Here is a description of my three weeks away as crew on a square rigger. It's as brief as possible; a LOT was packed into those three weeks.

First trip: I went to Tauranga in a rented van along with the engineer, the first mate and a couple of other crew members. We met the ship there and got on board and did things. Places we stopped included Slipper Island, Cook's Beach, Hahei, the Aldermen Islands, Great Barrier Island, Kawau Island, and then we ended up in Auckland.

A highlight of this trip: the hundreds upon hundreds of dolphins which accompanied us all of one day, and continued to make an appearance throughout the following three or four days.

They made me the medical officer for this trip and I responded magnificently by immediately getting the flu and losing my voice completely for three days. I spent this time exerting authority over the trainees in my group by whispering orders at them from the other end of the ship, and attempting to develop either telepathy or a commanding facial expression. I was not very successful at either one.

I learned that the men who used to sail square rigged ships like this, in the days before proper climbers' safety harnesses, were COMPLETELY INSANE. Take a look at the photos if you have any doubts, and imagine standing on a swaying rope 92 feet above the deck while bending over a spar and folding up a sail. You need both hands to do it; you can't hang on with one hand and do the work with the other hand. The only thing between you and an appointment with several square metres of SPLAT 92 feet below is your sense of balance and a climber's safety harness. In the old days, I imagine they had to wash the deck and find new crew members rather more often.

"Futtocks" would be a good swear word. What are they? There are the laddery things up the mast which you climb up; if you look at the photos closely, you can see that at certain points on the mast, these laddery things actually go OUTWARDS into a big laddery overhang thing, so you have to climb the ladder outwards while hanging from the downward side of it. These overhang bits are called the futtocks. They completely justify being used as a swear word.

The ten day voyage was incredibly intense and left me completely exhausted. On the final day, I was up at 4.45 a.m and got off the ship at 8 a.m., with just enough time to go home, do laundry, and come back for the next ten day trip at 3 p.m. the same day. Or so I thought. I was met by my boyfriend who told me I had two job offers, and he had arranged interviews for me that morning, since that was the only time I would be in Auckland. So I went straight from the ship to two job interviews. They were the only job interviews I have ever attended while wearing an unwashed uniform belonging to another company, having had approximately one hour's sleep in the preceding two days, and not having had a shower in the preceding ten days. I do not recommend this. Sleep deprivation is a scary thing: at one of the interviews I had to do a VERY basic maths test and I took about five minutes over questions like "What is 6 x 3?" I was sitting there having to count it on my fingers, and I kept losing count part way through, and almost breaking down in tears because it was so hard to figure out. Looking back, it was pretty funny.

The second ten-day trip was like the first, except that I was basically a zombie throughout the entire ten days. I have never been so tired in my life. Highlights of the second trip included the scenery of Great Barrier Island; a seven-hour hike up Mt Whangaparapara followed by a one-hour row back to the ship followed by preparing and loading supplies for a barbecue followed by rowing back to shore again and having a barbecue followed by being on night watch that night; bottlenose dolphins and a pod of five pilot whales; and witnessing some extremely nasty things being done to cute harmless helpless teddy bears. (These were very, very funny.)

I got back from the second trip and found out I had got the job I interviewed for. The one with the maths test. It terrifies me to think what the quality of the other applicants must have been. I also found out they wanted me to start the next day. And that's where I've been, and that's why I didn't immediately have a chance to describe it all on the day I came back.

Brunnen-"still walking into walls, saying odd things and randomly falling over"G