Rhapsody - Rhapsody - Day Two: One pole, no fish

The winds have eased to a consistent 17 knots and with it the sea state has settled, making life on board Rhapsody much more comfortable.

Mid-morning we raised the mainsail to Reef 1 and we poled out the genoa. We practised poling out the genoa before we left but, as with all things at sea, it was not quite as straightforward doing it for real. The track that the pole comes down the mast on didn’t run smoothly and clearly there is a knack to that particular manoeuvre that we were missing. Terry and Jac battled away valiantly on the foredeck and eventually we managed to get it down.

With the pole in position, our next challenge was to unfurl the genoa and grind it in. Another task that proved to be a little tricky due to the angle of the sheet from the pole to the deck. Lines re-run and a bit more brute force than I was offering, and the genoa was poled out and Rhapsody was happily sailing downwind at 6.5 to 7 knots. We have informed the wind gods that the wind is not allowed to change now as we don’t want to have to go through that faff again, nor do we want to end up anywhere other than St Lucia. We should probably make some kind of sacrifice (last night’s leftovers?) to keep them on side…

The temperature is rising on deck and we are slowly peeling off layers, donning hats and slapping on the sunscreen. Terry has unpacked the fishing gear and Kitty is in charge of catching tonight’s dinner. Given how well it’s going so far, it’s a good job that we also have a beef stew on the hob.

6pm is dinner time and happy hour on board. So far happy hour entertainment has consisted of the Trivial Pursuit Quiz. Jac won the first quiz: her prize was to do the washing up. Blair, our onboard Canadian, has complained about geographical bias in the questions, so we’ve put him on the kids’ questions. Apparently though, they don’t have Ballymory in Canada, so he’s not doing very well on those either.

Tomorrow looks like it will be Day 1 of celestial navigation, so Izzy has been busy swotting up and muttering terms like “line of altitude” and “running fix”. I can’t decide whether it is being down below cooking that has made me feel a little queasy or memories of celestial navigation five years ago and how much it hurt my brain!

That’s it for today, tune in next time for more excitement at sea!

Clare and all the crew on Rhapsody.