So what have we been doing whilst at sea for the past week you ask?
Well we’ve been doing all the regular things that you’ve probably been doing at home but now we are learning to do them on a rollercoaster ride. Yes, you heard it right, a rollercoaster ride. One called perhaps ‘The Mighty Atlantic’ or ‘Kamikaze craze’ or some such. This ride comes complete with dips, turns, unexpected moments of near zero gravity, sound effects and even safety straps. On this rollercoaster you must wear your 4 kg life vest and be harnessed on at all times - keeping the people on the boat and the water off the boat being of upmost importance on the ride.
You must learn to do everything you ordinarily do in a day only now everything is moving up, down, in and out in completing unexpected ways. Making a cup of tea or bowl of cereal becomes a mission instead of something you are regularly able to do without hardly a thought to the steps involved in the process. Even using the loo becomes quite the event when the bathroom and toilet seat itself seem to be moving in opposite directions. I have to say that preparing a meal is full of new experiences when the food you would like to cook would prefer to jump or roll away from you rather than sit nicely on the chopping board then get into the pot when placed there. Thank goodness for the canting mechanism in the stove or I’d have boiling food jumping all over the show as well.
Positive experiences from the week gone by:
- Seabirds gliding and swooping
- Flying fish dancing upon the waves
- Reading time spent devouring delicious novels
- Children learning to play checkers and chess
- Our first fish! Congratulations Jay on a delicious Mahi Mahi
- Fresh fruit and vegetables
- Warm and cozy banana muffins straight out of the oven
- Sunsets and sunrises
- A waxing moon
- Unexpectedly warm temperatures - I thought that we’d be freezing our butts off out here but it’s actually been pleasantly warm
- Seeing other ARC yachts suddenly appear on our chart plotter - hello fellow sailors
- Team ship and camaraderie among our crew with a family atmosphere flair
Negative experiences from a week that couldn’t go by fast enough:
- The noise - oh the noise that the boat, sails and wind make at night - turn it down ocean!
- The hair ties and clips that the rollercoaster threw into the toilet causing the macerator make the most terrible grinding noise and giving Paul an afternoon spent disassembling the mechanism
- Too much wind/no wind
- Fire, man overboard and abandon ship drills - scares the pants off me but better to be prepared should the worst occur
- A call in the middle of the night saying one of our life jacket’s personal locator beacons had been activated and the mad rush that followed ensuring that no, the worst feared event of MOB had not occurred
- Responding to a Mayday relay and the worry for fellow sailors that went along with that call
- Flappy, unhappy flogging sails
- Super slow 2kbps download speeds - Paul’s greatest gripe
May the week ahead share all of the same positives and less of the negatives of the week gone by.
Happy sailing everyone!