub thirty seconds away, the Rotterdam. I went for about half an hour, sat swaying with tiredness as well as too much seatime, and came back to the ship, where I wrote up notes. Apparently the others went on to a music session in a pub called the Duke of York later.

Slept until one am, when peoples tripped in from the pub. Kev comes in, staggering, "Jesus Christ the boat's moving!" and I stick my (annoyed and sleepy) head out of my bunk to say, "No, Kev. Just you."

"Oh," he says, and collapses into his bunk, while Cormac, coming in behind him and now down to his boxers, stumbles so I'm staring right at his arse and manky underwear. (Close quarters. What the fuck can you say?)

"Nice arse, Cormac, but I really don't need to see it!"

"Sorry," says he, and clambers up into his own bunk. "Oich' mhaith."

And then silence, save for snoring, and the ship is disconcertingly still.

Breakfast call is 0800. I'm up at 0730, but no one else wants to wake up. It's a slow breakfast and a slow start to the day, but we're at cleaning stations by nine fifteen, with our gear packed and out of the way on top of the doghouse. Clean below, scrub decks, polish brasses - freaking hard work after seven days - and then we're done. We have a whip-round for the crew by way of thanks (enough for three rounds each, at least, and quite possible five), signed off ship's articles, and crammed into the mess for the captain and permanent crew to give us a brief post-mortem of the trip: roughly four hundred nautical miles, three hundred mostly under engines, and Wednesday, one hundred under sail. Captain said more things had gone against him that trip than any other trip in the last five years (high winds, engine prop, anchor, no wind, more high winds, a freezer melt-down) but hey, we're all alive and uninjured, and unlike some trips, all welcome to come back.

And then I walked off through ugly Belfast to find the train station, an ATM, and lunch: made the train station at 1130, waited for the 1230 train to Dublin, which some of the others were also catching - we were so loud, all of us, having spent the week practically shouting to be heard over the sound of the ship, the wind, the sails, each other, that we'd forgotten how to speak normally.

I got off the train at my stop, and the rest you know.

I'll definitely go back and do that again sometime, though. I think a leg of the 2010 tallships race runs from Istanbul to Greece: I have my eye on that one, but yeah, definitely go back. Despite the smell, the damp, the chill, the heat, and the close quarters, and the icky itchy grimy feel of going more than three days without a shower, it was fun. It was a good crew, even if a couple of people were mysteriously absent when work was to be done, quiet Kev was painfully shy, and the weird Andrew from Louth turned out disturbingly, annoyingly weird.

It was fun.

Previous entries in this series, which has now topped out around ten thousand words' worth of talking:

Day 0
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Days 4 and 5
Day 6
more general thoughts

And, you know. I'm perfectly happy to talk some more about this if anyone wants me to. :)