Xenial - Day 15 - At night

It's 5am XST (Xenial Standard Time) and I am sitting on deck for my shift with Captain Ulrik. The small sliver of moon that we should see tonight is covered by clouds, so everything is pitch dark around us. You can barely tell where the sea ends and the sky starts. Both are glittering. The sky is full of stars, one of the few upsides to not having the moon shining. The white sea foam created by our passage is shimmering with fluorescent plankton, it looks like fire flies on a summer night. The only other lights we see are those of another Swedish boat, with whom we have been catching up all day, and overtook while I was sleeping. We just got a light drizzle of rain, but it's already behind us.

You may not know this, but I always write this blog in the middle of the night during my shift with Ulrik. It's become somewhat of a ritual. Technically I am on standby, which means I could be napping on deck while Ulrik is at the helm. My turn to be at the helm is in two hours, when Ulrik goes to bed and CJ comes on deck on standby. Yes, the Wehtjes don't trust me to be alone on deck at night. I wouldn't trust myself either! Jokes aside, we always have two people on deck during the night, I don't get special treatment or anything.

If you want to know more about how our shift rota is set up, you can ask Ulrik. It was a whole project unto itself, which started with trying to set up formulas in excel that would automatically generate it, and culminated with Ulrik taking out his portable printer, printing the table at sea and hanging it in the galley.

Usually my shift starts with Gustaf waking me up, and with me asking him how wet it's on deck - is the water coming from above, from the side, or just out of thin air (it can get humid)? I then join Ulrik who has already been on deck for 2 hours and he shows me boat positions on the plotter, and we turn on the radar to check for squalls. I then usually nap for a bit until I find some inspiration to write this blog. Once written, Ulrik as the editor reads it and provides input, and when he is happy with it, he publishes it via satellite. By that point, his shift is over and CJ comes on deck.

CJ and I tend to have a quiet shift, and depending on how confident I feel about the boat-waves-wind combination, he may take a nap. When I go back down to wake up Janne, CJ makes himself coffee (Nespresso, what else?) before taking the helm.

Janne's shifts are powered by Coca Cola and mainly spent telling stories, either of his crossing the Pacific in the 90's or of his time with the UN corps, or one of many anecdotes from his career as a chef (or from his previous life as an engineer with Electrolux). It's then Bobo's turn with Janne and the stories continue, with Bobo sipping his Nescafe and listening. Sometimes we can hear them below deck as well, but my Swedish is too poor to understand anything. In Janne, both Bobo and I agree that we have found our match in terms of how much we speak, and for those who know us, that's saying a lot!

When Janne goes to bed, Bobo is joined by Gustaf, who has been following along from his cot in the saloon. They tell me that they speak about the old times, their old friends, their time in the military. There have been also mentions of escapades, and something about what the girls in Lisabon have. However this is all hearsay, as by then I am soundly asleep, and anyway Duolingo hasn't taught me yet enough Swedish to understand a conversation about old flames.

The last shift in this rota is when Bobo goes to bed , either in the saloon or the master cabin - he and Ulrik have a whole separate system for that, but don't ask me the details. Gustaf is joined on deck by Ulrik, and the two of them talk sails, winds and falling stars. They are after all the heads of the trimming and sailing committee respectively. However no major adjustments are made to our rigging during the night, unless strictly necessary.

The other constant of our nights is figuring out what all the different noises are and if we can do anything about them. Fly fishes landing on deck is a common one. Those that land in the cockpit (and one nearly went straight through Janne's window) are quickly tossed at sea, although Gustaf has reported that one hit him and then went straight down one of the holes for water on deck. Those that land further ahead unfortunately are left there till morning and we can hear them flapping on deck. Some other sounds have become familiar, such as the bilge pump and the radio, and some still wake us up, such as a lot of flapping from the sails, or waves crushing on the deck (rather than on our sides).

The noises produced by our kitchen and dining tools could take up a whole other blog, but let me just say that we have run out of oven mitts and kitchen towels, as they are now all nested in cabinets trying to restrict the movements of spice jars, plates, glasses and cutlery.

I think it's time to call it a night (pun intended) and wrap up this blog. Two more words to say that we are all doing well on board, some with more help from seasickness pills than others, and that our spirits are high - the Captain allowed us to take a shower today, and Janne made mushroom risotto and boat made bread!

Over and out,
Mavi

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