15:38.35N 028:48.80W

Tuesday 30^th November

They say “Be careful what you wish for” and they are probably right. I went on watch yesterday morning about 15 minutes after completing the blog in which I bemoaned the fact that we hadn’t had a shower in 3 days. Well, 5 minutes into my watch the sky turned black, the sea turned slate grey (“It was a dark and stormy night”...no, that’s going too far, even for the blog) and a squall came over that drove torrential rain. I’d heard all these stories about how when this happens crews rush out on deck with glee and shampoo and have great impromptu showers in slow motion while Caribbean oil-drum music plays loudly in the background – wrong! I sat on the helm in my oilskin coat while the rest of the crew sat inside and read. One even said, “Never mind. It’s an opportunity to see if your new coat is waterproof”. Thanks!

The other reflection on yesterday’s blog was flying fish. After my saying that their flying was impressive but “so what”, Dan said “If you were a little fish and a great big fish came to eat you and you could fly 50 yards, you’d probably be very grateful!”. Quite right, now I understand. Having said that, it doesn’t always end up well – sometimes a case of “out of the frying pan, into the fire”, or in this case, “out of the sea, smack into the deck”! For one fish, 50 yards was too much – maybe he’d have got away with it if he’d wished for 45 yards instead. Warning to all flying fish - be careful what you wish for!

You couldn’t make this next bit up if you tried – a BIG EVENT. I finished my watch at 3 am (after having seen 6 or 7 lightning flashes in the distance but thankfully nothing more) and then crawled into my sauna and dozed fitfully. Jonathan’s watch ran from 5am with Sue taking over at 7am. No sooner has his watch begun when it began to rain again. It was probably just before 7 when I was awoken by Jonathan shouting - “Sue, Sue, I’ve been hit on the shoulder by a flying fish!” and then Sue’s voice saying “ .....scaly and smells awful ......“, the latter presumably a reference to the fish, not Jonathan.

In the world outside of PhoebeB, someone getting hit by a flying fish probably wouldn’t be headline news. But after 11 days at sea it’s a BIG EVENT. And then the thought occurred – a shower and then getting hit by a flying fish? Just what exactly was it that Jonathan had been wishing for??????