Once again, we started the day with a trip to Pigeon Beach. Interestingly enough, when we arrived, the famous sailing ship “The Maltese Falcon”, one of the largest private sailing vessels in the world, was anchored in the bay. Wow. It is huge. It has a unique sail rigging that makes it distinctly recognizable. After some sun and swimming, we headed back to the boat. John was leaving today, so he got ready to go.

We had a few hours to kill before heading over to the airport, so we went to the museum here in Nelson’s Dockyard. It is small, but incredibly interesting. Most of the items on exhibit look like they were artifacts found around the area during the restoration process. The artifacts are supplemented with informative signs, drawings, photos, and copies of old letters and documents. So, for example, there will be a huge sign with lots of info paired with a cannon ball, or a sign with lots of information about the hospital paired with a glass container that once held medicine.

The biggest and most extensive exhibit is on Horatio Nelson, which tells his whole life story, including personal habits and interests. His life is absolutely fascinating, but we are only going to focus on his time in Antigua, which was before he became a renowned hero. Nelson joined the navy at 12, which was typical for that day. In March 1784, when he was 26 years old, he was appointed Senior Captain of the ship HMS Boreas. Boreas was a 28 gun frigate built in 1774. In April 1787, the Boreas set sail for its new home in Antigua. Nelson and Boreas arrived in July. Nelson was the second in command of the Antigua Navy Yard (as it was called then). While stationed there, he did a stint as temporary “Commander in Chief”.

One of Nelson’s job duties was to enforce the “Navigation Act”, which allowed trade only with England and English Colonies. The local merchants were furious with Nelson for not allowing trade with the newly independent USA, and took him to court for “disrupting trade”. During the whole court process, Nelson had to hide on his ship during the day and only ventured on land in the cover of darkness. Nelson was cleared of all charges, but he was still incredibly unpopular with the locals. He also didn’t get along well with General Shirley. Nelson despised Antigua and hated living here.

In 1786, Captain Prince William Henry, who later becomes King Henry IV of England, arrived on the HMS Pegasus. Nelson became the prince’s aid and friend. In 1785, Nelson met his future wife, Francis Nisbet, on the near by island of Nevis. She was born and raised on Nevis. Nelson married her in 1787, two and a half months before he was re-stationed to England and not too long after she was widowed. The prince was his best man. When he left Antigua, Nelson was very sick and feared he would die en route to England. So, he brought a barrel of rum with him in which the crew could preserve his body so he could be buried in England.

This little antidote happened many years after Nelson left Antigua, but it is worth mentioning. Nelson lost one of his eyes in a battle in 1794. In a battle in 1801, (now Vice-Admiral) Nelson was signaled by the Admiral to withdraw his ship. Nelson looked through the telescope with his blind eye and said “”¦I really do not see the signal”.
He won the battle and was promoted to Commander in Chief in the Baltic Sea. This is where the term “turn a blind eye” originated.

There was an exhibit on the frigate war ships. They are three masted sailing ships, with each mast fully rigged. They usually carried 24 38 guns on two gun decks, though there were bigger ships with more decks and guns. The heaviest guns went on the bottom level, and each level up had lighter and lighter guns to keep the boat from being top heavy. They built the ships out of white cedar and lignum vitae, both indigenous woods to the island. The ropes were made out of the fiber of coconut trees. The ropes did not rot easily and lots of rope was found in the mud during the rehabilitation. The British used to paint the floors on the decks red so no one could tell when there was bloodshed during battle. There are designs, models, gun layouts, and rope samples as exhibits.

Another large exhibit was on what it was like to live on one of those ships. It sounds heinous. First of all, since life on the ship was so bad, the navy had a hard time recruiting people, so they often resorted to kidnapping. They weren’t picky about who they kidnapped anyone with all limbs in tact was sufficient. They kidnapped people of all ethnicities, not just British subjects.

Often 100 or more men were crowded into a relatively small boat. Officers got cabins, but everyone else got a hammock. At 2000 (8:00 pm), the crew would hang their hammocks from the ceilings of the gun decks, lying between the guns. In the morning, the crew took their hammocks down and stowed them in pouches on the side of the boat.

If a soldier became disabled, he usually was reassigned to Cook. Cooks generally had no culinary skills at all. Not that much could be done with the food provided. They mostly ate meat preserved in salt, mashed peas, smelly aged cheese with red worms living in it, bread and biscuits made from flour infested with weevils, rancid butter and other such delicacies. The men joked that the weevils were the only source of fresh meat aboard.

For beverages, each man got a gallon of sour beer per day, plus a ration of grog. Grog was three parts water and one part rum, hence the origin of the word “groggy”. After they figured out that lack of vitamin C causes scurvy, they added a squeeze of lime juice to the grog. And, yes, there was water, but it was usually rancid. The water was kept in a “scuttlebut” (AKA cask). The men used to stand around the “scuttlebut” and gossip, hence the evolution of the word “scuttlebut” to mean “gossip”. Human nature really doesn’t ever change. We all still stand around the water cooler and gossip to this day. There were rations of coffee, as well, but they didn’t last long. When the coffee ran out, they would burn toast and crumble it in water to make a coffee flavored beverage.

They washed their clothes once a week. First they soaked them in a tub of urine, then rinsed them in salt water. Urine has ammonia in it, so it gets stains out. Soaking clothes in urine was how clothes were washed in the Roman Empire days, too, we just forgot to mention it back in the Rome posts. We don’t think they bathed at all on the ships, and they were on board for months at a time.

To be continued”¦