Adventures of Drs. E & C & N & little L: Endeavour

A huge replica of Captain Cook's ship that came to Australia in the 1700s came to Port Adelaide over Cam's birthday weekend. I thought, what an opportunity NOT TO MISS! So we signed up to volunteer & sleep on-board overnight. Our job (for 2 hr shift) was to make sure no one came on board from the water side of the ship. I guess there have been attempts to take it over in other ports & the volunteers help to prevent that. All we did was fill out some paperwork, have a federal police check (easy since we've had one from the visa), and show up. It was an AMAZING experience, we're both happy that we did it, and one night was enough.

We got to the boat about 7:30 pm and were there till about 8 am. We snapped some nice shots, and are going to have a contest (see below & vote carefully because a beer is riding on the winner). This shot has the Endeavour in the foreground and another tall ship that lives here in Adelaide in the background. The best story is that when the Endeavour arrived to dock, no one bothered to tell the bridge people when they would be arriving. They had to sit just outside Port Adelaide for about 1 hr before the bridge lifted.

We got to wander around, before either of our shifts & before we tried to sleep. This is at the back of the ship where the head 5 or so people including Joseph Banks (botanist) and James Cook (captain) would eat. It really reminded me of the ship from Peter Pan.

Like I said, we tried to sleep in these hammocks, but really neither of us did. We were docked and every time anyone on one of those hammocks moved, the other 3 of us felt it. I can't begin to picture what it would have been like at sea, swaying back & forth. I had a hard time because of my knee hyper-extending. I moved to that hard bench in the foreground and "slept" much better.

My shift was the 4-6 am shift and I spent most of my time trying to translate this photograph into a drawing. The perspective was really challenging and the light was dim, but serene. The rudder runs from the back to the right out of the photograph. All the ropes and details didn't quite come out in my pencil drawing, but it wasn't bad.

Cam had the 6-8 shift, so he was on deck while the rest of us swept up under the hammocks. The boat was built as a coal transport vessel & converted for Cook's voyage. Thus, one deck is about 1/2 the size in height as a usual deck. That is where most people slept. I guess since they would be lying down, no need for a full-height deck. C & I weren't too tired, but we went home & slept a couple of hours.

NOW onto the photo contest. Two were mine, two were Cam's. We are asking YOU to pick 1 image and vote for that image in the comments part. The one with the most votes after Sat March 31 5pm EST will win and the loser must buy a beer.