Halcyon - Day 9
Halcyon
Rob Withers
Mon 28 Nov 2011 21:20
It looks like the trade winds are here to stay - at least for a few
days. The daily routine that's emerging is something like:
8:00 am sunrise, kettle on, generator on (that wakes 'em up) and sniff
the air. If the wind isn't too strong we'll put up the mainsail to add
to the twin poled-out jibs flown overnight. It means Heidi can't
really cope, and therefore hand steering during the day but gives an
extra 1/2 - 1 knot.
By 10:00am most people are up - even those who went back to bed after
their night watch and its time for showers (rarely), breadmaking
(almost every day), and the radio net. The SSB radio net allows those
boats fitted to take about the issues of the day. These may vary from
how to fix a self-steering clutch to jokes about frenchmen. As you
might imagine, some nationalaties treat the formalities of the net
differently to others!
Lunch is Ham (see earlier picture of big ham) and bread etc. The ham
has been nicknamed 'Babe' and is delicious - although there is still a
lot left. Alistair says that we're allowed 2 non-babe lunches during
the crossing.
During the afternoon, crew recover from the rigour of the morning's
work before the preparations start for the evening. Fishing
line (still empty) comes in. Mainsail comes down at 5:30 and Heidi
starts her watch while we have the evening drink on deck. The sunset
tonight was particularly good. James cooked supper tonight and by
8:00pm we're ready for bed!
It's 2 hour watches for everybody overnight, with another person
available if any action is required on deck (I try to minimise this).
The skipper of Raparee was telling how he had to go up the mast to
hack away the cruising chute a couple of nights ago. Not funny or
clever! At the start we were putting on trousers and a warm top at
night - now its shorts on the night watches.
Jupiter and then Orion and the other constellations start the night
behind us, come overhead and set in front of us and before you know
it another day has past and we're 150 miles nearer St Lucia.
I'll leave you with a limerick from Bridget:
There once was a boat in the ARC,
That forgot to go round the first mark,
The start went all wrong
So the crew sang a song,
And couldnt find their boat in the dark
