Sorry if you have been reading more than one blog as I feel we are all in a similar state of perpetual watches but I did try and write a poem in my head whilst at the helm ...
flying fish flowing freely frequenting from afar to forward, finding friends and foe, unfortunately falling short of freedom.
Okay it's more a tongue twister than poem.
‘ello officer I'd like to report an assault and 'batter-ery' our ships medic took a flying fish to the face and dropped his mug of coffee.”
To get these (many) suicidal fish off our deck, we are using two weapons from our arsenal, a spatula (aka a fish slice) and a dustpan. I feel tomorrow morning will require a thorough deck wash and all the boat a fine tooth comb inspection looking for any caucuses including checking the flaked sails on deck. Also the crew member who goes by the name of hazard had a coming together with a squid I'm sure by the time he gets to land and sinks a few jars he'll say it was a giant squid. I'm not normally nervous flying the kite at night but put flying fish in the mix and it's a completely different kettle of...
As for life on board, most of the crew experienced their first deck shower today with half of them putting clean clothes on, and all said they felt refreshed and re-energised, and by coincidence about five crew and myself had the want/need to cut our fingernails. (see never a dull moment at sea)
On a completely different tack... I had my most enjoyable day sailing thus far through our epic voyage; the sea state was slight the sun shining and a steady 18 knot breeze, in my shorts and t-shirt, with the kite up just occasionally surfing the odd wave with almost only two fingers on the wheel, I was very happy indeed. Move onto tonight and we have the kite up with low 20 knot gusts in the pitch black with crew screaming and tip-toeing around flapping flailing fish whilst trying to get a riding turn out of a spinnaker sheet...roll on sunrise!
Hi to all back home from Josh and the crew of Ha Long Bay, Viet Nam.
P.s c'mon Liverpool!
AQP (shameless) self promotion :)
3 weeks!
Three weeks ago we were in London, walking around St. Katharine Docks for the parade, sharing the last hugs, waving, screaming goodbye, posing, more hugging and more waving, and screaming into the wind, to the spectators boats, to the people on the side of the Thames. Screaming our team name, or whatever, because they could not hear us, or understand us. Screaming that we had no or little idea, depending on whom, about what we were going for, in which boat had we embarked ourselves?
And tomorrow, three weeks ago, we would take the first start, came the first mistakes, the first seasickness, but also the first laughs, the first surfs, the first amazing sunsets or calm sails under the stars.
And today, we are a few dozen miles from the Scoring Gate of Race 2. We are seven days into the race, and no one knows already if it's been one day or one month that we are at sea. We all got our watch rhythm, crew pop on deck ten min early to take their watch, that's pretty amazing. JB finally cracked the secret of the two of our three foreguys, Haz (aka John) is giving all his heart to the galley duties, that is barely big enough to contain his energy, Ivan and Jacqui are coaching the rest of crime-watch on the helm, little bare aways followed by little head up. The giant clock that this ship is; is starting to tick on a more harmonious rhythm, oiled every watch change by quick debriefs, updates, adjustments. Of course there are the hard days, where everyone sleeps less because of a kite wrap, a nasty crossed swell or a flaky wind. But overall, all the gears of this bio-mechanical machine are falling into place, with just the right amount of ware, laugh, crisis, yelling, exhaustion, practice... all humans after all.
Three weeks ago, we were 2500nm youngers, and we were in St. Katharine Docks.