December 4, 2015 – Last night the half moon was illuminating our journey through the water. A half moon gives slightly less light than a full moon, but still it gives enough light to see somewhat of our surrounding. Night sailing remains to be a little wonder. It’s such a surrealistic view to see nothing around you, just the water and waves that are lightened by the moon and a dark sky with some stars or clouds. Further than that you only hear the ocean and feel the swell. It’s as if we are sailing through a painting. Or as if we are part of a film set.
(To the people that have seen The Truman Show: I sometimes imagine we suddenly sail into a wall…!)
In the last 24 hours we made 196 miles. And we have a new speed record: 15.8 knots thanks to a high wave that lifted us up and carried us forward very fast for a second of time. We have 4 meter high waves today and there are approximately 7 seconds in between every wave.
We’ve seen an orange buoy drifting by and we heard some noise of the VHF phone. When somebody sees or hears something like that – even an orange buoy… - he or she screams and then the rest of the crew comes to watch it pass by. Bizarre how such useless things can almost be a highlight of the day! It’s a sign of life, which is nice after having seen nothing but water and sky for the last 4 or 5 days.
The real highlight of today, and a big sign of life, was the white bird that was flying around our boat and that landed on deck for a couple of hours. We gave him a lift, Daan even gave him some food, and we took some nice pictures. He didn’t like the flying fish that were still lying on deck of the last night… But we were happy to have a pet on board.
After the Mahi Mahi fish curry lunch (our favourite dish on board) some of us took a siesta, read a book, or wrote a Sinterklaas poem. We all find our way so well on board. At some point we noticed that the jib sheet (schoot) had split. The line was broken by the constant pressure of the wind and we replaced it by the port side sheet. Also we then checked all the screws around the ship, because some of them get loose because of the constant movements of the ship. Such things are normal practice on board and keep us busy now and then. It’s important we keep checking and solving such things. This way we continue to fully trust Shiva in bringing us to Saint Lucia safely.
For the first time we have seen the sun setting into the sea. Usually there are clouds which take that view away, but today the clouds were only covering the top of the sun which gave a spectacular sunset view.