Life at sea

Tuesday 24 November 1147 GMT
24.54N 19.02W – 2447nm to go – Speed 8.3 knots

Monday mornig started out quite fantastically with a great pod of dolphins coming to visit at dawn. And not just visit, they were leaping out of the water in big jumps and welcoming us once again to the Altantic. Great way to start the day!
Everybody is finding their sea legs now, getting used to the rythm and the motion of the boat and the sea. Probably helps as well that the sea has calmed down quite a bit, we’ve gone from 5-7m waves to a gentle swell of maybe 2-3 metres.
We’ve changed our sail configuration as well and are now sailing under our mainsail and a poled out headsail, also known as ‘wing-on-wing-ing it’. Or as the Dutch like to called, the little milk maid.
The boys are all getting into the routine of the watches as well and finding their way around the galley, cooking and cleaning and generally doing a great job! Some tell me though that this cannot be taken as a precedent for when they are back at home!
We’re running a 3 watch system with each watch consisting of 3 people. At night it’s 3 hours on, 3 hours off, during the day 4 on, 4 off, leaving plenty of time for sleep, reading, chores and some sunbathing.
Our Red watch consists of Barry, David and Adrian; the White watch of Andy, Dick and Michael and the Blue watch of Boogie/Marlies, Stewart and Keith.
Every 3rd day, a watch will cook dinner, the next day clean and then the day after that make lunch, sharing all the tasks together.
We’ve got a few characters on board and you’ll learn more about them all in the blogs to come.
Just been told by Keith that we should have gotten a submarine as according to his hand held GPS we are at an elevation of 5m below sea level! We all seem to be doing pretty well breathing at -5m…
Note: he’s reset the GPS and now we’re at +3m….does that mean we’re flying???
Life is good, just had a great lunch with tuna sandwiches, some gentle snoring to be heard, lots of discussion going on about celestial navigation and generally everybody having a good time!
See you tomorrow!
Marlies