Dear Marge,

DATE: 2002-11-16
LOCATION:012deg39N144deg17W
WEATHER:

I have just received your messages. To me more accurate I have been laying in my bunk listening to the text messages flood in, and whilst it comforts me to hear that beep each time, I know that it won't be pleasing Bart who is next door. Having said that I think he has slept through it. I am on shift now, so I am happy to sit and watch more and more texts flood in.

Feeling a better now. I am telling myself to keep calm and not to build this into something it is not. Tomorrow is another day. I drank my first cup of coffee yesterday and it made me jittery. I couldn't sleep last night despite having been up all the night before. Added to which it was a horrible tasting cup of coffee (American shit) so I won't be drinking any more.

The days seem to be going faster now and we have settled into some sort of routine. It is really nice to look at the chart plotter and see the miles steadily click down. We are less than 1000 miles from Christmas Isle and the figure has dropped significantly each time I have looked.

I am sitting here bathed in red light. There are an array of instruments in front of me. The radio, a bank of navigation instruments, the chart plotter, the radar and the laptop. A windex to the right and Bart's satellite phone sits flashing on the edge of the table. The screeches and whines of a weather bulletin downloading echos in my ears. It's on the lowest volume, but it is a very penetrating noise. Outside waves crash and roar and I can see ahead of me through the windows in to the dark grey gloom.

A moment ago the autopilot failed, with a display of red and green flashing lights and I sprinted to the wheel. I was only wearing a sarong and nothing else. I slithered over the wet decks and spun the boat back on course as it dramatically heeled-over into the wind. I wrestled her straight again and stared into the night. It is a full moon, and the sea is lit up with an eerie pale light. (It reminds me of the first night we arrived at Hallsands) The clouds are thick and as I hold the boat on course I am steering blind, trusting the digital display on the mast to tell me which way to turn. I feel the boats movement, but the numbers spin off wildly and the boats yaws into the wind, so I trust the technology to bring it back to the correct heading. Phil woke up and punched the autopilot back in. There was no explanation as to why it failed, maybe it was just overpowered in the gust of wind.

I am back in the cockpit now and the weather fax is screeching away once more and I am trying to write to you. Phil is banging about in the engine room (where Fred has taken to sleeping) looking for bilge water. We have a light flashing (yes, this is more like a jumbo-jet than a boat) informing us that the engine room bilge pump is operating. I maintain it is rain and spray that has got in because Fred sleeps with the hatch open but Phil thinks a hose might have burst and is checking. I am too tired to want to clamber about in the cramped confines of the engine room with an irritated half-asleep Fred on my case. If Phil was asleep I know that I would have had to check it out.

The radio has gone back to static. The boat is awash with noise. Pans bang in the galley, somewhere water sloshes. The whole boat creaks and protests as it rocks in the waves. The sea is the calmest it has been so far, almost flat, yet we have 20kn of wind across the deck and we are rocketing along at 10kn. Each time the boat broaches, we are flung to one side, and the G-force pins you to the wall momentarily. Then the autopilot straightens up the boat and the opposing turn throws you against the other side. It makes typing difficult, and, added to the other movements the boat is making, it's even more like a roller-coaster. Occasionally the rigging "thrums" - a low trembling noise made as the wind gets up. It sounds like a gale is blowing, the wind is whistling through the spreaders. But actually when you go up on deck, it is much calmer than it sounds, and the only sound up there is the creaming of the water as the boat surges constantly onward toward our destination. It's actually a calm night and I was looking forward to sleeping thoroughly for a change, but I have two night shifts tonight, so no chance of that.

Thank you for sorting out livejournal. It was a brilliant idea, but I think given the circumstances it is unworkable on this trip. I might edit the journals, change the names and in about ten years I could publish the contents but not until then. [The wind is on our beam now, things are much more energetic and typing is getting harder]. It is comforting for me to know that you are managing things at home for me. I would do the same for you if you ever wanted to take off. Saying "take-off" makes me think of Bart, who amongst many other things I have discovered, he is a pilot.

I turned the ringer off and I have just missed a call - I wonder if it was you. We are about 10 hours behind GMT so it is 4 in the morning here, whereas you are halfway through the day already. I imagine you, pottering around work, having lunch whilst I stare at the dark ocean. It's so odd how we can still communicate from so far away. The worst thing about these odd shifts is what it does to my stomach. I don't consume anything but hot water at night, but my body wants breakfast and has a constant empty feeling. Then during the day my digestive system gets really confused. I am likely to put on weight, as I am doing very little exercise apart from the occasional winding of a winch and we are eating tonnes of junk food. It is all American, packaged stuff, even the bread is disgustingly sweetened, almost like tea-loaf. I have taken to drinking a lot of coke and soft drinks which is not doing my teeth any good either. What strange little worries! Meanwhile I am leaping over wet decks in only a sarong at night in heaving seas, not concerned with being washed overboard without a life-jacket. I baked a cake this evening, which received further praise from the skipper and more sneering from the other three. Oh well. My sister's cake still waits in the fore-peak, I will have to bring it out before Samoa as it is likely to get sea-water damaged before then and I might be leaving the ship.

Thanks for emailing Raleigh for me to get that radio frequency. It was just a little whim really, and Chile might be out of range by now. I just wanted to say, "Hello, hope your enjoying being stuck up a mountain, because I am in the middle of the ocean". But I don't actually know anyone there, the staff changes every year, so a bit pointless really. Maybe the head-office will let any of last years staff know what I am up to.

It is surprisingly difficult to find private time on a boat this small. We live with all the doors open, and I share my (now damp) bunk with Fred. We don't even shut the door when we wee. The only time the door is ever shut is for a shower.
I am typing this on Bart's laptop as he cut the plug off the power adaptor that fitted my laptop, and we are on a serious power conservation drive. I am going to try and get this email to you by the end of the day.

I must leave it there. The moon is setting and it wears on in the day for you. I want to send this to you before you leave work today.

Ben