Speeding along to halfway, “boat-clean”
Tuesday 22nd March
Last night was another terrible night’s sleep in the converted dining table. I had a massive mid-morning nap in the stern room where Helen, Charlie and the boys usually sleep. Little by little it seems as if Will and I are hoofing them all out of their home…
We had a competition to see who could guess how far we would travel in 24 hours between 12 noon on Monday and 12 noon today. An average of 7 knots would make it 168 so I went for that. It was actually 182! Helen won the game. We are now 20% of the way there at 2,400nm. It’s a week since we lifted anchor and all the progress we have made has been in the last 3 days. There are lots of maths questions to the boys as to what date we will arrive at Nuku Hiva based on the speed we are going. Will calculates that if we keep up 7 knots then we’ll be there for my birthday.
Without all these gadgets to tell us that we’re actually progressing towards where we want to go, I’m not sure I would believe it. When we try to sleep, all I can feel is the incessant pitch and roll, no forward propulsion at all! After my night of non-sleep, I was fairly useless today, moping around and feeling sorry for myself. We tried to watch Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves on my laptop with the boys today but Will had acquired ‘Robin Hood’ instead. It was terrible. Uma Thurman, what were you thinking?! I’m so glad they remade it, despite Kevin Costner’s dubious British accent. Helen and I cooked Massaman curry which was rather nice and we went to bed, Will, Helen and I in the stern cabin, Charlie in the un-converted sofa, and the boys back to their bow room.
Thursday 24th
Today is day 10 being on the boat. The days are all rolling into one long vaguely insomniac lump. Yesterday morning we found about 5 bony flying fish and 2 little squid on deck.
I helped Charlie make some replacement soft shackles to change out the two connecting the main sheet to the traveller. We also finished the bananas today. Thank God. They were starting to absolutely stink. We had the main trunk of the head of bananas tied horizontally to the starboard stations and some of the lower bananas had to be sacrificed to save the others. When the boat rolled, the sacrificial bananas squished and gooed all over the place.
This evening, before the moon rose, we saw lots of bioluminescence in the froth churned up by the boat. Will says it’s a bit like being in a (very quiet) rave. We changed the clocks by an hour today as we’ve made it to a different time zone. It’s now 19:22 and we’re officially a third of the way to Nuku Hiva! We are at 2,006 nm to destination. I’m still doing my strength and conditioning exercises for running during my night shifts. A little shout out to Carla Molinaro for sending me sessions to download for the trip which have been keeping me sane while I can't run or cycle. Thank you! All these exercises are made very much more difficult by the fact that we’re basically on a wobble-board 24/7. I'm telling myself that I'll have a washboard core by the end....
We are starting to make a list of things we want to do when we get to dry land. Charlie is planning to eat a pamplemousse, Helen would like a drink and Will wants a swim. All I want is a run. Swiftly followed by a beer and a night on land.
Saturday 26th March.
Day 12 in the big brother boat. It’s 14:12 and we are down to 1,714 nm to our destination. We’re doing approximately 160 nm a day and so tomorrow we should be at halfway before midnight. Will and I have started watching Ted Lasso – a TV show about an incredibly positive American football coach who comes to Richmond FC to coach football. It’s really very good. I taught another lesson for Roo and Kit yesterday. Kit asked me what I could teach and so I went through some things, and he picked public health. Highlight of the day is that both Will and I had showers and we did some clothes washing. I will never take the washing machine for granted again.
An ocean crossing is not like pootling around the channel or the med. The prefix “boat” has come into common parlance onboard.
Boat-clean adj. – eg crockery, after washing up in cold seawater with a freshwater rinse. Boat-fresh adj. – 14-day old carrot that wrinkles under the peeler and clothes which have been badly hand-washed.
Today, a new entry in the dictionary:
Boat-hug n. – Where you mis-time a cuddle and end up careening into a work surface, bashing your hip before body-slamming your cuddle buddy and both pretending that it was really nice.
Sunday 27th March
It is 07:10 and the sunrise on my night watch was glorious. We’re now at 1,615 nm. We have changed the sails so we are ‘goose winging’. With the wind coming pretty much directly from behind us, we have the main sail out to starboard and the genoa is out to port on a horizonal pole coming out from mid main mast. It seems to be more of a steady ride, in that I slept better last night!
I rang my Mum, whose birthday it was this week, using the satellite phone. She was surprised to hear from me, but I think I got some good daughter points for calling from the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We also watched Moana with the boys. It feels a bit surreal that we’ll be in that neck of the woods soon. I made another frittata for lunch and then Helen made pizza for dinner.
Monday 28th March
WE’RE HALFWAY!!!! It happened on Will’s watch at about 03:00 this morning...I was in a mid-way funk for most of the day. At this point, the novelty of sailing across the Pacific has worn off somewhat. I really miss exercise. And meat. And I think it’s fair to say that I'm over
the constant bashing into furniture so that I am covered in bruises. Helen gave me some dried apricots and coke and the funk abated somewhat. We have been told to lower our expectations about arriving in Nuku Hiva for my birthday. Apparently going more than 5 knots is unusual, based on Charlie and Helen’s previous long-distance voyages. This would mean that we might arrive on the 6th or 7th of April. Now we’re at 1,407nm. If we do an average of 6 knots, that’s 144nm in 24 hours. 1407/144 = 9.7 days which would be arriving in the morning of the 7th April. 5 knots average would be 11.7 days, so the 9th…..