We have been at sea for five nights and are well settled into the routine of it. My sea legs are coming along nicely and I haven’t felt particularly queasy for a couple of days.  Partly I suspect because the sea state isn’t rolling the boat around as much as it was and partly because I’m quite good at balancing my time inside with time outside.  Oh, and judicious use of Stugeron on occasions. It is just like getting car sick in that reading or using the computer with your head down for too long while the boat rolls about is not a good idea.  The trick is looking up often enough and getting up on deck which is where we spend most of our time anyway.

Cooking can be quite fun when the boat is rolling severely but sticky mats on the work surfaces help a lot and the cooker itself is ‘gimballed’ meaning that it swings around in line with the boat so that the surface always stays flat.  Every so often you get it wrong though and something goes flying.  I had a particularly entertaining time with the microwave door last night trying to time my placing the chicken curry in with a tip to starboard so that the door stayed open but repeatedly misjudging it so that the door slammed shut just as I had the dish in position.  It took two of us in the end.

And how do we come to be able to use a power hungry beast like a microwave on a boat that runs on 12 and 24 volt systems?  There is a generator producing 240v that is run twice a day to top up batteries and chill the fridges.  We time that run so that we can boil a kettle and make toast in the morning and then use the microwave in the evening for some of the cooking to save gas.

Having been so smug about the perfect wind in my last message two days ago, it ground to a halt that very night so the engine went on.  It picked up again yesterday morning but gave up about 4am today so sails away and engine on again.  Because the wind (when it blows) is coming from behind us we sail with a genoa (aka jib or foresail) held out to each side of the boat on big poles attached to the main mast.  We have not had the mainsail out at all.

We have had two fishing rods out all day every day and caught nothing whatsoever other than another boat that came far too close and picked up the line.  Duncan has tried various lures, pink fluffy one’s, green wriggly one’s, going up and down ones -  he has them all, but to no avail.  I have heard so much about the excitement of landing a fish and the delicious supper that follows that it will be a pity not to have the experience.  Ria even has all the ingredients for making sushi on board although it’s been so long that we have eaten the mango’s and avocado’s we had bought for the purpose.

Yesterday I was on watch for my first dawn at sea which Mike has often spoken about and it was indeed fabulous.  The sunsets, moons rising and now the dawns are a real treat.  The sky is nearly always clear so we have fantastic views of the stars as well.

We expect to cross the equator around mid day tomorrow (Sunday) and Mike, being the only one of us to have already done that at sea, is Master of Ceremonies.  He has engaged the assistance of our friend Tom Sunter formerly of Her Majesties’ Navy and experienced in this kind of thing to ensure we get everything right.  Tom, being a well known man of mischief, is unlikely to have advised anything entirely sober so we wait with interest to see what will happen.  I will report in full in the next message.