When pigs fly

23 Oct 0100

 

A sail change kills an hour, most welcome at 1am.

EL GATO has some new sail inventory, so we experiment with our debutants, to determine the optimal conditions, angles and speed. “Stella” (every sail has a name, and this one – a sunflower yellow asymmetrical kite with a white star in the middle) has been floundering as the breeze has gone right, forcing us to head further west than desired. Annie and I get her down – this involves locating and running all the proper lines, in the pitch dark, making sure nothing’s foul, all while clipped onto jacklines that run across the boat aft, and up to the bow. Annie goes up to the bow, I alternately watch the sail, and the glow of her red headlamp, to make sure she’s still onboard. We snuff Stella, ease her down onto the deck, and jibe the main – all very measured and controlled; then determine we can unfurl “Gordo” (the fat Genoa) on this board, and commence that process.

Unlike racing, where everything is rushed (and you have a larger crew) every action is measured and cautious. Then we assess vmg, and settle in.

It’s odd what you can do in the middle of the night. Annie’s not sleepy yet, so she reads a book – ADRIFT – taking a break from the various manuals and tutorials. I clean up the dinner dishes, popping out on deck every 10 minutes to check the sails and traffic. One lone container ship passes astern 3nm; there’s a great deal more traffic going in and out of Casablanca, but we’re well outside of the shipping lanes so that’s moot.

 

23 Oct 645pm

Finally I slept a sweet peaceful slumber, not the fitful sleep of crazy boat dreams. I snuggled up across my bunk, leaned on my mountain of pillows and read, then closed my eyes, listening to gentle music. The motion of the boat was so calm, it felt like we were at the dock. The sky dull, making my otherwise bright cabin dark enough - I took a long lazy nap, until 530, when I roused to get ready for watch.

The sky is whitewashed gray, the water flat. It is sprinkling. Annie is making oatmeal cookies. I’m on deck til 9, but will find time to make some dinner in that time.

We have been following a pretty simple watch of three hours on, six hours off. With just three of us, it works well – no-one get stuck with the same watch. When Lewie joins us in the Canaries, we’ll mix it up.

I’ve done several watch schedules – 2 on at night, 3 at dusk and dawn, 4 during the day. 2 at night, 6 during the day. Or a straight 2 on, 2 off. And so on. Even so, we have tried to coordinate meals so we have at least one common (hot) meal ... today we decided to try to make lunch our ‘big’ meal of the day, and we did: we had curried chicken with rice and veggies. But then we had happy hour snacks ... and made pizzas for our dinner ... and Annie made cookies ... FAIL! We have all eaten tons of food – it seems a common theme on boats – which is good, I suppose. It means the sh*t isn’t hitting the fan. Sometimes you just need to eat, and sleep, in preparation for those times when eating (urp!) and sleeping (chaos) is impossible. But so far, that’s not our issue. We are just pigs!