Date: 25th January 2017
Time: 1746z
Position: 16°40.3N 50°11.2W
COG: 295°T
SOG: 5-6kts
Wind: E 3-4
Swell: ENE 3-4ft
Sky: 4/8 stratus/cumulus
Weather: Big squall last night with winds of ≥30kts.
It can be hard to put things at sea into a context that relates to ‘normal life’ on land. I’ve been thinking hard today to try and explain what it’s like when the wind is light and the sail plan hasn’t changed in over a week. I’ve found an activity that transcends this gap of oceans and land. Today, I sharpened all the pencils in the nav station. Every single one is now a honed and sharp tip, just waiting for a chart to mark. I feel that this adequately sums things up.
It is often said that if you’re bored on a boat you’re doing it wrong. I subscribe to that theory, but it doesn’t mean your world is on fire all of the time. Lot’s of books are being read at the moment, the cards and board games are out, and I’m spending a lot of time in front of a laptop planning the next steps of the trip and The Longest Swim.
Speaking of time in front of a laptop, you’re lucky to be reading this, as my satellite email software received an email it didn’t like this morning and then proceeded to meltdown when opening at every attempt. In the absence of another laptop with the software on (lesson learnt there…), a sizeable amount of time today has been spent discovering the deepest, darkest depths of a MacBook in a range of attempts to undo the damage this rogue email seemed to have done. Mission successful, and although I’ve lost all my previous email correspondence at least we now have messaging capabilities back again!
The recent fishing attempts on deck have been less than successful, and only resulted in damage to the gear… The wildlife front as a whole has been rather sparse of late; with our only company a solitary sea bird (well, we assume it’s the same bird), albeit a rather dashing one with black leading edges to an otherwise white plumage, and a razor thin tail twice the length of it’s body. We will be adding a marine life identification book to our inventory in Antigua.
Back to the heat for us…