There were a few waves still when I awoke this morning, but the skies were clear, blue and warm,…. No need for foulies today and most people were wandering around shoeless, the waves still broke over the deck, but having wet feet doesn’t worry anybody anymore!!
Sundays are a “no-work” day, although watches are still followed as we are still sailing. I was up loosing the fore royals and as I looked all around from 35 metres up, I knew that I had made the right decision coming on this voyage…. I glanced over at brad who was up the main t’gallants and shouted out the obvious “Brad, this is incredible!”,.. he nodded quickly in agreement happy now he hadn’t thrown up in at least 13 hours!
Watch was spent trimming the odd sail, but in general we chilled out on the quarterdeck, there was one moment of excitement when we saw a yacht approaching us from the southwest. He aimed straight for us and crossed not 50m in front of our bow,.. He was flying a German flag and despite waving at him, there was no wave, no hailing on channel 16, nothing,… rude bastard,… he was probably heading to Fuerteventura to try and get his beach towel down first on a sun lounger,.. rude bastard!
Most of the afternoon was spent setting up fishing rods, chilling out on the hold hatch, playing smut scrabble and reading… Just before dinner the captain mustered us to explain that the fair winds are probably going to drop off, and we may have to motor the next few days, shouldn’t be a problem,.. I noticed that thanks to the storm a lot of rust stains had appeared and there will be rust busting a plenty!!!
Decided to do some washing today,.. still amazed that I am quite happy in clothes that are days old after not showering for the best part of a week, but decided that I had become a bit stinky so the time had come!
Tonight’s watch will hopefully be quite calm too… we’ll see, things have a habit of cropping up!
I was on first lookout this evening which, apart from another fantastic sunset, was pretty boring…. I am not sure if it is because there is too much light, or because the plankton haven’t migrated up yet, but there was almost no bioluminescence and absolutely nothing else to report,.. having gone over ex’s, previous careers and general life decisions on a previous watch I was now stuck with what to think about!! Solved fairly easily by thinking about what might happen on the trip,..
A few sail manoeuvres were needed and my pride was hurt as I slipped on the wet deck for the second time on the voyage,.. won’t happen again dammit!
The highlight of the evening was when Brad ran down to inform us that there were dolphins off the bow at about quarter past 11… If you think these are incredible creatures during the day, they are magical in the half light of a quarter moon!
They glide beneath the surface like iridescent ghosts leaving trails of incandescent light in their wake, their bodies silhouetted against the dark by auras of bioluminescence. Their trails, briefly illuminated, show their swooping movements and careering variations in direction , the green lights flash around them until they leap from the water and they are lost from sight/invisible until they splash home once again…
Unlike the other night, we could actually hear them talk to each other and despite seeming erratic the pod always seemed in one mind and they soon tired of playing in our rather pathetic bow wave and disappeared into the night…
Tomorrow I am to play Johanna in the Norwegian national day,.. apparently my costume has been decided as I was on lookout when all the decisions were made!! Should be interesting!
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