Chester is Roger Orpen's son - he matriculated at SACS last year, and has joined the tallship Stadt Amsterdam. recently seen in Hout Bay. His chronicles will appear here as they come! This will be an amazing experience for the lad, as tallships tend to be . . ..
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I left early in the afternoon to go to the boat from the local b&b I stayed at. When I arrived I talked up the gangway and was greeted by the first mate. He then hurried off to call someone to show me around and to get me into the swing of things. He introduced me to my buddy, who's name was quite surprising. His name is Oscar which is also my brothers name. I was then
told to follow him and carry all my gear down to my dormitory. Entering the ship was very exciting because of all the intricate wood work. The first thing I thought when I entered my bunker was "ouch, this is going to be a tight squeeze". I unpacked my gear and then was sent to the laundry area to get my uniform for the trip. Straight after that I was given a short tour of the
ship. Following those exiting few minutes I was immediately sent into the routine of life on board. That day we where unloading a truckload of food so that they could supply my South African need for large amounts of food.
The next day after a short power nap of a few hours I began the routine that I will follow for the next 2 months. The boat is like a huge baby which always has to be watched, controlled and looked after. To do this the boat has 3 groups of people, each group is given a colour. I'm in white watch, the other 2 are red and blue. Each watch has been given certain hours in the
day to "watch" the boat. A watch consists of 2 things, sailing watch and maintenance watch. Sailing watch is when you sail the boat and maintenance watch is when you fix something.
Life on board is a bit different for me because I can only speak English. Although most of the fun chitter chatter is said in English. The one thing that I have noticed so far on this boat, is that the people are different all in all. Compared to the way we South Africans act, speak and our general character they are and can be very strange. Which in some situations makes a
conversation either really confusing or down right funny, because of the way people interact with you. Being a South African on board has its benefits, such as the dutch people still make jokes about people in South Africa wrestling lions and acting like cavemen sitting around a fire trying to figure out the next great revolutionary step above dried meat called biltong. The largest and most "clever" of cavemen fighting over who gets the egg shaped ball.
One thing I have noticed is that Dutch people love bread. Lots of it and because of the large supply of food on board I try my best to exhaust that supply with my meat grinding South African stomach. They are all fascinated by how much I eat, but if they came to South Africa they would truly understand the meaning of humans being meat eaters.
