Another 24 hours in the Atlantic, and not much has changed. Wind is still awol, the engine continues to hum and the sea, well, there’s still plenty of sea.
Yesterday’s highlight was the long-awaited return of the Sunday night Mucky Duck pub quiz, won by Jon and his team with a controversial half point awarded by Clare. Did you know that Avebury Stone Circle move the stones twice a year to co-incide with daylight saving time? Well we did, and now so do you. One point. The usual games continue… foredeck pruning, cockpit laundry, windscoop alteration, staysail snoozing and hide-and-seek with Nick’s beloved but ever so skanky penguin shorts. He’s started taking them to bed with him… this will not stop us.
Foredeck shade has become highly prized and fought over and another level of difficulty has been added to our ‘abs of death’ Atlantic workout by doing it at midday, the sweat pooling between bare skin and deck provides a slipperiness that increases use of core stability muscles in order to avoid sliding off into a winch/chunder bucket/razor left lying around.
And for our daily brain workout, 20 questions has been resumed (after a suitable period of mourning for old crew members loved and lost) and James has started teaching us some sailing theory. Unfortunately yesterday’s daily swim was postponed amid shark fears and a large jellyfish sighting, however on the plus side this might improve our boat lap times and therefore our Atlantic goddess bodies.
This morning’s watch has been another slog… star-gazing, sunrise, coffee and toast and potato-peeling including pus extraction (the veges are seriously on the turn). All at a positively chilly 27.6 degrees at 6am and another enjoyable round of the temperature game.
Lynda asked me yesterday how normal people fit 8 hours of work into a day. I don’t know, and I’m not quite sure how I will adjust back to reality post Elinca. Until next time…
Rachel xx
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