Octant and Pocket watches

This is the Talisker Bounty Boat "Octant" ( these preceeded the sextant and
were used by the junior officers for reading the sun, Sextants were usually
reserved for the chief officers and Capt.) and two pocket watches we will be
using. We will also have a sextant the same as Bligh( he had both)..this
Octant is from the same era as Bligh, cost a fortune, is in full operational
condition and should be in a museum. Got it on eBay. It is about to get very
wet and salty?..the Magnifying glass is from the same period used to read
the scale on the Octant and Bligh used it to light the fire on Restoration
Island. The pocket watches are antique, also from eBay and the one on the
left is an original Kendal and Dent model. For those who have read the book
LATITUDE and know about the Harrison Chronometer, you will remember that
Harrison had to find a watch maker to produce three copies of that first
unit..he chose Kendal to make those copies. One of those copies was onboard
Bounty as the ships Chronometer and was taken to Pitcairn Island with the
Mutineers...so our Pocket watches have a direct link to Kendal and were made
in the same era about 30 years after the Mutiny. I will try not to get them
wet...they keep OK time and will be the only way to tell when to change
watch onboard so that will be interesting.

To answer some of the questions being asked by those commenting on the
Blog...No, Bligh and his men did not have toilet paper in those days..on the
ship the toilets were up in the bow, just a board with a hole and a rope
hanging down to the bow wave of the ship..that rope was used to wipe!! In
the Bounty Launch sailing to Kupang they very rarely went to the toilet, as
they had no food to speak of..infact most did not go for the whole 26 days
from Tofua to Restoration Island, so no rope was even needed..they could
have and probably used a rag?..we will use salt water and a rag maybe?
Trailing behind- no pun intended?..stay tuned and we will let you know as I
am always brutally honest on all my expeditions!!

Yes we do have emergency food onboard, but hopefully we will not have to use
it..same with torches..they will be onboard for emergencies. If we use one
we will tell you why when and for how long on the Blogs. We do have Nav
lights on the boat as required by law. We are a foreign going ship so must
have certain safety gear minimums. Yes we have a VHF radio installed to with
an MMSI number and DSC calling.

Tonight I had some medical friends over to discuss crew medicals and also
the final checks and monitoring we will do during the voyage. We will be
doing full checks in Sydney before we get started, then at Restoration
Island, Thursday Island and Kupang. We will weigh in and have full blood and
urine analysis done on each occasion. I recon I will lose about 16KG during
the trip??

MEMO..drink more milk shakes!