The Captain's Logs are below.

Read the Crew's Views from John, KC, and Caroline as they reflect on their experiences in Asia.

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I decided to indulge my fancy and take the opportunity to stop in Lunenberg, Nova Scotia, to pay a visit to a vessel that has just completed a round-the-world cruise. The vessel is the barque Picton Castle, owned and operated by the Windward Isles Sailing Ship Company. It arrived home in Lunenberg last Wednesday, June 23, 1999. My friend, Captain Daniel Moreland, is the principal officer of the company and the master of the ship. Their round-the-world voyage was some 18 months long. It started in Lunenburg in November, 1997, and transited a route primarily in the world's tropics.

What is special about this circumnavigation is that the ship is American owned and a square rigger. It dedicates its available berths to those who want to experience a long distance sailing voyage in the old fashioned style, but who may have no experience on tall ships. When one is aboard, one becomes the ship's crew under the guidance of a core of very experienced professionals. Under their guidance, one learns by doing how to "hand, reef and steer," as the old sailors adage goes.

What is also special about this rendezvous is that it brings a symbolic closure to a "hail and farewell" rendezvous that occurred between the Pride and the Castle when we were both in Bermuda back in December of 1997. At that point, each of us was just beginning a long voyage to far off places.

My plan was, time permitting, to divert from our path to Wyandotte and join in the revelry celebrating the Castle's return from her well executed circumnavigation of the globe. After all, Pride II has recently executed her voyage to Asia equally well. These are the only two American traditional sailing vessels that have gone as far afield since the mid 1970s. And they did it at the same time! Plus, some of the crew had sailed together on other vessels, including Captain Moreland and myself. Given all those confluences, it was too good a symbol to pass up.

We arrived in Lunenberg around 0830 hours yesterday, Saturday, June 26, during an overcast day with scattered rain. Lunenberg is a small working fishing port on the coast of Nova Scotia. Red and green painted buildings spread up the rise from the harbor. Commercial fishing vessels dot the docks along the shore and the harbor has a scattering of moored yachts. Picton Castle was at a pier and looked distinctive for her rig, her flags, and her white hull. There was little activity to be seen anywhere aboard the Castle, nor much in the town. But that would soon change as our gunner, Eugene, split the serene scene with four very loud cannon reports to announce our arrival and to salute Picton Castle - a famous world traveler.

We sailed on by and rounded up by the dock we would be using, only just vacated by Highland Seas. She was interesting to me as she looked like a very well kept example of a large fishing schooner in the style of Bluenose II - except she was not Bluenose II. I could not place her and I found this curious as I know most of the traditional sailing vessels in North America. I later learned she was the old Pilot out of Boston. Curiously, when I was thinking of the American vessels that had undertaken long sea voyages, Pilot had come to mind. She went to East Asia around the mid 1970s. So there we were, three vessels from long voyages to far off places in the same very small fishing harbor in Nova Scotia. Curious.

Once secured to our dock, we learned that the crew of the Picton Castle were still recovering from a hard night of celebration. The third in a row. (We also learned that they were all getting up as our cannonade had pushed sleep away permanently.) This was OK since our crew could not go ashore, anyway, because I had to get formal clearance from Canadian Customs first. This took us till midday as there were several forms to fill out and then fax to Customs at Halifax. Frequently, these forms are filled out in advance. The last time I took Pride II into Canada, the authorities handled our entrance as they would a private yacht. That can be done with a simple phone call and no forms. But not this time.

Once I had the formal clearance, I gave all hands the rest of the day off and we all spent the time looking at Lunenburg, visiting the Castle, and meeting her crew both aboard the vessel and in the local restaurants and bars till late into the evening.

Today the crew of Pride II has been hard at work on maintenance - lots of varnish, plenty of cleaning down below, and some trouble shooting on the watermaker. The weather has been glorious - clear and sunny. My worries that we have misused our time is moderated by the significant amount of maintenance the crew has accomplished. Tomorrow we will scramble to top off fuel and get some last minute shopping done for the galley and other areas. As soon as possible, we will get underway and get on with our job of getting to Wyandotte on time.

For those of you who don't know Lunenburg, we took some photos for you to see. Lunenburg is described by certain cognizanti as the only surviving, untouched commercial fishing port left in North America.