day 116
Kia ora, Megan here! Today, no meltdowns. Between around 10pm and 2:30am, I slept like a baby (a baby who did have water dashed into their crib at one point in the night but nonetheless), and woke up only a few minutes before my alarm. This made me feel rather exceptional, and the following watch and indeed entire day proceeded extremely pleasantly from there. We are hitting our mileage goals, we have fallen into no holes (a period without wind)… wonderful. Hand sailing was so pleasant today that even I dismissed Wendy (the windvane) from her duties. This is very unlike me, I am most comfortable with Wendy’s assistance even when I do need to redirect her wandering. Maybe it is no longer unlike me, I suppose, as my capabilities and proclivities change daily. But maybe also it’s just that nice out: the wind is with us, the waves are with us… this may be about to change as we jibe north to avoid running into an island in a few hours, but luckily it’s my bedtime. I’ll just conveniently retire into my chambers and hopefully wake up at 3 to find we’ve avoided the island and are back on our agreeable course. Pō mārie!
Naomi here, Today we saved a sad cucumber and had pate and cheese, and for dinner we had delicious hash browns, bacon, eggies and bok choy. It has been really nice sailing, fairly consistent winds, fairly calm seas, Wendy more or less working altho last night I also hand steered for most of my watch for the sheer joy of it, the moon getting bigger, 18-19 knots from behind us and trying to catch the waves for as long as possible. The days are blending in to one another as we are getting in to the rhythm of our respective watches, punctuated by meals and whatever media we are consuming. For my watches I am at the mercy of my crew mates as I have no phone for music and podcasts, Jamie has very kindly been lending me his phone to listen to bo burnham and part of the sea shanties for thots playlists, tonight I will be dipping into Megan’s library to listen to the sea shanties for lesbians playlist. I will report back if there are any sea shanties as good as bluebirds one.
Miriam: I’ll start with a correction. Yesterday I said wind from the SE in the blog and as soon as I went back on deck for my watch I saw the southern cross low in the south and realised I was entirely spun around and the wind had been from the NE. Whoops! Jennie is probably the only person paying close enough attention to have caught it (best ground support crew ever, answering our questions before we even know them sometimes) and is entirely too kind to have pointed it out, but I felt compelled to correct the record.
Another timeless day on passage. They are blending together, speeding by and dragging on, transitioning from surprisingly chill nights to sweltering middays and back again. Being in the constant rocking of our movement through the waves, hearing the rush of water past our hull. Last night I let Wendy drive for a while as I worked on my contact improv dance with Bluebird as partner, stretching and moving around the cockpit reveling in the way the ship’s motion informs my own. A lovely little squall with enough rain and wind to be exciting and some grand hand steering through the tumult sent me off to bed. Almost 8 hours of solid sleep set me up right to enjoy this morning’s watch, again hand steering much of it for the fun of refining my sensitivity and response to the collaboration between the ocean, wind and boat that is the rhythm of our lives here. A flying fish travelling surprising distances inches above the water with a silver flash of it’s wing/fins made me squeal with delight. I really enjoy looking out the kitchen window while cooking to gaze eye level into the waves. I wonder how soon I will entirely lose track of what day it is…
Jamie: despite running around hills for a job I am truly a lazy dog at heart. And by god do I enjoy having absolutely no where to be, no plans and no where to go 24/7. Nap when I want, chat when I want, listen to music, read. The ultimate leisure passage. Very unlike the blasting grinding passage up from nz where music was listened to at full speed in headphones not for leisure but to drown out the terrifying external (and internal) reality of churning ocean and heavy winds as well as the list of broken things and boat jobs going on. I feel we deserve a break and this is pretty good. Delicious breakfast for dinner tonight, fried eggs bacon hash browns, complete with tomato sauce. Thanks Miriam! Thinking about having a porridge up tomorrow with dried plums from windsong and cream from a cow. WOD: terrific - terrific: an adjective used to describe something taken to the enth degree, usually in a positive light. Used in a sentence: there was a crash on state highway 1 and it’s caused a terrific terrific jam