You have two options.
Either option a) live with your house and all it’s contents leaning to the left at a fairly constant but bouncy10-30 degree tilt. Or option b) your house will sedately wallow between 10 degrees to the left and 10 degrees to the right, like some drunken rockstar’s metronome.
We’ve just switched from option a and sailing broad reach (with both the big white flappy things out on the same side) to option b and dead downwind and gull winged (one big white flappy thing on each side).. And we get to go about a knot slower to boot! Don’t look at me, it wasn’t my doing, the wind shifted.
There are upsides obviously, many things are easier when the boat is flatter for example going to the toilet is easy like this. But working in the galley just got harder; previously you could just lean something again the downhill wall with high confidence it will stay there for the time it takes to chop an onion. Now the downhill wall switches every 2-5 seconds so all bets are off.
However, never deterred we opened Champagne anyway. Why? Because we are under 1000 miles to go! Which we were yesterday, but Mia wasn’t feeling well and now she is, so today we celebrate instead. But that’s not all, we have other reasons to celebrate, our Latitude just passed 123 45.67. Clearly we’re not short of reasons to open bubbles on an otherwise dry boat.
And, more importantly we had a display of all the flags that Mia (with guest flags from Tina and Teo) has made for her bunting project. About 50 colourful little triangles in total. Next step is to stitch them to the line that Tina has braided (she likes to braid) and we’ll fly them as soon as we drop anchor in the Marquesas. Hopefully in a few days time!
But wait, there’s more! Gecky, our imaginatively named pet Gecko who snuck onboard as a stowaway somewhere in Panama, decided to come inside today after months hiding out somewhere on deck. He isn’t very big, maybe the length of your thumb, but ever so cute and a welcome team member with special skills in bug control. Eagle eye’d Teo spotted him from across the room, hiding out next to the light switch.
Oh and we also caught a MONSTER FROM THE DEEP during dinner. Tina or Jon normally bring the fishing lines in after dinner which is also just when it’s getting dark. But today dinner was late and we moved the clocks back (Pitcairn Time -8) and so it was dark when we finished our Thai fish curry. When we went to pull it in there wasn’t much pressure on the line so figured the fish had spit the lure. But no! A two-foot long sliver scaled monster with a mouth full of fangs was on the end of the line – not too pleased with us. Given that it was mostly bones and death we decided to throw him back after a quick photo op. Our best guess is that was a Cutlass fish or Ribbon fish.
It’s 4am here and the wind has dropped and shifted again. We are now heading to Hawaii and should get there in August. Best go pull something.
