17 54.630n 23 44.881w
(A very special) Life at sea
Fri Nov 10 2023
Gosh, what a Roly poly few days we’ve had at sea. Emm described having a shower was like trying to put on a wet swimming costume in a telephone box strapped to the back of a Toyota pick up whilst going around several roundabouts in different directions. I think she’s right, it’s been a wee bit testing at times.
The first thing that drove me nuts were the pots and pans that slid and banged against the cupboard door. Time after time I went down below and stuffed another tea towel in what I thought was the offending utensil. But somehow, just when I got back in the cockpit it all started again. Up down up down until finally I stood in the galley, like Basil Fawlty about to thrash his car, giving them one more chance! And as it happened it turned out it wasn’t a pan after all but a water bottle under the floor.
Next up was some quite remarkable gymnastics from Nikki who, having finished cleaning her teeth and was reversing out of the heads when one almighty lurch happened and as I looked up from the chart table where I was eating my cornflakes I saw her lifted bodily a hurled into the bunk room opposite. She appeared to be leading with her backside, her arms and legs flailing behind. The sort of pose one might adopt if you had caught a medicine being fired out of a canon right in the sola plexus.
Meal times were equally challenging as bowls would mysteriously move from under a large ladle full of food at the very moment the Cook was prepared to make the transfer. You could see in Cook’s eyes the level of commitment as first the process of steadying oneself was quickly followed by depositing a huge dollop of chilli right into the bowl. But as the food left the relative safety of the spoon to make the short journey, no more than a few centimetres away, the boat would, unannounced, decide to lurch. The plate promptly followed it and the brown heap of food would, unceremoniously, splatter out across the worktop. However, it didn’t stay there long for as the ship began to right itself the plate dutifully returned , heading straight for the heap of brown food spread across the surface. Now we were faced with the bowl sitting in the food instead of the other way around.
Simple acts like navigating one’s way around the chart plotter have caused untold havoc. Of course it looks cool to have a touch-screen with no buttons, and that’s all well and good until you’re bouncing around the chart table attempting to set the navigation to find your way to a waypoint when the boat suddenly lurches (again) and you’ve hit ‘disengage the pilot’ instead. No big deal? Normally not but in 3.5m of swell 25 knots gusting 30, sailing wing on wing with a TWA of 160 I t’s a slightly different proposition. You have a split second to decide do I find the waypoint and press re-engage pilot, or make a dash for the wheel before the boat gybes and takes the rig out….
But then there’s the stars. The exhilaration of sailing at speed at night is one of the best all time thrills, when the stern gets lifted and 25 tons goes surging down the face of a wave, the roar of water as the bow slices its way through the ocean, the warm wind on your face and suddenly as you are rejoicing in the whole experience you rock back and look up and you see a trillion stars all shining down on you. All of a sudden you switch from hedonist to humbled. The impossible magnitude of the Universe, the unfathomable infinity of space sets you on a trip like no other. One minute white knuckle riding the roaring ocean living in the moment and loving every second, the next minute tripping out as you try getting your head the arena in which all this is happening. This really is some sleigh ride.