Leg 1, Week 2: September 7th - September 13th
Day 8: Monday, September 7, 2015
Yesterday was a quiet day, another windless day for our watch. So there was more time for questions and boat repair. We made some sail ties, repaired our preventers and basked in the warm sun. Huw was also on deck for a bit, so I got a chance to start my 40 questions with him. It is amazing how much you learn about people with only a few questions...okay perhaps I dive into the more personal ones to soon, but still fun. I let him pass on a couple. I'll revisit those ones in later legs.
Today, our Victualer was on mother watch for the day. What a treat we were in store for! Pretty sure we have the most amazing victualer and food on our boat. We would definitely win first prize for that if it was a category. For dinner, Amancio made us a four course meal! Who knew that was possible on a 70' boat with a tiny galley. Our first course was leak and potato soup, then paella with shrimp (Amancio is from Spain :D), then a wonderful beef stew, and he rounded up the meal with banana pudding amazingness! I was so thankful to be off watch after this meal so I could just roll into my bunk afterwards! Jesse was maybe not as please with the amount of dishes he had to clean up after since he was on mother watch with Amancio.
Paella, stew, and banana yumminess!
Day 9: Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Today was "Just because day" on our boat so we celebrated just because. We had delicious banana bread with some amazing sugary frosting compliments of Ana after our lunch meal and another delicious marble chocolate/white cake for midnight snacks...I'm starting to get a ridiculous sweet tooth! These British folks are all about the sweets and chocolate! I normally decline, but it gets really hard when everyone is eating yummy biscuits and chocolate around you!
It was another warm, easy going day on deck. So when I announced that I was bored and wanted to play a game, I was tasked with washing down the deck! Although I found it quite enjoyable as I am a bit of a clean freak, after doing the starboard side, I was a bit tired and hot so the port wash wasn't as good, but decks looked awesome once I was done with them! They were dirty about 10 minutes later after someone's drink spilled...at least I tried.
Day 10: Wednesday, September 9, 2015
Coming off the watch this morning, we got the code 2, now appropriately named, Alexander the Great (Code 1 is Helena after Helen of Troy and Code 3 is Joan of Arc), wrapped around the front forestay, this took about an hour for the crew to unwrap, leaving us at least 10 miles in the dust. Although, John was supposed to be asleep after coming off mother duty, he was happy to finally be able to go up the rig. As I was going down after 3 off-watches of no sleep, I was out for the count and missed the whole thing, but I'm sure it is on film somewhere. I was glad to learn when I woke up that Alexander had been untwisted and was undamaged.
Part of our daily watch duties includes cleaning the heads and emptying the bilges (cleaning bathrooms and sponging water out of the bottom of the boat to keep from weighing us down). In the heads, we have biodegradable bin bags to put the toilet paper in, which we then toss over into the sea once full. This keeps the trash in the lazarette low and also keeps the smell in the laz abated somewhat. It was Pablo's turn on the heads today and he passed up the bins to be tossed over to John. John tossed the bin over, however, he did it on the windward side rather than the leeward side. In other words, he tossed the bin into the wind and dirty, used toilet paper was thrown all over the boat deck! Lovely...good lesson learned, always toss out the bins on the leeward side!
Day 11: Thursday, September 10, 2015
Everything that could have wrong today has happened. Not necessarily in a death defying way, but just with our sails and we managed to go through three spinnakers back to back to back. First we messed up a peel with the spinnaker sheets, so had to take that one down. Then with our second kite, the halyard donut blew, so we lost the kite in the water. All hands on deck lifting it out of the water. Luckily we had control of the tack and clew so didn't completely lose it. I have to say it looked pretty cool floating under the blue water though! I'll have to try and find a picture of this. Since it was the halyard that snapped, we had to send our rig monkey, John, up the mast to retrieve the end of the line. Then with the third kite we hoisted, we managed to mess up the gybe when the spinnaker sheets got tangled with the tripping line. So our crew below deck had to wool three kites in a row! Imagine being in a sauna with sheets piled up all around you, trying to twist the edges into a straight line as they come together...not the best place to be!
However, that was not the end of the fun! We were in for a fun night with heavy winds and choppy water going through the channel of the Canary Islands. Huw was on deck most of the night helping with helming since it required a bit of skill to handle, which our amateur crew is still new to. I noticed when I was up on deck during the night watch that the lazy spinnaker sheet was unusually floppy, but didn't think much of it. Turns out once the sun came up, our lazy spinnaker sheet had wrapped around the active sheet and created a huge knot! Again, John had to suit up, and crawl down the boom to fix the knot instead of getting to go to bed after his night watch.
Day 12: Friday, September 11, 2015
Today I was on mother duty again. This time, my partner in crime, Suzie, was in high spirits and was able to help all day! The job isn't any easier but so much nicer to have someone to chat with throughout the day. Our meals included cereal and toast for breakfast, nice and easy. For toast, we have a large saucepan and use that to brown the sides of the bread. However, we have sadly run out of peanut butter already and no more fresh fruit anymore, did I mention that already? Such a shame! Our stove is in need of some love and affection. The main center burner doesn't stay on, so we have to rig a can and wedge it between the button and the rail to keep the gas on. We are very MacGyver-ish on this boat!
For lunch, we made patatas bravas with chorizo which is parboiled potatoes, then roasted in the oven with chorizo. A tomato sauce with chorizo, garlic and onions is made in a pan and dished over the top of the potatoes and chorizo. Very lovely. After clean up, it is on to the next meal. For dinner we started with an appetizer of asparagus soup, then we made one of my favorite British dishes, bangers and mash or smash in our case which is instant mashed potatoes, with sautéed onions and gravy. Made with the correct portion of milk, butter and seasoning, smash still tastes pretty good. And to top off the evening, we made some white cake. However, since the boat tilts, it makes it hard to cook the cake evenly. As such, the very flat side that cooked up crispier like a cookie, I crushed it up to make as a crunchy topping, tasted like crumbly vanilla wafers! Then to serve it all up, we had a layer of cake, with a heaping portion of warmed up custard pored on top with a sprinkling of crushed vanilla wafer bits. Huw and I even made little parfaits, layer of cake, layer of custard, layer of cake, layer of custard and sprinkled bits on top...delish! The mound of dishes we had after this meal was no small feat to clean up after!
On top of the constant cooking and cleaning in the galley during mother watch, the worst bit is the heat! It is already very hot below deck with 21 bodies living down here, but add a hot stove and foulies and you are literally roasting! Wearing the bottom half of he foulies and boots in the galley is required when cooking in case boiling hot water or knives fall on you...just an extra layer of protection when the boat goes a rockin! However, with the extra layers and heat, I felt like I was in a bikrum yoga class during every meal we prepped with sweat poring out of every pore of my body! I now understand the reasoning behind getting a "shower" after mother watch.
Day 13: Saturday, September 12, 2015
Last night, we decided to switch up the watch system and times starting today. Previously, our watches consisted of two six hour shifts during the day and then three four hour ones at night. So it would be on watch from 7 am to 1 pm, off from 1 pm to 7 pm, on from 7 pm to 11 pm, off from 11 pm to 3 am, then on again from 3 am to 7 am and then you are on and off for the reverse times as the day before the following day. With the new system with the days becoming very warm, we are switching to have the longer shifts at night. So the new times will be 7 am to 11 am, 11 am to 3 pm, 3 pm to 7 pm, then 7 pm to 1 am and 1 am to 7 am. So far the shift during the day is very welcomed especially now that we have our wind vortex set up below deck. Our handy crew on board have set up a fan in the galley faced back towards the bunks on the starboard side, then another fan in the back of the bunks on the port side faced towards the galley creating a wind vortex throughout the boat below deck! Not an extremely strong one but definitely way better than just roasting in the heat down below.
In addition to the time changes, we are going to start slowly switching up the watches. Once you do your mother watch, which consists of a person from each watch, they will switch watches and join the other watch after their full nights rest. For instance, Andrew and Sean are mothers tomorrow, so Andrew who is on my watch on the starboard side, will join forces with the port watch and then Sean will join our watch the next day. I can't say that I'm thrilled about shifting the watches around only because everyone in our watch is awesome! But, on the other hand, this gives me more people to drill for my 40 question interrogations! Not to mention, I'm sure everyone on port watch is just as awesome as our team, so will be great to get to know them more beyond just hanging out between shifts!
It has recently come to my attention, that I've been hearing some "stories" during my 40 questions sessions! One of the questions I have asked about is a person's favorite meal. During my chat with John, he told me about haggis which is a typical Scottish dish. My next question was obviously, what is haggis? To which John explained that it is a three legged creature that roams the mountains in Scotland where John is from. I had no reason not to believe this was true, which it is not. And everyone else partaking in the discussion didn't bat one eye even though they all knew he was making it up. Apparently, this is a common thing to make up some version of what haggis is. In reality, it is just a sausage with random parts of animal mixed into it. Sounds just like what we call a hot dog in the states, right? It has randomly come up in discussion since and I slowly caught on that everyone was in on this false definition of haggis! Don't worry, I'm working on something to get back at John, he'll never see it coming!
Day 14: Sunday, September 13, 2015
Today marks two weeks out on the boat! And I've only just remembered my poor old coworkers are probably suffering miserably this weekend! Tax day is Tuesday, so last weekend to get it all completed and I'm sure there is inevitably one federal return which hasn't been finalized yet! haha...sorry guys, can't say I'm missing that while I'm chillin on the boat in sunny, breezy conditions every day :D.
Today we lost hopes of making a podium position. While flying Alexander, I believe it was, our tack line must have gotten tangled and released. We have rigged an extra line to the tack line over the mast to help us when dropping the sails and pulling the tack line in faster. When the tack line blew, the new line was still attached to the bow sprit of the boat and was the only thing holding the sail from going flying. We managed to drop the sail successfully; however, as we went to prepare to hoist another sail, we noticed major damage had happened in the process of dropping the sail. The line had wrapped around the bow sprit, pulling it down towards the water instead of pulling up, which is what the bow sprit is meant to handle. As a result, the bow sprit essentially snapped and left a huge crack making the bow sprit useless to us. This means we can no longer fly any of our spinnakers which are the kites that get us the most speed. We are now forced to sail with our main, staysail, and yankee up. We are able to keep up to an average of 10 knots if we are lucky; however, the other boats behind us will slowly start catching up to us and we will have no hopes of overtaking any boats in front of us now. The new game plan is just to sail as fast as we can with this sail plan and stay in sixth place. Then when we show up in Rio in sixth place, we can say we "smashed it" with no bow sprit!
I had a feeling you were "the gullible American" 😜
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