27°40' N
19°17' W
0625 GMT
17.2.08
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though the food handling people give me the impression that eating white rice that's been left on the counter will give you ebola, i am indulging in leftovers-day 2. nice to have some variety... for a long while after watch i have been chowing down on granola and yoghurt. mm, should i say muesli. when in rome and all that.
after our lovely dinner, cap'n m decided that it was his turn to do the dishes. he's sleeping and it's still his turn to do the dishes. he should sleep, though. the tricky part about the current watch system is that he's awake and active whenever he's awake and active. that's an on call for 24/7 that will last for the duration of the crossing. and when the seas are heavy as they were for most of today, that means a lot of consulting. we're a ways into it now, so there's less and less, and there is now an autopilot so that totally helps. but we had a real screamer blow in today. seems like my afternoon watch gets the electrical storms. gotta like that.
it was a bit like my favourite tom garrett memory. tom and i were camped on fleming with two cabins of senior boys.. i think he was in powell and i was in mckinney's or something that session and this wall of rain started coming toward the island. at first it was like 'guys, let's get our stuff into the tents 'cuz i think that rain's coming our way.' this changed rapidly to something more like: 'GET IN THE TENTS NOW! THIS IS HUGE AND IT'LL BE HERE... LIKE ACTUALLY NOW.' there were personal effects, lifejackets, paddles, a half finished pot of chili (well-nigh unheard of at my campsite) and schwånt
(junk for the non-CS) everywhere. we piled the kids into the tents, told them to not open their sleeping bags until they were ready to sleep, told the kids not to touch the sides of the tents (makes drips and then puddles) and started frantically putting everything away as the storm flew towards us. that was some wind.
tom's eyes were as big as saucers and he had the biggest smile i had ever seen on his face; he was obviously thrilled to pieces to be in the weather while the kids grumbled in the tents about how rain sucks, etc. tee hee. i think matt boats-is-a-music-band was on this trip. this afternoon i bet jenny it would arrive in like 3 minutes and i was off by about 90 seconds. killer. i think the gust was around 49 knots. and we were already in a 20 knot wind. so wooosh and vrooooomm, hey?
she and sarah had been a wee bit green all day, but when that rain and wind hit and we were out at the mast reefing in the mainsail, jenny was smiling a big tom garrett-style smile. there's some weather out here and it's exhilirating. it's also great to be sailing a rocket ship like this one. our neighbour in las palmas, tomas from germany, said that his boat has a hull speed of around 6 knots. sarah's velocity record stands on this trip at 18 knots. i have been at or around 12.5 knots; we do 6 knots standing on our heads clucking like a chicken. when we're actually sailing it gets way better than that.
oops of the day: i had been reading 'the curious incident of the dog in the night time' and was told what a great book it had been by several members of the crew. when i was done i gave it away to tomas, as we had been yapping about it the other day at 'sailor's bar,' and he had also mentioned that he'd finished all the books on his boat. wouldn't you know it, sarah had been interested in reading it but hadn't made that clear to me. oops. a nearly-oops was midway through supper when i was standing in the doorway talking about the compass with marilyn. a quiet, polite 'excuse me' on a heavy seas day (so i am informed) usually means 'get out of the way or i'll barf on you, buddy.' fortunately, i think everyone held onto their cookies.
this meant that there were larger portions for the less green-coloured. mmm. leftovers.
Back in the water again at last!
2 years ago
