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Albatros - Dec. 5 at 4:44 pm



Albatros Update: 15° 47.60 N, 55° 45.87 W
2015-12-05 16:44:07 +0000

Day 14 on the Albatros. About 315nm to Saint Lucia.

Sleep. It's 6am board time, my watch has ended at 5. I lie awake in my bed, my face 20cm below the deck. My quarters are at the fore, only the sail chamber is a security lock in front of me, and then the anchor box, containing 100m of chain. Of course nobody has checked the length, and people exist that do make a living buying 300m of anchor chain and selling 400.

My bed moves several meters in every conceivable direction. Up, down, forward, back, left, right. The fore of the vessel is the part that moves most, with every wave that rolls from behind, the boat is lifted up, and it's nose points down, in inside that tip of the boat I lay awake, listening to the water gurgle, blubber, fizzle by, wandering if the boat goes straight down like the Titanic.

The boat is in constant movement, and the wind, the wave, the sails, the pumps and my mates ensure there is a constant level of noise. Lying in my small bed, it feels like a roller coaster in the dark, a roller coaster I have been riding for 14 days and nights. It feels insane, and it is tiring, especially now that the waves have changed, or the wind, or both, and the boat rolls and sways, shivers and stomps. I doze away again.

Albatros update (part 2):

Food. The longer I am on board the less appetite I have. My sense of smell is heightened, and when the watch changes, and new coffee is brewed of any time of the night, the smell of the ground coffee reaches my nose and hits me. The smell of the sea hasn't changed much since we started, or it did so gradually, and hence smells aboard the Albatros are a rare distraction. Coffee. Food. Mates.

I hardly drink coffee anymore, I long for my beloved Faema E61 and the excellent coffee it makes.

I am looking forward to the more sophisticated lifestyle I live back home. Being able to order delicious food at a nice restaurant. Seeing other people. Drinking real coffee. Going to the movies, the theater or a concert.

But life aboard the Albatros is fun. Reduced in scope for sure. We are imitating how others walk, talk and especially how they steer. We give negative points every time someone makes a steering error, which happens easily, with the waves coming from behind, and every time it happens the man at the helm will utter an explanation why this was inevitable and not a steering error or lack of concentration. Of course. Minus two points. And the roller coaster of the Albatros crossing the Atlantic continues.



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