Besides getting married [Mrs is now watching me] at the ripe old age of 30, the greatest thing I have ever did was in 1974, when I had my 3 month long service leave from the company I worked for than. I was looking for something "different" to do, and came across a small advertisment in the local paper, re crew required for a British Registered, "Three Masted Square Rigged Barquentine" This straight away appealed to me and I wrote away to the owners, received details, and after Typhoid, small pox, Yellow Fever injections was two weeks later, flying over to Panama City, catching a train to Cristobal [on the Atlantic Ocean side of the canal] and meeting this beautiful square rigged sailing ship. The skipper was a Danish bloke named Anders Jensen and after being welcomed aboard, then doing the night life of Cristobal for two days, started our journey through the Panama Canal system, which in itself was awe inspiring. Reaching Panama City around 8 hours later, we again painted that town red, in preparation for the next part of our journey, across the pacific to Sydney Australia. Our journey included stoppages at the Galapagos Islands, and climbing an extinct Volcano to finally peer down into a huge blue lake in the crater itself....The giant Tortoises and Iguana Lizards were also notable and exciting. From there we undertook a 26 day Voyage across to the Marquesas Islands stopping at Nuku Hiva, Hiva Hoa and Fatu Hiva, coming across the grave of Paul Gaugan. Then directly South to the Tuamoto Archipelago, with a stop at an Island called Manihi Atoll not too far from Mururoa Atoll. Then across to Tahiti, Bora Bora, and Rangiroa all breathtakingly beautiful, the first being famous for where they made the movie "South Pacific". From there we sailed westward to the Cook Islands with stops at Aitutaki and Raratonga. Incredible fishing in some incredible lagoons! Then the Tongan Islands stopping at Nukualofa, on to Fiji, then towards Australia stopping at Norfolk, and Lord Howe Islands before sailing into Sydney Harbour nearly 4 months later. During the trip, I undertook Navigation by the stars and a sextant, sail making and repairing, and the general running of a Barquentine including climbing up the masts, out on the top Gallant yard arms and setting or furling in sails as required. We also just after Norfolk and about 800 miles off the Australian coast ran into a force 8, gusting to force 9 gale, with 35ft seas. The ship was 150ft long, 90ft mainmast and 26ft beam. Here is a history of the Eolus and a few photos... http://thanetonline.blogspot.com.au/2007/12/friggin-in-rigging.html The best 4 months of my life ever!! [Mrs has now gone... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!]
This is a great photo of the Eolus, under full sail...all sixteen sails! four gib sails, five square sails, three stay sails, the main sail , and mainsail tops'l, Mizzen sail, and mizzensail tops'l! http://www.delcampe.net/page/item/i...-Eolus-Built-in-Sweden-LC2960,language,E.html
Entertaining, awesome and Incredible it was! My favourite pastimes were Navigation via sextant and the Sun, Moon and stars, Handling the helm during heavy/stormy weather, and jumping into the wide Pacific Ocean from the upper tops'l yardarm when we were traversing the doldrums region. [We had a few ropes hanging overboard for those that did that to grab hold of and drag themselves back on board] Surely we have some more "best things you have ever done" accounts from our intrepid forumites? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Agreed, although I had to jog the old memory to recall the last time. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
We have plenty on this forum that must have fairly lack-lustre lives. Surely someone can beat my "4 months before the mast" adventure? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Did you learn how to pronounce Anders Jensen right, paddo? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Learnt that from day one! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! A great fella, and best skipper one could ever hope for, for a motley amateur crew of 30. Never raised his voice once in anger, and treated everyone equally. He had his beautiful Danish wife Christina on board, with their 3 year old brat Son, and 8 month old baby daughter. Considering most of us had never been to sea before, he had his job cut out.
I went to Outward Bound, Hurricane Island Sailing school in Maine. One of the best things I ever did.
I was a member of team Ensco in the 2005 Darpa Grand Challenge autonomous vehicle race in the Mojave desert. I wouldn't trade that race for any other engineering experience I've ever had. This was the first such race with any winners. We came in 6 in a field of 23 (and got flat tires because we wore them out testing!). After the race, a former member of our team helped develop the Google driverless car, and was very successful. Reports are only beginning to filter through the program that although there were more successes than failures, the failures tended to attract a lot more attention. After our race, military procurement for autonomous vehicle technology became a practical reality. Prior to that, a lot of money was apparently wasted on unworkable systems, so much so, they actually shut down the procurement process. Dancing is a close second interest however. I was nearly a victim of Air Florida 90. I left Fairchild Aerospace just 1 year before my entire former department (A-10 avionics testing) perished on that flight. All of those familiar faces in the newspaper was a shock that morning, but at least the nightmares stopped after that. So, leaving Fairchild before that happened was possibly among the best things I have ever done. I couldn't save anyone else's lives, and doubt they would have believed the nightmare if I had told them that a violent death in something like a plane crash followed by drowning was in it. Before the event, I thought I was just having nightmares from some residual bad feelings about working on the A-10 program. I'm not having any nightmares lately, so, possibly we are OK for a while.
I never rightly know the answers to such questions. It's like asking me what my favourite colour is. It surely depends on my mood at the time. I must say I've never experienced the type of adventure that paddoboy did but then, I've never hankered after such. I'm not really adventurous in that sense. However I've done many things that proved to be good for my life and made me and many others happy, because of those decisions that I made. Everything's relative but some of the best things I ever did was getting married and staying married to a person I still love like no other (43 years). Starting a certain business and then selling that same business for a lifetime income. Experiencing the fun and tribulations of playing in a rock band when younger. Moving back to my home country with its excellent climate and slower pace. Owning dogs. Travelling the world. Writing my novels. Growing my own smoke back in the day. Producing my own original music. The list just goes on and on and at the end of the day it's just about trying to stay happy. How fortunate it is and how lucky I am that I have that choice!
Good stuff! We all are different. I'm also coming up to 40 years marriage to the same woman, and we are doing fine and relate pretty well, considering I've got my head, arse and everything else into science and cosmology, while she is a devout true Christain. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Contradictory? It's worked for nigh on 40, I suppose because we both have plenty of tolerance and consideration of each other. My adventure by the way was when I was single and 29 years old. I suppose I wanted to do as much as possible before hitching up to anyone. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I've owned dogs most of my life. Have had a Labrador, German Shepard, two Rotties, and now two Miniature smooth haired Dachsunds. Before the Dachy's my Rotweiller was the most beautiful, pleasant gentle sensible dog anyone could ever have. He lived to the ripe old age of 13.5 years before I had to put him down...probably the hardest decision I have made. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Only vice I ever have had was Alcohol. Never smoked in my life and could walk by a plantation of "grass" and it wouldn't register with me.
