17°34' N
59°44' W
0615 UT
2.3.08
________________
wow. tired. the transition to the new time zoner should be a tad challenging. or has been. we havbe been keeping the same ship time throughout, and haven't really adopted the time zone thing as we've moved through them.
though, we were in las palmas for a while and were sort of on canary time. total gridlock, mon. antigua time should be quite similar. spent a gerat deal of time with ferdinand today. matt did oil changes and i went in behind and cleaned and then cleaned some more. getting all intimate with a diesel engine. the only way to clean it is to basically lay on top of the thing, and brace yourself in so that any movement doesn't cause slippy fally. i broke my sunglasses and got bit by a jubilee clip / hose clamp last time i was cleaning an engine. though, from what i can tell, the environment in there has improved greatly since the first time i cleaned in there. it's generally cleaner each time, though each time i find new places to get the rag or toothbrush into. keeps coming up yukky, so it must be doing something. loads of the uncomfortable bits have been trimmed and tweaked so it doesn seem like there'll be any flesh left on sharp bolt-ends anymore and i think most of the pointy parts have been smoothed out. still a dirty job. and weirdly tiring top contort and brace, contort and brace all day. every other time we'd done on engine room and then waited a day. then did the next one.
a good policy, though this time if we wait a day, we'll already be in port. last time we got into port i spent a good 2 hours down there and was the last ashore. didn't mind that. i can say that i'm not in a rush to get there (wherever there is, generally but not without notable exceptions).
query of the day: are we supposed to get bored of this or something? i'm not. on the one hand, the sea is pretty much the sea it was when we left. the sky is slightly different. and the sea is not the same, or doesn't seem so to me even from moment to moment.
timing problem: started learning about the sextant today. foolishly not during the day but in nautical twilight. seemed to work our alright. i sighted Sirius and floated the thingy down to where the horizon was. what next? alas, too dark to read the numbers. more tomorrow, if i'm lucky. or more likely, skilled at remembering. today at noon i was under an engine room hatch, all wrapped up in that. an elegant device.
'dunno why we waited for so long.'
dinner: the ship caught another dorado and jenny did it up all simple-like. tasty. after dinner sarah got another guitar lesson. she's up to 5 chords now, and is a few steps closer to the song she wants to learn.
sleepy.
