Day 15 – Saturday
Oh what it would be like to sleep in a real bed again! We were on a port tack, which means that Hot Ice is leaning to starboard (right) side, and I was able to sleep fairly well last night as my bunk is on the starboard side so I am able to lie into the keel of the boat. This makes a huge difference. If Hot Ice rocks and if we are on starboard tack I could easily end up on the floor like Shaun did on one of the first nights of the trip.
Everyone is having their own personal battle with sleeping and you can see they are tired most of the time. Kevin and now Jean are also battling a fresh water leak that now wets a side of their bed at night. We don’t seem to be able to find the source. The wind was consistently good and we had a very good day making great progress in the right direction. There was very little adjustments to the set course and sails. Our biggest challenge now that we have been at sea for 2 weeks and particularly with the thought that there are 2 weeks to go, is the monotony! Over the Last few days the crew, has definitely run out of things to talk about and everyone is quite silent and looking for time away from everyone else. Warwick slept an entire day. Shaun sleeps and stands outside on the stern (back) looking for some answers in the distant horizon. Jean listen to and reads his iPad, and sleeps for hours on deck. Kevin keeps moving around from his bunk, to cockpit, to outside deck mostly reading.
Mike spends time in his bunk writing in his journal and sleeping or sitting silently in the cockpit. I spend my time on deck and in the cockpit reading. My bunk is only designed for sleeping so I don’t spend any time there. I probably sleep the least out of everyone. I also have the blog to write and I also do the position reporting to the race committee at 8am every day. Mark is the only one use to being at sea for long periods and doesn’t seem fazed at all. He seems to understand the current vibe and he
can be seen wandering the boat from bow to stern like some ancient mariner gazing knowingly, at things we just don’t understand yet.
Over lunch time yesterday while the others slept Kevin, Jean and I took an inventory of the food on board as was discussed the previous day. The conclusion was that we still have 14 good dinner meals left, enough snacks for lunch for the same period and plenty of breakfast to last a month. I guess I won’t have that forced diet I was hoping for. I made Saturday night dinner. Steak, baked potatoes, gem squash filled with curried beans. I made chicken for those “inclined to be healthier”. Mike,
Mark and I are the meat eaters. “Meat eaters” are defined as someone that does not consider a plate of food to be a plate of food without meat.
We still have not seen any other ships since we were nearly run over which seems like a long time ago. Our full moon had started to wane and it was very dark again after sunset for an hour until the moon made its appearance and brought with it, its radiant warmth. Some how you feel much more secure with the moon watching over you at night. I was on one of my rare nights where the schedule did not have me working between 8pm and 6am.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz till tomorrow…
Position [21 06 S 09 30 W]
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January 20, 2014 @ 1:39 pm
Go team! Fascinating to read about your adventure. Smooth sailing and remember, home is where the anchor drops..