Day 402 – THE ATLANTIC: Day Eight – How things work

Distance sailed today: 105 NM
Total distance sailed: 430 NM
Midnight GPS position: N 25.24 W024.14
Wind: NE/E Wind Force 3-4
Sea state: Slight
Generator hours: 2hr
THE DUTY ROSTER

First Mate Ellie has made up a daily roster that covers lunch, dinner, and cleaning duty. There are three of us on board, so we each do one of these duties once a day. Today I was on dinner duty.

The beauty of this boat is that it has a freezer, fridge, gas stove, gas oven etc. Also, being a catamaran, the boat is relatively stable even in fairly rough seas. This means that you can spend time making a meal without having to wory about pots going astray.

So I defrosted some frozen chicken legs, filleted them, and made a classic Japanese dish called Oyakodon. This consists of crumbed fried chicken laid on top of rice, covered in a runny egg and sweet teriyaki sauce. Upon Skipper Steve’s suggestion, I used crunched up cornflakes instead of breadcrumbs, and it was very good.

WATCH ROSTER

“When you’re on watch, you do just that. Watch.” Skipper Steve Dewhurst on the duty of a crew member.

There are three of us on board this boat. We all do eight hours of watch per day, these eight hours split into two lots of four hours. At present, I am on watch from 4pm till 8pm, and 4am till 8am. During this time I will sit at the helm and watch for boats, changes in weather, wind direction shifts etc. Due to the wonder that is auto-helm and wind-steer, there is practially no need whatsoever to steer the boat manually. If the need arises for that, Steve is usually the one who takes over.

The watch that I’m on now is considered to be one of the better ones. You get the sunrise and sunset. So far these have been fairly normal sort of sunsets and sunrises, but the clouds make for a nice show every now and then.

The moon over the last few mornings has been amazing. Big and bright.

And at 4am in the morning, there’s nothing quite like a small shot of strong French coffee to wake me up!