I hadn’t posted much for a few days. So I thought I would just start randomly typing and see what happens.
When I was on Doulos, with working in the Deck and all, I had to learn a few knots. Just simple ones. I’d always liked knots, and all sailory (nautical is a better word, isn’t it…) things, but had never been particually good at remembering them. I’d always learned them before in situations where someone showed me the knot, and then I had a few minutes to practice with about 6 other people all wanting the same rope, and then no chance to try again for weeks and weeks. Well, on Doulos, we had to use these basic knots every day, and funnily enough, I learned them quite quickly. Like this first knot, the “Bowline” (pronounced bo-lin). It’s called this because apparently some time in the depths of time, for some reason lost in the bowels of obscurity, they used this knot to tie the bow (the front) of a boat, or ship, to whatever they needed to tie it to. The dock, presumably. And for some other weird reason, almost all ropes are called “lines” by nautical people, whenever the rope has a use.
When we loaded (or unloaded) things from the Ship using the crane, we always tied another rope from the item being loaded (or unloaded), which would then be held quite tight to make sure the item didn’t swing around in the wind, or crash into things. This rope is called a “Messenger Line”. Sometimes we used 2 messenger lines, for big things (like the Doulos mini-vans, which had to be loaded and unloaded at every port.) Funnily enough, we actually used that knot (the Bowline) to attach a messenger line to the object being loaded (or unloaded).
Here is another picture. This is a knot which is in fact, a bowline, but so modified that it has become absurd, and no one would ever use such a knot. It does look kind of pretty though, I guess…
Working on Deck, I began to really like knots a lot, and when I got back to Larnaka I went and bought a small ammount of rope, and have been practicing knots and such, and inventing crazy things with them and all. Like that monstrocity here. Terrible, isn’t it.
My father just saw a [mirror dinghy][3] advertived on a notice board in the local supermarket… not very expensive, either. Second hand. My father and I have wanted for ages to get a small boat. So. We will see what happens…
Oh, by the way. I have started contacting the Doulos people again, to begin attempting to apply to join them again. And next week I will be speaking in church about my experiences on the Doulos over the last 2 months. Should be fun. Again, we will see what happens…