Today I thought I would give you a few trivial insights into life at sea for the 4 adventurers we have on board this Moody 66.
We have Stefan from Montenegro, a 27 year old who has only been sailing for 2 years but is about to take his yacht master. One thing that might countagainst him during his yacht master exam is that he is hopelessly addicted to HP Brown Sauce. He pours the stuff all over literally everything and anything. The other day I caught him with his head flung back and his mouth wide open, joyously squeezing HP Sauce down his throat while he thought no one was looking. He had the crazed look of a man on the edge.
They don't sell HP Brown Sauce in Stefan's country. Probably a good thing. Then we have skipper Fin. He is your typical owner/skipper in that he never bloody sits still. I think he's probably had 5 hours of proper sleep since we left Gran Canaria 5 days ago. Yesterday, however, we had a day of no wind. Not a breath. The ferocious Atlantic Ocean turned into a mill pond. We took the opportunity of having a stable, stationary world and had a morning of mending and cleaning (There are always things to mend and clean on a boat). Then, after lunch, something crazy happened. We watched in confusion and excitement as Fin picked up a book, sat down in the cockpit, put his feet up and started to read!! And it wasn't even a book about boat toilet spares! (That's another blog).
Aghast at Fin's sudden ability to relax, we were relieved to see him spring into action less than 5 minutes later. He'd spotted a rogue bilge that needed cleaning. Normality restored.
Next, we have Scott, who is indeed, a Scot. Scott is fit and healthy to a level that most of us can only dream of, from our couches. Day 3 of the trip and confined to less than 10 square meters of useable space, Scot became somewhat restless at the prospect of not having enough surface to go for a run on. I found him setting up what can only be described as 'Cross-Fit' area on our stern deck - an area I had assumed was strictly reserved for cocktail consumption. Apparently I was wrong. So far we've had aerobics, sit ups and he made poor Stefan do leeward pressups. For those of you unfamiliar with cross-fit sailing terms, on this occasion, 'leeward'means 'with head into sea'.
Scott has given himself a target of 1000 pressups across the Atlantic. I don't think this fancy, electric-winching button-pressing hydraulic type of sailing is for him. I think next time he should maybe row across.
Finally, we have me, Becki. I'm the idiot you may remember from previous blogs such as 'I left the hatch open while we were close-hauled'.
I don't partake in the cross-fit sessions. Instead I partake in eating boiled sweets. Well, any type of sweet actually, but this week it is boiled. Which is just as well, because the skipper seems to have had a lorry back up
onto the boat before we left land and dump thousands of Sherbert Lemons on board. Which is great until one of them turns feral and attacks you. I had a particularly vicious one last night. I was helping myself make it through a
lonely 3am-6am night watch by imbibing plenty of sugar. The night wind was particularly shifty and annoying, so I rewarded myself with Sherbert Lemons (I'm sure everyone does this). Unfortunately one of them attacked my back
molar and now I have a broken tooth. Breakages are a normal part of sailing, but ideally teeth should not be on the list. I'm considering moving my loyalties to marshmallows. Or I hear HP Brown Sauce is quite nice, maybe I
will try that - if there's any left....
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