‘water water everywhere’
a wise mermaid just told me ‘isn’t it amazing
that we are surrounded by thousands of miles of sea, yet all we can see is our
own four mile bubble’. amazing indeed that now we measure distance, not by tens
or hundreds, but by thousands. we have travelled over 2000 miles from Auckland
and every day set the cursor over our navigation screen to show us just how many
thousands of miles it is to Cape Horn and then on to the Falklands. Even time is
measured in weeks and months, not days. Just this afternoon we repaired the jib
sheets and concluded ‘ah, this will last another week’…how many sailors get to
say that!?
And what does this time bubble mean to us? well, physically
it means the close watch over fruit and veg, water and supplies of baby wipes.
It affects how we think about normally daily routines such as washing and
laundry, even the weather is now a long term discussion – wind changes don’t
happen in hours here but days or weeks in advance meaning that we can adjust our
course and position looking ahead to what might come. Mentally, living in our
‘bubble’ has its effects as well. Just this afternoon I watched two grown women
wrestling over a bar of Toblerone (name and shame…Stephanie and Virginia!) Our
thoughts are never far from home but every day you are mentally consumed by your
tasks and the environment we live in – it’s very easy to take a step back from
the immediacy of modern life and just ‘chill out’. you have to relax really –
it’ll be nearly a whole month until any of us can check our phones, email and,
dare i say it, facebook! So we immerse ourselves in the tasks at
hand…
So, Sunday. The day of rest…and beer! ‘What did we do all
day…just kind of sat here and ate things?’ In truth we had some work on the
jib, a little on the stay sail and after dinner the white and blue watch set the
topsail to help push us along now at a comfortable 6.5 knots. We also received
Jan’s blessing to go wild with showering (to a point…) as the new watermaker
is proving its worth and performing better than expected! Not that this has
meant we all smell of roses – half the boat’s cabins are on the wrong tack for
showering right now…well, that’s our excuse for staying a little grimy a
little longer! We are also able to do the dishes downstairs (instead of using
salt water) which is saving a lot of flying crockery. It’s laundry day tomorrow
(swell permitting) which will keep everyone topped up with fresh thermals as
this chilly spell is going to continue for a little while with current deck temp
is still around 8/10 degrees(for weeks…MONTHS!) . Sunday also means our weekly
voyage crew update from the other ships who are faring much the same as us.
Oosterschelde are close behind with much the same weather and what sounds like a
lot of celebrations and Europa are still miles ahead but briefly back up from
the windier southern latitudes.
So, back we go to the bubble and the last hour of night watch. The sun is coming up which highlights that soon time
will change again – but time travel is a story for another day! Adios, le watch
rouge
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