Race 3 - Day 5
Crew Diary - Race 3 Day 5: Cape Town to Fremantle
05 November
Badger and Badger's sweatshop
For those of you that have been dutifully following team Garmin (god bless you) since Leg 1 you will recall that Bill Lyons is Badger and I am Badger Jnr – new joiners, this is from an old joke about our bunks on leg 1 being akin to a badger set [insert own joke about TB if necessary]. GT is still convinced we are skunks after some confusion over black and white animal descriptions.
It's 1:07am and I find myself back in the galley (badger sweatshop) with Bill as we are creating an orange glaze for new joiner Harmon's birthday cake. Every now and again my old self whispers in my ear, "In what world would you ever dutifully wake up every 4-6 hours, do whatever you were told without question, surrounded by people, some of which all you know about them is their first name, hurtling towards certain danger and rising seas?" But you lose sense of land-based reason very quickly and making cakes in various states of undress bathed only in red light the middle of the night is completely normal.
Badger works tirelessly trying to make life on board better for those around her, in which I reluctantly (occasionally petulantly) assist. As I sit here, queasy from quoffing an entire packet of Percy Pig sweets (holla to Saj for supplying you gem!), neither of us are on mother / cook duty today but Bill is cutting up carrots for sweet and sour chicken, which is for lunch later on as we anticipate a major weather shift from our current wind hole to stormy (technical term) winds - that and the mothers on duty today are not, ahem, masterchefs, shall we say. No offense Westy and Mike T!
Overall, I fear the galley. She's the only part of the boat to break me so far, having never been sea sick, she devoured me for a day on level 4 training. Slowly but surely I am beating her down, although there is no worse place when on a heel. Yesterday the seas were high, 40kn+ and we were constantly on a 40 degree angle. I was on cook duty with Nell Wyatt, fellow Essex girl (shout out to Lyndsay Barnes and Sarah Hoare!) savage seafarer (also current speed record holder at 25.5kn) and apparent GP although I'm yet to see any sympathy from her. We had to kick off the day with porridge. At around 3am I stoically soaked the oats, chopped up some apples and pears with cinnamon for a stewed sensation of sorts. Then pathetically, around 11:45am as usual, Nell had to send me off for my mid morning hour nap – without sleep I'm an incompetent monster. I was back in the game after a half time sub-in from robust Rowena (she's unshakeable in the galley). For lunch it was hot dogs and minestrone soup. Then after many jokes about flacid frankfurters, it was on to prep for dinner: bangers and mash with green beans and onion gravy. A double sausage day. Poor Harmon, the pescatarian, suffered I fear. Again mid-afternoon, I had to have another hour nap to make sure I could manage dinner service. Serving in the galley I have realised is about rest, respect, but most importantly your crew mate – it is the space which undoubtedly brings us closest to tears but also where I have laughed the hardest. I feel confident I could cook for 20 back home easily now.
I've romanticised enough, our birthday cake (Uruguyan vanilla cake which I'm hoping will magically taste just like lemon drizzle) has risen without burning or sliding and I have my glaze to attend to. She won't break me!
I know it's been mentioned by other crew members but I also wanted to extend my thoughts to Andy and the Greenings Team. We are all thinking of you and wishing you well.
PS. Amy Thorne I wanted to find a way to contact you yesterday without avail, I thought of you all day and leading up to it. I love you and, as he would be, I am exceptionally proud to know you. Bring on Christmas in Sydney girl! xx
PPS. Jonny Prosecco – if you're reading this – STORM GIIIIIB, I have the best picture of someone posing on it too x
Reluctantly happy galley slave, Simone x