Passage to St Helena Day 3
Misterx
Sat 8 Mar 2025 22:13
08/03/25
8:30 pm
Day 3
Atlantic Ocean
DTD : 1,258 NM
Everything is looking and feeling much nicer today, I guess we are both getting back into the swing of it, over the trepidation that every departures brings. More importantly we are getting over the tiredness of waking every 4 hours for 4 hours. It works well for us but we do need to adapt at the beginning of each trip. Interrupted sleep, especially during the day and when the wind pipes up or the waves change, and the sun winks at you through the hatch, make it difficult to recuperate and the accumulation of lack of rest makes you a bit cranky. All you do at that stage is trying very hard to stay awake during your watch, by any mean. I tend to listen to podcasts and music at night and try to read during the day if the movement of the boat is not too disruptive, and keep an eye on things. When we are really back into the swing of it, it is when we can do more than eating, sleeping, running the boat, it does take a few days before the knitting needles comes out, the cards games starts or the silly projects take shape!!
We also need to get back to our cooking stations, we very rarely prep meals before we leave, as we have no freezer and we prefer to fill the fridge with fresh ingredients, but that means we need to cook... and everyone know how i like this cooking business! Our watches system has me get up at midday, so i usually do lunch (I rustled up a salad nicoise today!), and Ian take care of dinner. I usually have breakfast around 6 or 7 am, the middle of my watch and with the sunrise... i am usually so starving, that i can't wait for Ian to get up at 8 to have breakfast together, but i will have a coffee with him before i turn in, unless i am so tired that i fall into his warm bunk before it is cold. And then there is the 4 o'clock tea, my favourite... that is usually a nice time where we will have a bit of cake at the beginning of the trip or a biscuit, when the cakes are gone at the end of the trip... very civilised tea time, we have a chat about all sorts of things, not only the running of the boat, which is what tends to happen at every other change over.
Think we are over this adaptation period now, and the last couple of days have been easier, the wind and the waves have settled and so have we.
We've had a bit of everything weather-wise since we left, wind, no wind, but so far it has been in the right direction, which is something.
Today we have been sailing at the edge of the cloud, a huge cloud filling the horizon on our left and a fabulous blue sky right up to the horizon on our right, and us following the edge as if by design. Our albatross only made an appearance early this morning, not seen him this afternoon.
Hopefully we'll get to St Helena in good time and more importantly in good spirit. And the good news is , it is definitely warming up, so we might loose the socks and the fleece before then!
M