Race 4 - Day 9
Crew Diary - Race 4 Day 9: Fremantle to Sydney
11 December
A word of advice for anyone reading this who is thinking of taking part in this race - never be tempted to poke your toes out of your sleeping bag when you feel a bit too warm or they will encounter the icy dampness of your lifejacket that nestles in the pocket at the foot of your bunk when you are off watch in readiness for any emergency. Not the best way to wake up from your sleep.
It is hard to convey just how normal this strange world I am living in feels now and I thought a description of our living quarters might help. As you all know we all “hot bunk” (ie as someone gets out of a bunk the next person gets in). That all sounds very orderly but doesn’t mention the complexity of getting ready for sleep.
The first thing needed after coming off deck is to remove your (usually) soaking oilskins/dry suit. These get hung up to “dry” (a bit of optimism there) and swing with alacrity as you walk past hitting you in a cold wet fish sort of way. Lovely. Depending on the point of sail, your bunk may be tilted high to prevent you falling out so that the only way to get in is to shimmy up the wall like a spider and then, with a surge of energy, throw yourself onto your bunk landing on your stomach before the boat lurches down a wave. All good so far…
The next job is to tie up your lee cloth (a bit of blue canvas that helps prevent you from falling out of your bunk). You are now lying down and relatively safe. Next you need to extricate yourself from your multiple layers of clothes – safest done when lying down as you don’t encounter unexpected boat movements. Depending on the temperature most of us remove mid layers and jackets but keep on thermals. Where do you put them? In your sleeping bag to try to dry them off or along the side of the bunk to protect you from falling into the lockers where you keep all your worldly goods? Tricky decision as if they are not in your sleeping bag they just get damper. My crocs (not aesthetically pleasing but very practical when walking around down below especially when venturing into the heads) get hung up on a carabiner alongside my water bottle and a small dry bag full of all the things you might need when lying in your bunk. Now for the socks – fine at the moment as they are clean and fragrant as a blossom – I hang them up on the underside of the bunk above so that they are ready and waiting for when I need to get up and dressed again and don’t get lost in my sleeping bag. They dangle down a few inches above my nose as does my head torch that you also keep in close proximity all the time. It will not surprise my friends to know that I also have a small bag with a lypsil in it hanging down above my head in case of a dry lip emergency when lying in my bunk! If you try to turn over in your bunk you get thwacked on the nose by all these items in unison which can be disconcerting if you are half asleep.
My final job before trying to sleep is clean my teeth lying down in the bunk (toothbrush and toothpaste in dry bag nearby) which I find easier than balancing on one leg in the heads and wash salt off face and hands with wet wipes – a semblance of order and cleanliness in my world!
I am much mocked by my fellow crew for the cacophony of dry bags that proliferate in my cave locker filled with clean(ish) dry(ish) clothes/gloves/hat to replace those that get wet. I have a system of colour of dry bag so that I can find things that always seems highly efficient when packing on land and always goes badly awry when at sea – hunting for something in the dark by red light in a small dark place in a dry bag in a storm is never going to be easy and for some reason things that you absolutely KNOW you put in the red bag find themselves in the turquoise one or the green one or disappear completely never to be found again until the deep clean when we get to port!
The bit I haven’t mentioned is the noise. There is the sound of water whooshing past the hull which is soothing, there can be wind howling which is less so. Sounds of people on deck yelling instructions to each other so they can be heard above the wind, the groan of sheets of sails being eased or ground onto winches, sails being changed or reefs put in. There is the background throb of the generator making freshwater, the Mothers of the day playing music in the background (tastes vary so sometimes you are sleeping to heavy metal and other times to classical music). You are vaguely aware of people walking past in full oilskins and lifejackets on their way to the navigation station to fill in the log, other times someone passes by your bunk armed with cloth and antibacterial spray cleaning surfaces. The bilges get emptied bucket by bucket a meter or so from your nose which you studiously ignore and other times people kneel by your feet rolling and woolling a wet spinnaker which sometimes you can even sleep through. All these sounds are now part of the background world that we inhabit and it is only when they stop that it seems odd and you start to wonder what is happening. As someone who at home is woken by an owl calling, it is amazing that I can sleep at all with so much background noise without any difficulty.
It is fair to say that everything is damp, wet or very wet depending on what you are encountering at that moment in time. I suppose I should not be surprised – as GT reminds us often, this is a water sport! There is a fine drizzle and low cloud that reminds me of family holidays in Scotland. The wind has moderated in the last few hours but the sea is still confused with breaking waves that are keeping the helms on their toes. The albatrosses are enjoying the challenge of flying as close to the water as they can, weaving in and out of waves and flying around our boat in apparently effortless flight – I shall be very sad when we start heading north and no longer are in these oceans where albatross abound. They are so beautiful and mesmerising to watch.
We have just gybed and are now heading north east towards the tip of Tasmania. This is the most southern point of our adventure and what an experience it has been so far – something I would not have missed for anything. I am sad to be leaving these southern waters but excited at what the next few months will bring.
From a damp and rather salty seadog, Nell.