15:21.6N 47:06.4W

This is written by Sarah, a complete novelty/novice!

I thought I would jot down a few of the pros and cons as I see it, of life at sea, especially for those readers who have not experienced the salty situation.

Firstly you have to be aware that everything takes at least twice as long to do, partly as you consider how to approach it on a bouncing swinging platform, then having to anchor each utensil/tool/food item/fish (especially challenging!)etc etc. And on deck you have to go slowly to ensure you don’t get left behind in the briny and yes, we are using our lifejackets and harnesses – and no I am not getting any more adept at using the clips.  But the advantage is that it does fill in time – in fact I am looking forward to the total boredom we have been promised, but perhaps this is on boats where there are more crew doing the jobs?   I have secreted away a Vogue magazine as a treat for then (though I am not sure I have a lot of interest in the winter fashions...) but it may not be read until our arrival at this rate.

As everyone is no doubt aware, I have been preoccupied for a very long time about the provisioning and catering.   Sadly this could not be solved until the day we left Tenerife when we went and finally bought the planned for fruit and veg from the market, washed it and stowed it – a whole day’s activity.   I think Rob has a photo to put up of this.   I am hoping that this learning curve has been completed and will help in future, as I was pretty unpleasant to live with beforehand – I know, so difficult to believe hey?!  So now no food shopping for the 3 weeks or so of passage (Tenerife onwards – Cape Verde was utterly hopeless for food buying), yippee, but all the produce has to be checked, turned, dampened down, kept dry, depending on its nature.   Disastrously (although admittedly somewhere along the line I had multiplied by some incorrect number, so we had enough potatoes to see us to Australia and to hand out on the pontoon) a sack of potatoes went off, along the lines of poteen, under the forepeak berth – luckily discovered in Cape Verde rather than a tossing sea.  And the 5 dozen eggs stowed in a crate in our heads have often been in danger of being sat upon on occasions.  So one of the jobs is sitting on the floor going through 5 crates of veg checking each item for squidginess (they are mainly individually wrapped in foil) – a good recipe for seasickness in certain conditions.

We were lead to believe that we would be completely out of most veg by now, but we have quite a choice still – no doubt we would have got through a whole lot more if Robert and Joyce had continued on passage with us so it might have become more difficult to be imaginative regarding the menu.   I had laboriously developed a menu for the whole 30 days or so (after that it was tins and I really didn’t care if we lived or died!) but with only two on board I haven’t really bothered to stick to it religiously, but I would have had even more unnecessary food on board without it!   And of course there is always fish which, once Rob has gutted it and I have chopped it up (my next job is as a fishmonger – my filleting is coming on a treat), is a very easy meal or three.   Poor Rob is extremely fed up: he enjoys all the fiddling around with the line and lures;   but catching a fish within 20 mins or less of launching his toy is no fun at all.

The night watches:  we have migrated to four hour watches at night and technically, through the day, but cooking etc does disrupt this and Rob ends up gazing out far more than his fair share of the time.   I do 1900 to 2300, and then 0300 to 0700;  Rob loathes dark night watches and as he points out, this is my dream, so I do feel it is the least I can do.   We will end the trip with pretty well no moon at all, which is a) boring with little to look at and b) a bit frightening when you are careening through the night at speed with no idea what is in front of you or where the wave is going to hit you next!   But the stars are like you would never believe without the light pollution, just more and more depth of vision of the twinkly bits.   Chris on Scott-Free introduced us to Audible books which we have downloaded on to our iPods and this has transformed the boredom stakes/drop-off rate.   At night Rob is doing his watches in chest high waterproofs, a hat, socks, sometimes a jacket as well – I am in a fleece and jogging bottoms or shorts – one of us is weird!

One of the hardest bits is sleeping comfortably.   Often the boat is bouncing and crashing through the waves, with banging, groaning rigging,  it is not at all conducive to one’s ability to gain beauty sleep.   Rob sleeps on a berth in the saloon made up on one of the side sofas with a lee cloth held up to rings in the ceiling to stop him rolling out of bed.   This feels like the hottest coffin in the world to me with my somewhat claustrophobic tendencies.  So I have tried the aft cabin, sliding sideways across the bed;  the other sofa without a lee cloth clinging on with elbows and knees to the sofa back to prevent me rolling on the veg crates; previously sleeping on the floor has been OK but we bounce too much in the ocean; so now I sleep in the forepeak.   It has amazing acoustics of the sea rushing and bubbling past – Robert & Joyce heard the dolphins one night through the hull.   I wedge myself against our asymmetrical sail (I knew it would come in handy one day) and lie in the emergency recovery position which more or less reduces the levitation effect or the feeling that if you lie on your back all your flesh is being rolled around your skeleton!   But generally I complain too much – it is still more comfortable than a Bradwell 18, the table on a Sadler 32 and quite probably the narrow beds on our canal boats!

And it’s hot below – we can’t open any hatches, well not since our trip from Israel to Malta where I stupidly caught a rogue wave through the 1”of open hatch which delivered gallons of water on top of me.  And we heard a horror story of another yacht disturbing a sleeping whale by accident and with the slap of its tail, he soaked the interior of their boat.   Despite the heat it is really too salty to do any clothes washing/drying – a great excuse and something to look forward to when we arrive!   Anyway we don’t need many clothes (any?) during the day.  But we (well, I do) get through gallons of suntan cream.

Washing ourselves is much more entertaining.   Down below is just an invitation to add to our collection of bruises (especially elbows and ankles) so we shower on the back deck/step.   Like everything it has to be planned:  you don’t soap feet and bum at the same time as the chances are you will slide to the toerail and out into the wide blue yonder; and you need at least one hand to grip on for grim death, another for the shower head and one for the body brush and what about one for the shampoo?  Meanwhile huge walls of water rise up above you from behind the boat....   It ’s all very exciting and Rob has been snapping away for the perfect illustration of this, well with the right black blocks it might get published....  And I bet our bathroom has the best views ever.

Our upper body strength is great for such elderly personages – constant sail changes and winching is all good.   But we are developing really weedy legs – will we be able to walk anywhere once we arrive?   Endless sitting down means that you get aching backs and spotty bums (sorry!).

And the worst bits?   The loo obviously – gazing down into the bowl while madly hand pumping (and not landing in the eggs) is good for queasiness.   Added to this when you sit on the loo, the loo lid smacks you smartly about a third of the way down your spine, as the boat skates up and down waves – this will be our first job to solve when we arrive! 

It was great not to have to cook Christmas lunch, but awful to miss the boys even though we spoke to them on the satellite phone where Ewan was showing me up with some very exotic Xmas recipes and Tom was contemplating galvanising himself for snowman building!   And I had been pretty remiss on the present front, which I will no doubt be paying for on our return.  And every so often something goes wrong, but as in all sailing it is never just the one problem, one always leads to another catastrophe.   But as they say, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

The best bits of course are the sea life – although I think we have had enough of the daily delivery of flying fish to our door, they are very slippery, smelly and shed a huge amount of scales everywhere.   But the dolphins are fantastic, and seem almost as interested in us as we are in them.   And one day we will see a whale close by – watch this space.   Although Rob is less enthusiastic!   Serafina is proving herself in every way – the sailing is usually great, all the various power, water and communication systems have performed brilliantly.   And hopefully on our arrival, we will have a great feeling of achievement – or is that exhaustion?!