Sleeping arrangements and artwork
PASSEPARTOUT
Christopher & Nirit Slaney
Mon 13 Dec 2010 18:03
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430 Nautical miles to before before landfall in the Cape
Verdes.
Somewhere behind the head of my bed in the main cabin is
an electric pump that feeds a hydraulic ram, part of the automatic steering
system on board Passepartout. The designer at the shipyard who decided to mount
it there had obviously never heard it in action. The engineer who actually
installed it probably never thought to tell the designer. It makes a loud,
irregular, electro-mechanical burping sound whenever the autopilot is engaged.
Sleeping anywhere within earshot is impossible. I've tried laying with
my head at the opposite end of the bed, leaving music on in the background and
even pretending the sound is something else. Nothing works.
The only solution is to sleep elsewhere. My favourite
place is a small cabin in the forward passageway which also
houses the washing machine and so is called 'the laundry room'; a rather grand
title for a cubicle with maybe twenty four feet of floor space. The single bunk
is very comfortable and the cabin's position, close to the mast,
means lovely the roll and pitch of the boat is much less noticeable when
the sea gets rough.
The only problem is that this is the obvious place to
install our friend Shmulik Horowitz when he joins us Caper Verde at the end of
this week. So I'm looking for new sleeping arrangements. As long as the
weather is fine and the nights stay dry I might try bedding down in the cockpit.
The other alternative is the couch by the dining table. We shall see.
If I have time in the Cape Verdes I want to look for
some local artwork. In the galley we have a boring blue abstract which the
artist might have sold to the previous owner as a seascape. It's one of the few
items the previous owner left behind together with an egg timer, a few
books in German and three hundred liters of low-sulphur diesel. I managed
to exchange the books at a shelf in a bar where sailors drink and
swap books. The diesel was sipped like a fine wine by our wonderful
Yanmar 88 engine. Now it's the turn of the blue painting which is about
60cm square and mounted in a stainless steel frame. What we need is a
pleasant example of Cape Verdean culture, surely a vibrant blend
of Portuguese and African heritage.
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