Day 3

The morning started at 6:30am with the glorious rays of sun light piercing through the port hole. Memories of last night’s sunset were still imprinted in my brain. The whole watch was in awe of the magical colours in the sky. The clouds where tinted red, gold, pink and purple. Today was the start of the race. We had to prepare the ship to sail which required lots of pulling of sheets and halliards. Our hands had a few blisters. By the time that we had 19 sails up the wind was dying and it the temperature peaked around 22 degrees. Our maximum boat speed all day was 3 knots.

At the afternoon smoko we celebrated Paul’s birthday with tea and cake in the proper British fashion. After that happy hour began. This resulted in each watch being assigned a section on the ship to clean and polish by Jo the medical purser. The hour passed quickly and due to excellent team work the ship was left spotless. From 5 till 6 the crew were left free time in which most people slept in the sun or chatted about the day. Dinner was served at 6pm to a hungry crew who thought the food was fantastic. Most members of the watch decided to call it an early night and went straight to bed. However a few of the younger members stayed up playing poker and drinking coffee.

Now while writing this blog my watch has just begun. The wind has picked up and the sun has just set. A coffee round is due so I will close the blog off here. Good night and fare well from Forward starboard watch.

Tom, Ingrid, Nick, Gill, Dave, Debbie, Naomi, Sam, Max and Stephan