TNS 398

Day 3

First set of night watches completed and it was time for our first wake up at sea under sail. After breakfast we attended to bracing stations to wear ship (gybing to the unfamiliar, or to put it another way changing direction whilst still sailing) followed by a lecture on ships lights and Collision Regulations to aid us on our coming night duties.

It was a pretty beautiful day, sun shining, clear skies and temperature around 15 degrees. After our afternoon watch, ‘the young watch’ as we later became known, took to kicking back and relaxing on the foredeck with some chilled music, books, and pondered how lucky we felt to be here. We were then accompanied by the rest of the crew as someone spotted dolphins! We rushed to our cameras and got trigger happy as we desperately tried to capture them jumping and swimming alongside the ship. After they’d finished their show, it was back to chilling out, watching the vivid red colours of the sun setting over the sea. After dinner, many of us got our heads down in preparation for the dreaded midnight ‘til four watch. As I’m writing this, it’s been relatively quiet; we’ve just taken the remainder of the sails down and are trundling along quite peacefully at around 5 knots under power with calm seas and a pleasant breeze.

Forward Starboard watch