Sao Jorge - Day 8 - There is good banter and music

Blog ARC Day 8

Today, Sunday November 27th, as we are writing this, it is already day 8 at sea (and Mal´s birthday wohoo). The time has flown by with the waves and winds constantly keeping our minds and bodies occupied, whether it is balancing a coffee cup in the saloon or steering the boat behind the helm. But let’s start from the beginning.

Last Sunday, November 20th, we removed the lines from peer S17 and left the marina with many people waving us goodbye. Our experienced skipper, Tony, brought us right on time to the starting line and we crossed first in our division. The sea gave us a thorough welcome with 3-4 meter waves and good winds. That meant that, unfortunately, Sara got very sea sick. The rest of the crew was mostly fine but preparing food in the saloon needed a rotating system to not make people sick. Luckily, Sara recovered and everyone else also got stronger sea legs.

Since that first day, we have had calmer seas. That doesn’t mean we stopped going fast with our speed being between 5 and 15 knots. We are always trimming and changing sails and luckily we have quite a lot of experienced sailors on board. As a result, we are currently near the front of the fleet and there isn’t another yacht in sight. We have seen other ships though, including big cruise ships and tankers. In our rotating watch system we always have someone keeping a lookout. Everyone also gets a turn at steering the boat. At night, under constant winds, the autopilot is also very helpful.

The night watches in particular are a special experience. The sea is gliding under the boat under the reflection of the stars. With the moon rarely being out, the stars are sparkling even brighter and we have also seen many shooting stars. Adding to the spark, we could always see bioluminescent plankton, stirred up by the boat crushing through the waves. During the day, nature also amazed us with lots of flying fish (two of them have landed on the boat) as well as dolphins jumping next to the boat. Just as in the night, we have generally had very clear skies with lots of sunshine. As we got more and more south, the general dress code became just shorts and shirts.

Undoubtedly the best spot on the boat to enjoy the sunshine is in the dinghy at the front of the boat and it is in high demand. Of course, to get there, we are stripped in life lines and swim vests. Another fun activity is a sea water shower. There are two approaches to this endeavour. The first is with a bucket in the bathroom. The second, more adventurous one, is being stripped in at the back of the boat with other crew throwing buckets of water. That, in addition with relaxing, sailing, reading, and eating keeps us very occupied. Therefore, keeping track of time is a challenge. Particularly when the time on board is changing. So far, we have passed two timezones west which led to several people waking up at wrong times…

Navigating boat life is definitely a lot easier with such a fun crew as this one. Most of the time, there is good banter and music on. People are also generally happy about the food and many coffees are being served. Today marks the last apple and our other fresh produce is also coming to an end.

Besides the tin food, we are excited of what’s to come and will report more in near future, stay tuned.

To round up this first blog, we asked the crew for a short sentence or word, summarising this first week. What came out? „Salty“, „improving my DIY skills“, „swell“, „awesome“, „ducktape“, „Can we fix it? Yes we can!“, „Excellent teamwork“, „in tune with nature“, „growing and learning“, „super“