The wind is back, and it's serious (at least by my standards). Yesterday
afternoon, we were sitting in nearly still air with our windseeker and a
full main. As of this evening, we had worked all the way down to the storm
jib and third reef, as the wind was 35 knots with gusts to 45 and forecast
to build. It's very wet on deck and some waves wash over and water pours
down the hatch. Some swells look to be 3-4 meters and there's a fair amount
of chop on top of that, so the boat is bouncing around a lot. It's still
not epic weather, but it is serious.
I spent most of the day below decks on what we call 'mother duty',
basically cooking and washing up. Not a good day for it. My co-mother,
Ryan, took an ambitious lead on cooking, and we made scrambled eggs for
breakfast; lentil, rice, and chorizo soup for lunch; and enhanced leftover
soup and meat pies (from frozen) for dinner. Ended up with it all over the
stove and the walls, but everyone appreciated it. I still think meal bars
are the way to go, at least in these conditions, but other people swear hot
food is critical to morale. Apparently one boat last year did a leg on
freeze dried food only and almost had a mutiny.
I did take a break from washing up at one point to help with a sail change.
I'm getting more comfortable in these conditions and integrating more with
the team, and I think we're doing a lot of things well, even if it's not
quite showing in the standings.
By the way, I mentioned in my last post that I'd been acting as navigator.
Just to be clear, I wasn't actually navigating. The skipper handles that,
sometimes bouncing ideas off the more experienced crew members and other
times consulting the wider crew if there's a choice among options. My job
was just to fill in hourly entries in the log book -- position, speed,
course, sail plan, etc. Also to check and pump the bilges. Yesterday, my
job was to check the engine and clean the heads. The romance of sail!
One of the benefits of being on mother duty is that you get pulled out of
regular watch duties, i.e. sailing the boat. That means extra sleep. I
actually have about 8.5 hours before I'm next on watch, so I'm going to go
take advantage of that... at least as much as I can on a heeling, bouncing,
slamming boat.
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