Day 18 – Tuesday

Reverse evolution that’s what happening on Hot ice! Like the pictures of the ancient cavemen evolving into man, so does sailing for nearly 3 weeks slowly change the crew. I think in reverse though. We are all sporting full beards and by the end of 4 weeks I am sure will be very well established.

We cannot think very well now without stroking down on our goatees between finger and thumb, a habit we have all learnt from Mark, the skipper. He in fact is the only one of us that started with a beard and a well-established goatees. We all know when we see him on deck stroking his goatees and looking round in contemplation that it’s only a matter of time before we will be called on to change something. Shaun looked like he had eaten his breakfast badly a few days ago as he looked like he had rice crispies stuck in his beard. It turned out that he was peeling from a bad case of sun burn. We are all rather bronzed by the sun and there is no need to any other clothes other than a pair of shorts most of the time. Our language has degenerated into a series of grunts which are well understood by all.

We are very fortunate that everyone seems to be getting on fairly well with each other, because in 49 feet it is very hard to avoid someone for very long.

We continued west for most of the day in light wind. We feel like a truck in car race. The cringle and join for the spinnaker pole finally stopped working and after sometime getting it down the pole is now safely tied on deck for the rest of the race  unless we can make a plan. It will be very difficult for us to wing it from now on. Let’s hope we don’t have to sail downwind very often! We have now sailed 3000 nm which is roughly 5700 km.

We have approximately 1600nm to go in a straight line to get to Rio.

It was overcast most of the day and the swell was very small. We did finally see signs of other life when 2 ships passed in front of us. We could barely see their lights.

Explora arrived at the finish yesterday and we received a message, stating that for all boats behind them that all beer and Caipirinha’s will be finished by the time we get there. All I can say is good luck boys and there had you’d better leave some for us though or else….! Kevin spends his day rethinking what he is going to have first and in what order. Its seems to be all of the following, in an order that he keeps reshuffling: Burger, slap chips, diet coke, beer and vodka lime and soda. Each to his own way of dealing with the boredom.

Warwick cooked a tuna pasta for dinner and on queue Kevin played T-Rex.

I am on the 4am to 6am shift. It now is only getting light around 6.30am.

From the deep ocean blue… till tomorrow.

PS Jamon De Bellota correction from yesterday.

Position [19 50 S 15 29 W]

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