Raritan - Raritan – 12/3/18 – Day 9 – This is what it’s all about!

Wow, what a beautiful day! As dawn broke, the crew was grumpy from night watches beset by fickle winds, big confused seas, and lack of progress toward St Lucia due to our southerly heading. We decided to jibe and set the spinnaker. Oh, what a difference that made! The wind freshened, and we were sailing directly home on the new tack at 10 knots, surfing the rollers. We put on a Led Zeppelin mix, threw a fishing line over the stern and settled in for a fantastic day making good VMG.
A little about boat life:

• Water: H2O is dear on a crossing. Even though we have a watermaker, it takes fuel to make water, and we want to conserve as much fuel as possible. So we conserve. We take showers only when necessary. We wash dishes with as little water as possible. The only thing which does not get scaled back are the toilets – we need those to work! It’s not unheard of that Atlantic crossers will resort to the bucket method. We don’t want to have to go that route.

• Laundry: Well, laundry takes water. See above. Depending on the workload, I’d estimate that one can get three days out of a shirt. Those of us who have a less sensitive nose have been known to go longer, but so far the boat still seems to smell fresh and clean. We gave all the cushions a good clean yesterday and ran the washing machine once with three of everyone’s shirts. We’re good for the rest of the trip!

• Watches: we have a complicated watch schedule where everyone is on for four hours, then off for eight. This rotates so that each of us gets to be on watch with everyone else, and so that each of us gets the worst watches from time to time. There has been some debate, but I think the consensus worst watch is 2AM – 6AM. Getting up for a 2AM watch is horrible.

• Cooking: Rob has truly done a masterful job planning, provisioning and cooking for us. We all owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude. He has planned out each of our dinners, and each is tastier than the last. Breakfast is every man for himself, and that usually means cereal or yogurt. Lunch is a group endeavor, usually sandwiches, prepared by a volunteer. We’ll have cheese and crackers as dusk approaches, and then Rob’s on again. We live by the motto that any man who has prepared a meal does not do dishes. So far it’s all working extremely well.

Update: late afternoon today we hooked a nicely sized Dorado on the hand line. We brought him in with ease, put a knife through his spine and Rob sliced up some beautiful fillets. We feasted on a lovely mustard glazed fresh baked fish. Wow!

In all, just a great day. This is what it’s all about.

Matt