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Little Island - 336 hours



I’m taking a longer time each day to add another 24 in my ongoing times tables. Maybe it’s the slow, silent encroachment of exhaustion that’s causing me to check, doubt, re-check, re-doubt and finally check again that I have correctly added the hours of a spin of the Earth onto our running total. I don’t think we’re feeling terribly tired, but I’m sure we probably are. At home we used to be a ‘bed by 2130 and up at 0800’ couple, waking at 0630 if we wanted to do some exercise. That’s a worst case scenario of 9 hours of lovely slumber. We wouldn’t dare start a movie after 1930. Perish the thought of getting as little as eight hours sleep in a night. Now we’re realistically getting five hours per 24 hours, on a hot, sweaty, moving mattress.

We’re both sleeping in the forepeak, but obviously at different times. We’re hot-bedding, which is especially true as the air temperature is roasting. The sleep pattern is roughly 4-5 hour watches, with some time together for dinner and usually lunch. At times we’re not together, one of us sits in the cockpit whilst the other attempts a sleep. 

The incessant rolling of the boat is starting to get a bit annoying, particularly in the lighter patches, which themselves are even more annoying because the wind is often significantly lighter than the forecast. I’m in constant turmoil between accepting a slower, conservative but slightly safer and more comfortable ride against putting more sail up and just getting to St Lucia, but risking more flogging, more shock loading and inevitably less sleep. It’s a bit of an emotional roller coaster. Those that know me well probably wonder what that is like given that day to day I probably show all the emotion of a bar stool. In this instance, the emotion manifests itself in swearing. I curse going slow and steady; then curse the idea of putting up more sail but getting less sleep; then curse the sweat box, curse my chaffing groin and then calm back down. I think the major problem is that I get happy and allow expectations to rise when we have wind and the boat is going well, admittedly taking a peak at the eta on the chart plotter. Mother Nature then cruelly shits on my cornflakes when half an hour later she takes back the precious wind and allows us to slump back into sub-five knot boat speed and queasily wait for insanity to creep in. Thinking about it, I’m sure happiness is the problem. Everything is relative and, but for the positive thinking of getting there in good time here and there, the negative thoughts wouldn’t be nearly so negative: aim low and you can’t be disappointed.

If you’re reading this and feel worried for us, we’re really happy enough. We’re into the final week and just need to keep plodding on!

Martin


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