A Vowelly Day at Sea
24 July 2021
Noon position: N 15°23.799’ W 71°58.103’
Our best day in terms of progression so far, with a 150 nautical mile noon-to-noon straight line gain.
Wondering what it’s like to spend a week or more crossing an ocean in your home?
A day at sea is filled with short, vowelly words.
Eat. Read. Sleep. Repeat.
That’s basically the long and the short of it. We finally, finally made our last gybe just after dinner last night. As I am writing this (around 28 hours later), we are still on the same point of sail.
Bliss.
It’s typically very boring on passage. There’s really not much to do, day in and day out. Highlights are created. Things like taking the noon site daily. Recording the log. Writing a blog. All of these are done to sprinkle a bit of activity into an otherwise routine, boring day.
And we don’t mind. One thing you do NOT want when on a long passage is excitement. Excitement means something’s gone wrong. Something’s broken. Or the weather has suddenly changed. Usually in the middle of the night. We don’t like excitement. Or adventure (when at sea).
In the words of a famous Hobbit, adventures are “Nasty. Disturbing. Uncomfortable Things!”
One verb must be added to the list if you are the Chef/Engineer onboard DOUBLESTAR.
Also a short one. Also vowelly.
CLEAN.
I am pretty confident – in fact, I am absolutely certain – we have the neatest, tidiest, cleanest vessel on the Sevens Seas after 110 hours and 700 nautical miles of sailing. Here’s the evidence, and this was just snapped – no staging – while sitting in our cockpit enjoying our sundowner:
I think this makes life so much easier when on passage. It’s hard enough having your whole home moving through the water and having your sleep patterns completely screwed up to ensure someone is always on watch. Doing everything while canting at 15° (a sailing monohull thing) adds to the challenge.
But having a clean, neat and tidy home makes everything feel normal, organized and just … right. Sure, it’s not for everyone. I get that.
But for us? We like things shipshape and Bristol fashion.
