Sunday 16 May 2010

Picton Castle at Sea; Sunday 16 May 2010 בס"ד

Though the gale had officially ended, the sea state was still quite lumpy. However, for what reasons I'm unsure, I had practically none of the apprehension that plagued me earlier. In the first hour I stood lookout with Niko, again from the bridgewings. This time I thought I saw a very distant light 1pt off abaft the starboard beam, but when I reported it to Rebecca, she told me it was a setting star, and I didn't see it again. It was an otherwise uneventful lookout, except when I saw a huge swell break midships and splash up to completely drench me. Luckily I had my foulies on and only underwear beneath them, so it was not a big deal. After my lookout and shipcheck, I taught Adreinne, Michael, and Mitch how to clean the galley shelves and put on the stoveblack, as they had not yet done it. I spent the rest of the watch working on my sea legs, and by the end of watch the ratio of OH SHIT swells to just 10ft swells was significantly less. Jimmy and I were saying that now the 10ft swells were like child's play comparatively. We then did wakeups and final shipcheck, then were relieved.

I woke up today for lunch cooked by Siri, Yo, Nadja, WT, and Nicksa, who were the volunteer cooks and galley crew today. The weather was gorgeous and the sea was restored to a tolerable state. On Sunday, there is no shipwork done other than necessary sail-handling and helm and lookout, not that there had been shipwork on Saturday since it was impossible. I stood second lookout and saw only a sea turtle drifting along off port. At first it looked like driftwood since it just kind of floated by and was sort of brown. I'd say it was no longer than three feet. I had a beater on but my shoulders started to burn so I put on a light collared shirt and hugn out on the quarterdeck with my watch reading up on Panama and its cuisine. We had a mini-watch muster about the Norway National Day parade that will happen tomorrow. Each watch must compete to have the best Norwegian stuff to be judged by Siri, Yo, Mate Mike, and the Captain (which will be interesting since nobody brought any Norwegian stuff). After watch I took a nap on the hatch, while Liam and Shawn played Smut Scrabble and Jimmy, Katie, and Michael played Bananagrams on either side of me. Right before dinner there was an all-hands muster on the quarterdeck where the Captain explained that we'd probably start motoring for the next few days starting tomorrow just so that we can catch the tradewinds. Today we had all squaresls set and the inner jib and maintopmst staysl. After dinner, I worked out a bit and stowed away all of my cold weather clothes and sleeping bag. I've noticed that I'm fairly adapted to my new sleep schedule, that being midnight-0400 watch, 0430-1130 sleep, lunch, noon-1600 watch, 1630-2030 freetime, 2030-2330 sleep. Also there was a fishing line off the aloha deck today, but I had no part in this.