Normally on passages, we have three days of school and then take one day off. I was so certain that yesterday was a day off that I had planned to watch a movie with Joe, bake things, do crosswords, etc.
I think I might have been more disappointed than the kids when I woke up and realized that we had only done two days of school. It was even worse when Joe mentioned that it was his favorite day of the week - Sunday. It’s Joe’s favorite day because we clean the boat. We almost never have school on cleaning days because it’s too painful but we make an exception on passages. This meant that we did our normal cleaning jobs AND school, which made no one happy.
The irritability lasted throughout the day, with my students being particularly trying and my patience being particularly lacking. Fortunately, Joe and my admonishments that evening seemed to have reached the children because they were much better on Monday (yesterday) and it went by fairly quickly.
Today, then, was a day off. Last night, Joe, Gemma and I watched a grown-up movie all by ourselves. It was “Love, Actually” and both Joe and Gemma stayed up into my watch in order to see it. This meant that they both lost sleep to watch the movie and both of them ended up sleeping through part of their watches and, Gemma at least, admitted to being confused the rest of the night. Charm was never without someone on watch – it was just that none of us had the heart to wake up the person that had slept through their alarm.
So tonight when we started to watch a movie, I quickly paused it when it was time for my watch and we all agreed we would continue it tomorrow.
I brought out two books this morning, planning to read away my free hours on my off day. I didn’t even open one of them. Instead I did all kinds of other things like watching BFG, baking bread rolls and cupcakes, and helping treat sick monkeys in a hospital where the nurse got fired for giving herself shots in the eye. I agreed with Tully that this was highly unprofessional. The other nurse got fired for continuing to get the same diseases as the patients although I thought she could have stayed on and just done a bit more training in personal hygiene.
We also took down mini-Spinny after she gave us five days of hard work. The whole crew went out for the sail change and we put up the asymmetric spinnaker I’m calling Le Grand Bleu, our new spinnaker that Chris and Griselle schlepped over many months ago. We haven’t had many opportunities to fly her but she will now have a chance to justify her presence. After chasing the wind north for the past few days, it looks like we have found it and have turned to a heading of 289 degrees towards Salvador.
The wind is coming in at Charm’s preferred angle of 120 degrees on the stern quarter and Le Grand Bleu has been pulling us along between 7 and 10 knots for most of the day. After several days of limping along in the 5 to 7 knot range, it’s nice to have a little speed again. Le Grand Bleu has quite a bit more sailcloth to it than Mini Spinny so that’s one reason we’re going faster but the wind has also increased a few knots to be closer to 15 knots than 10.
With the increased speed come more precautions and slightly less comfort on the boat. We’ve had the forward hatches (large windows that open onto the deck) open for the past few days and nights, allowing the boat to cool off for more comfortable sleeping.
Tonight, Joe asked that we close the hatches, fearing that bigger bow waves might find their way into people’s beds. The girls complained that their room was unbearably hot. On passages, Joe sleeps on the couch in the salon so he can be immediately available for any sailing issues. The girls moved into our empty bed in the stern (which has open windows and is cooler) and so I have two little warm, sweaty girl bodies in my bed to greet me after my watch has ended.
Ah, the joys of the tropics. After several months of cooler weather, it will be an adjustment to go back to the heat of the Caribbean. It was winter in Australia in August and it has been more or less cool since then. Most places were warmer during the days and then quite cool at night. It has only been the last day or two that we are without jackets on night watches.
Without too much going on today, we did a lot of baking. Since I had a lasagna already in the freezer for dinner, I decided to bake yeast rolls. Note the beautiful lettuce we are still eating, courtesy of the folks at the Blue Lantern restaurant in St. Helena. They arranged for the lettuce delivery and a bonus lettuce head, telling Joe, “What’s an extra lettuce among friends?”
Tully and Cobin made cupcakes and we had an impromptu unbirthday party. In keeping with the theme, Cobin gave me an unwanted gift for my unbirthday - the bag of Tropical-flavored Swedish fish that my mom brought over a couple of months ago.
We love Swedish fish but only the original flavor. My mom brought plenty of those (which disappeared immediately) but also tucked in a few extra packages of Tropical flavor. Those have been bouncing around the bottom of the candy section for a while and undelightfully emerged at the unbirthday party. Then they went back to the bottom of the candy bin. They will probably still be there for the next party.
You may notice that half of the unbirthday cupcakes have sprinkles on them. Like paints and glitter, sprinkles should only be used under direct adult supervision, if at all. Somehow, I keep having to relearn that lesson. Today I let Tully take the sprinkles to the cockpit where they immediately got knocked over and found their way into every crevice, box, nook and cranny in the cockpit. I know because I vacuumed all of them out. Hooray for the shop vac – the most useful tool on the boat apart from my beloved husband Joe. Not that I’m calling him a tool – it was meant as a compliment. I’m sure he’ll take it that way.
After dinner, everyone, including Tully (who insisted on the sprinkles), opted for the cupcakes without the sprinkles on them, because they don’t like how sprinkles taste. So, guess who got stuck with the undelicious cupcake on her unbirthday? Actually, I love the crunchiness of the sprinkles so I’m happy to eat all the unwanted sprinkled cupcakes. I think this will be a strategy I remember for the future.
I’m finishing out this evening with two unrelated comments. One is to recommend a book called, “Gravity is the Thing” by an Australian author (I can’t find the book to find the author’s name– I think Gemma has hidden it under her pillow). Talia, the young Australian woman who joined us from Cocos to Mauritius, accidentally left it on board when she left. Both Gemma and I are very grateful for her loss because we have both enjoyed it. It’s well-written, entertaining, and has several plot lines that all move along nicely and come together in satisfying and unexpected ways. So, if you’re looking for an easy, fun read – check it out.
The other comment is the ongoing entertainment that is the difference in vocabulary between British and American English. While we continually enjoy the small pleasures of pants vs trousers, fanny packs and bum bags, and the confusion of, “I don’t mind” for “I don’t care,” we recently discovered a unique difference.
When Josie and Gemma were on the boat together with us on the way to Namibia, I heard one of them pronounce “slow poke” in an odd way. I asked her to repeat what she had said and she very clearly said, “slow coach.” I was mystified and asked why they said “slow coach.” She asked, “What do you call it?” When I told her, “slow poke,” she started laughing. Then we all started laughing.
At least a slow coach has some sort of obvious meaning. But what is a slow poke? I guessed maybe it had something to do with cow pokes that didn’t move quickly. Gemma and Josie wanted to know why we poked cows in the US. Then the kids started poking each other in slow motion and it became even more confusing. All of us agreed that neither term really makes a great deal of sense but none of us has any way of finding out the origins. Yet another mystery that awaits the power of Google to unravel!
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