Tuesday, December 12, 2006

What is Beth doing in this picture?

The answer is: A.

On a rather stormy and miserable day at the Mayflower II, as you can imagine, there isn't much to do. We are allowed to leave the site, given we have no heating and are almost entirely exposed to the weather out there, only if there are no visitors on board. Of course, the result of this plan is that we'll get a couple or a family of four that come on in so well timed a fashion that we'll all have to stay on the ship while they tour the whole thing, and, just as one of these groups finishes, ah, yes, another comes on board. Therefore, you end up spending most of the day dressed head to toe in rain gear (for those not in costume) or in varying degrees of wet wool (for those in costume).

In this picture, Beth, after one of those smaller sets proceeded down to the below-deck area, tied the bits and pieces of a malkin--a mop--together and hung the line off the side, attaching a piece of ship's biscut to the end of it. Unfortunately, this resulted in the biscut getting caught on something close to the waterline, and the line breaking apart, leaving the ship's biscut hanging off of the ship until we finally figured out where it was and could bring it back up. The biscut, hard-tack-like as it is, having been rained on and left exposed for days, was entirely intact, proving by experiementation that even seventeenth century methods of preserving foods are effective.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Let me see if I have this right....You get paid for doing this?