Trip Report: Day 2, Yes, It Is Still Morning

After break, now I'm on my own, and on the Mess Deck (Hammocks). There are four flash cards here. Three tied together and, untangle, ah, the fourth one is the same as the first, but not tied on. That might not be so bad. A couple stop at this spot and I read through the first card. They know about lead lines & log lines, so I don't go over them again. They move on. I forgot about the cat. Bugger. Next time.

Here on the mess deck was where the sailors lived when they weren't working. There were three watches so at any time, a third of them would be gone, but the other two thirds would be in here. Unless they were at anchor, when all would be in here. It got rather crowded.



Here above the mess tables is where they slung their hammocks. Each man had a spot, see up here where it has MM7, and then over here, there's another MM7. So his hammock went from there to there. Here, you can see on either where MM8 and MM6 slung their hammocks. Each sailor had 14" of space.



The officer's cot (far right on the photo) wouldn't normally be here, it's just for comparison. They got 18" of space each.



Down under there on the left, is where the marines slept. You have the sailors here, and the officers up at the stern, and the marines are in the middle here, in case of a mutiny.

The lead line is this. Have a hold, but be careful, it's heavy. Don't drop it. That's to measure how far down the sea bed is. Whatever is on the sea bed will get pick up in the hole at the base, so you can tell what it is as well as far down.

With the log line, this bit is thrown over and it's dragged out. When the first of these knots is reached, the glass is turned over, and they count how many knots are dragged out in the 28 secs. Which gives the speed in knots.

The cat-o-nine tails is over here, with its red bag, so you can let the cat out of the bag. It was only used up on deck though, because there wasn't enough room down here to swing a cat. (Sorry.)

Now, bend over and go through to the midi-mates mess, make sure you don't put your head up until you're sitting down.



Another lot of visitors come by, but before I can talk to them, we're told HMAS Perth is about to leave. The Endeavour crew is intending to fire a couple of guns at her, ao everyone heads up to watch. One of my visitors doesn't want to climb back up the ladder, so I stay down with her until the last minute, which is why there aren't any interesting photos.



When the guns go off, we're supposed to cover our ears. I didn't, but it's quite thundery. They're copied from the original Endeavour's guns dropped on the Great Barrier Reef when the ship got stuck there. 4 pounders, I think. These ones usually fire blanks, but when they were going the east coast, out away from everything, I'd told they tested one and it went for a kilometre.



Back down, and it's time to move on. Back to the midi-mates mess. This is good. I know this one. It surprised me how quickly I was to do a spiel without referring back to the cards. The second time I did the firehearth, I only looked at the cards for the bits about they actually ate. The midimates mess is easier. Although I still need to read off the bits about each person though. When there are no visitors, there is a lot to look at and it's a nice little area. Except that I bashed why head on the beam just inside the door. Keep your head down, all the way, right?

It's also one of the radio spots. There are 3 spots where the guide has to carry a radio in cases of problems. In these areas, you have to wait for the next guide to turn up so you can give the radio before you move on. When the bell sounds at 12.30, no one comes and so I'm stuck there. I'm starting to think I'm going to be here for the whole session, but after 15 mins the next guide turns up.

So I leave, through the left hand door, up the ladder to the right and take the empty spot outside the gentlemen's mess.



This is also one of the places you have to stay until you're relieved, because it's a traffic control area. Visitors come up there, go through the door into the gentlemen's mess (off to the right on this photo), come out of there and go up to the deck. When it's busy, it must get chaotic, but today is quiet.

There's no talking that has to be done here, although there's no guide in the mess, because it's the first place guides are pulled from when they're need elsewhere. But sitting outside, one can talk with visitors in there, or any who might be waiting outside.



Sydney Parkinson's cabin is there on the right, and the door at the back leads through to the great cabin.

Gentlemen means the scientists who were accompanying the rich young man who was financing much of the trip. The primary purpose of the Endeavour's expedition was to obverse the transit of Venus across the face of the sun. By doing this in different locations, scientists thought they could work out the distance of the earth from the sun. So in a cooperative effort, different countries outfitted expeditions to various obscure bits of the world. The British went off to Canada, I think, and Tahiti. Cook also secret orders, to search for the Great South Land, the large land mass that had to be down there somewhere to balance the land mass in the northern hemisphere. They didn't find it, it not being there, but they charted the west coast of New Zealand and the east coast of New Holland.



The gentlemen's cabins are around the outside of the gentlemen's mess. Sporing's cabin is over on the left. Note the fold down table, which is quite a practical piece of furniture. That gives a good view of the black circles on the deck too, that show where the trunnels are.

At 1 pm, I'm supposed to be going up to the exit gangway, but no one comes to relieve me, so I stay where I am. I don't care. It's an easy spot. And you can see outside.



Once it gets to 1.30, I start to worry. This is getting into my lunch hour and I have to go and do things.