Dear Marge,

DATE: 2002-11-23
LOCATION:004deg30N152deg50W
WEATHER: Squalls, wet, stormy. Hot and humid.

By good fortune I happen to still be able to communicate. Bart laughed at me bringing a spare keyboard with me, but it has paid off. I can now type in full flow.

The last few days have been really hard. I have been very tired and my tolerance disappears when I am tired. Added to that, the heat, humidity, high tempers, and the worries over our safety, work, and getting home and we have one very grumpy Ben. I have also been really missing you too.

Yesterday was my galley day. In theory we should have 24 hours of no shifts, and only have to cook and clean for the other four. However I got no sleep in the night, it was so sticky in the cabin, lying there with nothing on, stuck to the vinyl seats of the saloon and feeling feverish, sick and fed-up. The skipper is a thoughtless bastard who doesn't sleep at night himself, and thinks nothing of shinning torches in my eyes (or switching the lights on) putting the radio on full blast (only to receive the screech and squeal of static), or to bellow orders around. This goes on all night. Additionally, some crises will require all hands on deck at least once in the night. It would be nice to sleep in in the morning but each day starts at 8am, with the captain calling the radio ham in California. The conversation would be humorous if it wasn't so tragic. The skipper is deaf, old and stupid and has no knowledge of basic radio procedure. He is obsessed with making contact with a New Zealand radio station called Russel Radio. We are too far away to get a good connection, but he won't listen to my explanation of why he can't talk to a station 6000 miles away. Instead he blames the radio ham in California. Yes that is as illogical as it sounds.

Phil doesn't like the radio ham guy and has an idiotic conversation with him every morning. It starts badly, they both use the wrong call sign. Then they use the wrong names for each other. Then they mishear the conversation, repeating it over and over (shortwave radio is hard at the best of times). To exchange our co-ordinates can take half an hour! However it's not so comical when you are trying to get some much needed sleep. By which time the rest of the crew are up and about. So I get out of bed, tired and grumpy. Yesterday I wanted to start cooking early. I had very ambitious plans to make garlic baguettes, an apple crumble, and cook the dinner. I started by trying to make the bread in the bread-maker. You can not imagine how difficult it is to do anything, sliding about on greasy, wet floors that are made of varnished wood to begin with and have been coated with greasy food and saltwater. Add to that a 30 degree heel-angle, and the smashing, crashing, pitch and roll through the waves and you realise that cooking is an arduous task. Then the work surfaces are another problem. They have a narrow edge on them, but nothing like enough to stop anything flying off. The stove is gimballed, but with the violent motion of the boat, a boiling hot dinner can still take off, invariably landing on the chef. As if all this wasn't taxing enough, the skipper had awoken yesterday and in a strange display of inconsideration, taped all the hatches and port-lights shut, the electric panel shut and anything else that we might want to use. So in this tropical heat (Greater than a 100F: Bart's digital thermometer was complaining it was out of range) in a small galley with the oven on for baking bread, I started to believe that I was in the fires of hell. My temper became more strained and I was using the F word liberally. I fell to my feet more than once, threw a dozen beaten eggs on the floor (adding to its slipperiness) and scolded myself with boiling oil. At one point, sprawled on the floor nursing a new set of bruises, I really thought I should give up. But I persisted. I know that I have to persist, that no-one will come along and say, "It's OK, you don't have to cook dinner". At this point the skipper approached, laughing. He received some very short and poignant words, for which I had to apologise later.

I did make my feast, somehow. The bread was not the fluffy white stuff I dreamt of, but was appreciated, the crumble was made from tinned peaches, but they caramelised nicely, I cooked bacon and eggs for lunch and spaghetti bolognaise for dinner. The touching thing was how much everyone cheered up, and by the end of the night I was receiving praise, compliments, and Bart helped me wash up. It's funny how food brings people together. Still I am glad not to be in the kitchen today. Next time I'll make pancakes I think.

Last night we hit serious squalls. Just as I thought I might finally fall asleep (despite rain coming down on my feet and waves washing through the porthole and onto my head (better that than suffocate)), I felt the boat broach. When I first embarked on this boat, I thought that all broaches were bad, and sailing a boat on its toe-rail I considered bad for many reasons. However I have learnt that that is how Phil chooses to push this boat, gear failure and all. So broaches are normal now, and I sleep through them. But this was very bad. I could see green water through the side-lights (they were submerged) and we were nearing the 90 degree point, the point of no-return. Initially I considered still sleeping, after all, David was on the helm so what input could I make? Then I remembered what it is like to be struggling with the helm, sliding on a wet deck at nearly 90 degrees of heel, in dark rain, on your own, using every bit of strength to fight the wheel. In the thunderous waves and pelting rain, he could be screaming for help and I wouldn't be able to hear. So I leapt up (unfortunately half-naked, meeting Phil coming the other way) struggled into shorts and life-jacket and emerged on deck. It was worse than I thought. David was indeed shouting and trying to keep the wheel straight. The boom was dragging in the water, white spray coming from its end, and driving rain lashed at us form all about. The most sensible words I have heard Phil say all trip were issued, "put two reefs in the main". The jib had torn itself free and was whipping around the fore-deck, so Fred and I wrestled that down. Then we had the boat more under control and David and I reefed. I had to walk along the boom, at 30 degrees to the horizontal, out over the foamy sea. Then, holding on as best I could, I pulled the main sail down and into its cradle. This would be easy, if Phil knew the very, very basics of sailing, but instead, he insisted on keeping the sail full throughout the manoeuvre. I had to pull with all my force against a full sail, something that the blocks, tackles and winches on deck make easy, but wet fingers grabbing at wet sail cloth certainly don't. Patient Ben was still in bed, and cross Ben was to be found hurling abuse at the helmsman (Phil) but he was deaf to it. We reefed, and Phil then put the engine on (another strange idea, as we now had 40kn plus of wind). No sleep was to be had as the engine drives the boat into the waves, creating a different and much less comfortable rocking motion. I tried to lie down, but was literally tossed and thrown from one side of my bunk to the other -there was no "down" to lie on, as I was in the air most of the night. So this morning I was doubly grumpy and resolved not to co-operate anymore, not to be placid or friendly and to get off the boat at Samoa.

Later on Phil found a bolt on deck. An innocent discovery at first, but when it was discovered where it was from, panic ensured. I have laid for days in the saloon (where the mast pierces the boat, before it attaches to the keel), listening to the almighty cracking, creaking, shattering, bashing and twanging in the rigging. On deck it is impossible to hear this cacophony above the waves, but down below in the cabin, which is like a sound box, the noises are painfully loud. I am capable of ignoring ordinary creaking and clattering of rigging, and I have a good sense of what is normal. These noises sound like real damage is being done. However no-one had taken notice of this until today. The loose bolt was from the radar bracket on the mast. The radar had shaken itself loose and was only hanging by its wire. We also discovered the goose-neck bolt had come out, and the boom was no longer attached to the mast.

Damage to date:

1) Ripped genoa
2) Ripped jib
3) Last night we almost ripped the main
4) Goose-neck bolt detached.
5) Boom vang bolt worked loose (these two bolts are under considerable stress and are important in holding the rig together)
6) Stress fracture in mast
7) The radar hanging of its bracket

So guess who had to go up the mask, in a squall, in 30kn winds and lashing rain to fix the radar back in place. Yes I did. The bolts were sheared off, so I had to tie the radar to the mast using string, like an exercise from the scouts. It will last a day or two, before wrenching itself off the mast, rooting out the electrics, crashing to the deck, causing more damage, and destroy $5000 of radar. Still I can say "I told you so", smugly to the skipper.

[Editorial Note: The radar held to Samoa where is was repaired professionally]

Lots of other little bits are broken. The place is awash with warm salty water, and my bunk is covered in the fine white filaments of fungus. A biologist would be entertained, but I am not so happy. I don't think I'll have anything to bring home, it's all mouldy, wet or damaged. The food is going the same way. Every locker stinks, and the food-tins are all rusted. I am glad it is only a month. If this guy had packed for a round-the-world trip, we would be dead quite soon. He tipped all our fresh water away yesterday because it was warm! We have a water-maker, and I pray to the God of Fair Winds every night that that thing doesn't fail. I am hiding tonic water under my bunk so that I am the last to die of dehydration when we start recycling our piss.

Each day carries on in this way. I have given up being precious about my comforts a long time ago, but I can't see how I can enjoy myself. Bart seems happy enough, in a cloud of inebriation from 10 am onward, and the skipper can be very jovial when he's drunk too. David sits and complains to me most of the time, reciting the RYA book of rules that we both know equally well, and both of us can see the rules went overboard before we left California. With the hatches sealed, I now have the added fear of being caught in a fire. After all, the gas detector has been bypassed. We don't use navigation lights, we don't have radar or a radar reflector, so we could be mowed down by a cargo ship, though we haven't seen a boat since the first day. Fred is just Fred, oddly quiet. I feel I bonded a little with him last night as we yanked the foresail down together, being deluged in breakers as they submerged the bows and us with it. He doesn't get miserable or show any fear, but nor does he get excited or put any effort into anything. He will do as asked, but only the minimum, like a sulky teenager, skivvying off the washing-up. Bart and I throw every ounce of muscle into a job, Bart was hoisting me up the mast and I was holding on to it for dear life earlier. I clung on, fiddling with bolts and string until the job was done, Bart likewise did not complain that he had to lift my weight. Because that is what this is all about, being out here, so far from help. You can't give up, leave it until tomorrow, pay someone to do it, or anything else. You have to do it. If it breaks, you have to fix it, with whatever means you have, even if it takes days of blood sweat and tears. I have not envied Bart's job as the engineer, having to fix things like the toilets and torches, but I admire the way he finds a way to fix it, however scrappy.

We'll be eating Luci's Christmas cake before the end of the week. It might already be sodden in saltwater, I'd better check.

I pine for normal things, like downward, straightness, fresh-food, water and sleep!

My reading has been very slow, still on a very soggy White Teeth and I haven't listened to a single CD of my own. Fred tortures me with Radiohead and Country and Western music.

I want to carry on typing, but I am running out of things to say. We are cooped up again, avoiding the rain.

Ben