Friday 11th
Snap
Fri 11 Dec 2015 08:46
Wind is down and it looks like I will have to do the poling-out thingy tomorrow cos it’s right behind us. Not tomorrow, today now - i wrote some of this in the night. Bx says perhaps motor in these light winds, but I’m still doing 5 or sometimes 6 knots. I can’t really put the motor on just to reliably do 6 or 7knots. I had a look at the longer term weather and it looked a bit wind-free. All indications gratefully received here…
I keep saying “us” instead of me, don’t I? Not sure why, force of habit or maybe I’m referring to me and the boat. There’s just me on the boat, nobody else. So how do I get any sleep? First night I dozed for seconds and eventually slept in the cockpit. Last night I just went to bed with the alarm clock and got up every hour or so. Yeah, I know, iffy stuff. Never had to feel “brave” to go to sleep. But it’s fine. I want to sleep primarily at night, not be missing the sunshine. And of course I can more easily do stuff on deck in daylight. Dozing and slouching on beanbags works well - no sliding about. One of the beanbags is fuchsia pink one the other one is purple - Sarah asked about the colours, very important.
Got up at 3am and did the important looking around. Hm, nothing. There was another boat coming past, motoring directly towards 20N30W at 10knots, 5 miles away. Other than that, nothing at all. Perhaps a bit more snoozing? Set the alarm, usual thing, but forgot to turn it on and woke up 3 hours later. Oops. But still fine. I’ve wasted loads of time being on watch all night round here, and all because we’ve been a bit scared and Solenty. However, it makes a difference doing 5-6 knots in 12knots of wind, very relaxing. I wouldn’t go to sleep so much with spinnakers up battering along at double digit speeds…
I know I *could* have sorted crew, but I think that once I had decided I should try it alone, it felt a bit of a cop-out to then start taking anyone. And it would be riskier taking unknown people off the dock at the last minute. There were lots of hitch-hikers looking for a ride across the Atlantic on a boat from LP, altho old-timers Mike and Morton reckon that there are fewer than in previous years. Perhaps word has got out that it’s not that easy.
The hitchers patrol the marina and try chatting up potential targets. You going across? Yes, but I’m going solo. This obviously flew in the face of whatever they knew about boats- don’t all the boats absolutely NEED crew? Well, will you take us anyway? Ah, but then I won’t be solo, will I? I saw them several times again, and they give me a wide berth. That’s the weirdo who’s going alone. Nutter.
Another time a guy asked for lift - I said a lift where? He pointed to the ARC flag and said, yerknow, across the Atalntic? Eh, are you completely mad - sailing across the Atlantic in a small sailing boat? But er that’s where you’re all going - across the Atlantic said the hitch hiker. I said well sheesh - nobody tells me anything! I told this story before but still funny.
There are adverts in the caffs all over the place from multi-lingual travelling youngsters out on an adventure. Lots of them rattle on about respecting nature, meh, as though that’s a big plus. Yotties respect nature but it’s not a priority . Right, so you’re on watch now, and the most important things that we ALWAYS mind the dolphins and respect nature above everything else, okay? I don’t think so.
I think it would be a bit iffy to take anyone who didn’t have fluent English, really, and a couple as the only crew is potentially a “bad dynamic” as an American skipper described it. Plenty of stories of course - two guys on a shared boat took two girls recently , and once on board the girls announced that they wouldn’t be eating any meat, or cooking any meat either. They stopped off in Tenerife, and whilst the girls were away the guys dropped their bags and left them there. Yeah, I was expecting that story to be a bit more interesting too, 2 boys taking 2 girls, never mind.
A friend once remarked that this blog reminded him a bit of Bill Bryson. Bryson is a journalist and novelist, famous in the UK for writing “Notes from a small island” voted as the book that best describes Britain. I have his follow-up book written 20 years later “The road to Little Dribbling” here on the boat. So it’s very flattering to say that this is a bit like that. Big difference between me and Bryson of course is that he’s a proper author and gets paid and has got that film “a walk in the woods” coming up, whereas nobody pays anything for this rubbish.
And thinking about it, it’s a lot better that I write like Bill Bryson than writing like some other people I could mention, such as frinstance Lee Child, who does the Jack Reacher books. I have some of his books on board too. But If I wrote like that, then I suppose that instead of saying “Hi there!” to the nice Norwegian neighbour in the marina, I would have launched off my back foot, twisted at the waist then spun and crashed my left elbow into his throat, and then pistol-whipped his wife.
One weird thing is that Bryson is a great fan of lots of British things… but he’s American. Bryson visits loads of tea shops in his books, never any fast food joints. He stops for tea and cake almost everywhere. And goes to pubs a lot. I’m a bit suspicious. Perhaps his publisher or editor bloke has had to tell him to change it about, make it more British with beer and tea shops, and get rid of all his American-style jokey references to his daily “meds”, and complaining about 30ounce sodas whatever the hell they are. Maybe.
Some people have gotten confused about the computer situation. I have two computers on board, and I write on one and transfer it to the other which is fixed up for the sat phone - but otherwise has dodgy keyboard. I am musing about spraying contact stuff at the keyboard - but suppose it doesn’t work and makes it worse? Then no blog. That’s experience for you, right there - knowing how something starts off as a minor problem, and how my input could (probably would) easily make it lots worse. So best hold off and wait till after the transat.
Thanks all for the messages. Kate has worked out how to jam in loads of text by writingthethingasonelongstreamoftextwhichtakesawhiletoworkoutbutisveryefficientdatatransmission…