A new life on the Duyfken. By Brett Yates

I walk along the wharf outside the Sydney maritime Museum in an excited and nervous manner. Excited because in front of me is the ship I am hoping to sail half way around the world in, nervous because she is berthed next to a world war two destroyer which offers a disconcerting comparison in size. The Duyfken is a small tall ship and here she looks like a toy boat that I could play in the bath with. The reality of her size is reinforced when I make my way below into the small, dark hold. This is our living quarters but also contains two engines, all equipment and materials and provisions that we need. To move around down here I have to do the Quasimodo, bang my head until there are lots of ugly lumps all over it and then I remember to hunch myself over. One of my first jobs is to help perform the stowage ritual. First we use the same method as everyone who moves house or reorganises their garage. We create a large pile in the center of the hold and turn it clockwise whilst we stalk around it in the opposite direction hoping to catch out some unsuspecting piece that we can put away. Through a process of trial and error we eventually work the puzzle out; through a process of frustration we dispose of anything we can convince ourselves that we do not need. The next stage of the ritual is to load the provisions. This time we make a pre-emptive move and construct special chests that can be lashed in the hold to receive the food. The cook has other ideas and again we are being outwitted as we discover ourselves wading through the hold waist deep in tucker. The largest element of our diet seems by far to be sardines, the little buggers are everywhere. Somehow we try to pack it all into chests, boxes, crates and any nook and cranny. As I consider the irony of playing sardines with sardines I realise that one of the crew has become and is convinced that everything is some form of disguised sardine, he suspiciously hands to me the "powdered sardines", "instant sardines' and self raising sardines". The next element of the Duyfken to adapt is obviously the tricky business of the sea. To move around at night when there is the kind of sea that should require seatbelts for the toilets, you hunch over holding one arm behind you for balance whilst flailing the other searchingly in front of you as you stagger about. This produces the spectacle of a room full of drunken Quasimodos posing as surfers. For the same reason everything we stow has to be lashed down lest the sea encourage it to go exploring. The one thing that usually inanimate objects crave most is a set of feet. To capture a pair they throw themselves violently around and scatter about the ship lying in ambush to trip you up and wrestle your own away from you. The most disturbing behaviour I've seen came from the dinner table in the main cabin. It became so excited and anxious at finding a pair of feet underneath it that it threw off its lashings and lunged on top of them. The feet being affronted by such behaviour jumped up to rid themselves of the table propelling the head into the low roof and leaving them both without a leg to stand on. Another difficulty is the language barrier, which requires much to overcome. Asked of I could "sweat on a sheet" I took this cryptic clue to mean it's hot and you look tired, it turned out there was a bit of rope to be heaved on. Then when someone asked if I had a "clue" I told them I had been given one but wasn't very good at them, again it turned out there was a bit of rope to be heaved on. There are however many common expressions, which have nautical roots and stories, weaved by many sailors over many miles of ocean passages. One idea that is common comes from the Boogas are a maritime people from what is now part of Indonesia. Like modern day Ghurkhas and ancient Viking berserkers they earned themselves a fearsome reputation during many sea battles with the Dutch. It was said that one shot was not enough to stop them which put you at a serious disadvantage when repelling a boarding party with single loading muskets. From this came the idea of "the Bogey man coming to get you and there is nothing you can do to stop him". The animal life we see during our voyages are more varied than I would ever have thought. Seeing a pod of whales pottering along through the oceans with spouts of water occasionally erupting from them is truly special. There has also been the odd turtle and many dolphins. There is a kind of microorganism that is invisible to the eye but when the waves come against the ship, due to the compression there is a chemical reaction that produces phosphorescence. At night this can leave the ship in an eerie luminescent glow. Perhaps the source of many a ghost ship story? On one of these nights there was a couple of dolphins playing around us which created a magically surreal moment as they were lit up in this glow and you could see their path through the water as they left a streaking phosphorescent trail behind them. We also received some attention from the air, some welcome, others not. Off the coast of Australia an owl flew over to us at night and came for a bit of a ride perched in the rigging looking owlishly dignified. Considered that this would be a better shoulder accessory than the traditional parrot, but couldn't convince the owl. There is also the common Booby bird that can be found out in Deep Ocean. Unfortunately these are nervous chaps and when you frighten them off they explode into the air dumping half their body weight in crap. I once spent a week trying to wash my sleeping bag, because it was the only thing on deck that seemed to deserve daily bombing raids from these flying bags of shit. Another source of danger can be squadrons of flying fish which when disturbed in the water escape by shooting out and doing some spectacular low level flying between the waves before they dive back in. they have become confused occasionally when their "predator" is us and fly into the ship; one chap succumbing to a direct head shot. Being a group of people that supposedly understand the sea we are sometimes struck with the idea that we would make good fisherman, and throw a line out the back. However the fish aren't fooled and remain cynically unconvinced. In over 5000 mile we have only caught two fish, excluding flying fish. One that was diseased and obviously very gullible: the other a Spanish mackerel who was inspired by the antics of a squadron of confused flying fish and jumped into the boat. The look of surprise on its face matched by the astonishment of the watch on duty. I have run out of time so I will have to write about the exciting action later.