That Damn Sausage again !
Cat-man-do
Thu 29 Nov 2007 05:53
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We're now well into the Atlantic, though to look at
our mapping, which hopefully you are if you're reading this, it seems we're only
just scraping the surface of the trip. We are however beginning to get into a
"rhythm" and things are starting to become a little easier,especially the night
watches. One of the hardest things about this sort of trip is getting your body
into a pattern of being asleep for 4 hours at night before being woken up by
someone else that's shattered and will happily crawl into your still warm bed as
soon as you've vacated it. We seemed to have hit a happy method of doing the
night watches straight away which is nice.We are doing a 2 watch system of 4
hours each, with 2 of us on watch at a time. If there's not too much happening
then one of the watch can have a snooze for a couple of hours whilst the other
keeps an eye on things, then swap about. Peter and Robert seem happy to do this.
Myself (Brian) and Howard seem to work slightly differently and tend to
both stay awake spending a lot of the time "gassing" about all sort of "not
a lot" or sitting in a companiable silence. The first few days of this sort of
trip are always the hardest on the bodies' clock and hearing of sailors
hallucinating when tired is something that's been well documented for
centuries. You'll be pleased to know that we are upholding sea faring
traditions with myself sitting bolt upright one night and about to start
screaming that we were "much too close to the harbour wall" (even though we were
about 200 miles off shore by then) Howard however manages to eclipsed my
efforts by spotting a handy shopping centre in the middle of the Atlantic,
something akin to the Trafford centre I would guess. Never fear, good reader,
normal service will be resumed on our return, if, of course we've ever actually
been normal.....
We are eating well, and although our provisioning
efforts horrified a certain young lady (Sally-Anne on Asolare) we are, so far
happy with our efforts. I'm having a guess here, but it appears that the boats
with "ladies" aboard seem to be indulging in roast meals with Cauliflower Cheese
and veg followed up with a nice bottle of Claret amongst other edible delights.
We seem a little more basic in our provisioning, however our packet, ready
prepared meals, (recommended by Shawn after his Fastnet efforts) so far seem to
have been excellent. We are also managing cereals for breakfast, small pizzas
for lunch and a rather good Chicken Balti prepared by Howard last night. We've
even been managing to keep up the recommended fruit intake, well, until we ran
out yesterday that is. However vitamins and minerals in the form of Borroca (a
sort of vitamin "bomb" you drink) are still being supplied to keep our finely
honed bodies in shape :O)
Along with the power mentioned in earlier blogs the
other issue when doing this sort of trip is fresh water. We carry about 400 odd
litres in the main water tank, supplemented by several hundred litres of water
in bottles stored under the "floor boards" If you ever want to know what it
feels like to be looked at as if you really should be locked up, try going
shopping to a large wholesalers and loading up a trolley with several hundred
bottles of assorted water. The looks on peoples faces, especially at the
checkout is worth the effort alone...
On the subject of water, as you can imagine washing
facilities are somewhat limited because of the need to be careful with it, but
however, we have a secret weapon. Howard has brought his solar shower with him.
This is, in effect a thick sort of rubber bag thingy which you fill with sea
water. This Black bag is then left in the sun for a few hours which heats the
water for you to have a nice refreshing if somewhat salty shower from the bag
which is hung up in the cockpit. It empties via a tube with what is best
described as a watering can rose on the end of it. A crude but effective source
of hygiene not to mention humour as we take it in turns to stand naked in the
cockpit having our "shower" On a personal note yesterday, I decided to
forgo this luxury and uphold British sea faring tradition by simply dipping
a bucket in the sea and pouring the sea water straight over my head. An
excellent and refreshing pastime if I may so, though the others seem yet to be
convinced !
There would appear to be some concern over the well
being of our "rabid sausage" as mentioned in our earlier blog. Fear not fair
reader, after a suitable time locked in the locker to teach it who's boss after
the other night, we let it out and allowed it to take up its' rightful place out
the front of the boat. As usual, the hoisting went swimmingly and it sat up
there well behaved for well over a full 24 hours. Last night however as the
light started to fade we were surrounded by some pretty viscous looking squalls
with black curtains of rain dropping out of them. Now, our brave "sausage" isn't
afraid of a bit of rain. The sudden gusts of sometimes violent wind
that often accompany these squalls can however be a problem. This becomes more
of a problem obviously, at night when you can't see them coming. It was decided
that discretion was the better part of valour and we'd put the sausage to bed
before things had the potential to become a little "hairy" So, with Pete and
Robert on the foredeck we set about dropping it. Myself and Howard in the
cockpit controlling boat direction and control lines (sheets) Now if you
imagine, this sausage, when deployed is 156 square metres large, and to get it
back into it's controlling sock (read, sausage) you have to let off the control
lines to allow it to collapse whilst it's still attached to the top of the mast,
then you can slide the sock down it (something like rolling a stocking down a
ladies leg, but I digress) This time Howard slightly miss heard the shouted
instructions from the foredeck and started lowering it from the top of the mast,
it wasn't then possible to get it back in it's "stocking" and we ended
up with most of the 156 sq metres under the boat. Luckily there we no engines
running and it didn't get trapped or caught on anything under the hulls, and was
somewhat un gracefully manhandled back onto the deck before being shoved back
into it's locker for being "naughty"
One day it'll learn, or just maybe, we
will......
It's now 4:50 in the morning and time I feel for a
Coffee, sleep well.
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