Just keep breathing
This ocean is very big, very vast and every now and then this thought seems to penetrate our thoughts. Sometimes it seems, this thought can be somewhat scary and overwhelming and so this afternoons Tec-Talk came in very handy! Luke organized today’s Tec-Talk about breathing exercises and how with just a few tricks you can hold your breath at least twice and for some almost 4 times as long as normal! So there we went, first calm down and set a base line. Without explanation or further instructions we had to team up and try how long we could hold our breath. Some could hold it for half a minute, others for a minute. Then Luke gave us some explanation, told us to first breathe very deeply for 2,5 minutes and then try again, knowing that we could resist our body and you really did not need to breather within 2 minutes. And what a result, some that could hold their breath for just 28 seconds, now held their breath for 1 minute and 40 seconds! The longest could hold their breath for 2 minutes and 31 seconds! Everybody felt really relaxed after the exercise, so it was an afternoon well spend. Just thinking back to the exercise I feel the need to breathe in deeply.
Besides the Tec-Talk, little changed during the day. A force 5 that was finally coming from the predicted Easterly direction was giving us wings and with 8,3 knots we were heading North. Now at night, the wind has decreased significantly and so at watch handover we will unreef the mainsail and get some speed and pressure back.
In the afternoon we got a visit from a pod of Pilot Whales, amazing animals. And birdlife was abundant during the day. With red footed and hooded boobies, terns, a tropic bird or longtail tern, some nobbies and shearwaters. Just beautiful!
The equator is less then 150 miles away from us and we are all looking forward to welcoming Neptune (back) on board! What names will he come up with this time, for our pollywog’s that will become shellback’s. We took some good rum from Tahiti to share with him, so we hope to get him in a good mood for the rest of our voyage.
All well on board, jet
