Dear Marge,

DATE: 2002-11-27
LOCATION:010deg02S167deg58W
WEATHER: hot again!

Spent the last few days under motor, in the hot sticky doldrums. Not a lot to do except lie around getting sun-burnt and wishing it was cooler. Bart's thermometer is still off the scale, so I reckon it has got to be 45C or hotter at midday.

I saw the most beautiful sunset this morning, so I had to write again. I got the last bit photographed, but I couldn't work the camera. It was an amazing striation of silver and gold, capped with pink and blue. The layers seemed to stretch out for ever, and in front of them was the steely silhouette of grey clouds, capping it off perfectly. Just as I thought it was as good as it could get the sun started to rise, creating a warm golden glow in the sky and across the water. Then the red fire-ball itself appeared. If only I could capture moments like that on film or in words. I just wished you were there to share it with me.

The morning hadn't started well. Both heads (toilets) are now blocked. I have my suspicions who is doing it (the skipper). But unphased, I thought, this is getting more like real (Wilfa) sailing. So this morning I had to do my business over the guard rail. Don't read any further if you don't want grim details... OK you want grim details? I had diarrhoea this morning and all I was wearing was a sarong. Needless to say I made a bit of a mess, and it was all over the gunwales. This boat has a stupid toe-rail that doesn't have a single limber hole in it, so I spent two hours with a bucket and brush cleaning my own mess up. It was pretty grim. Every time I thought I had managed to get it clean, I would find that it had got washed into some other little cranny. In the end I had to move diesel cans, ropes, blocks and all sorts to really scrub the decks down. I also had to wash my sarong. Filling a bucket at twelve knots is not easy. You lower it over the side, and it bounces along. Then suddenly it catches, with enough force to rip your hands off. It was very humiliating, in the cold grey light of dawn, washing up my own mess.

Last night was better. I was on watch, and the stars were spectacular. Surely this is the clearest air you can see stars in? Not a cloud in the sky and the moon was on the wane. I had the Auburn Society Star Guide and I lay staring into space, listening to the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which couldn't be more apt. I felt very happy and content.

The day before had been a bit strange. I think the heat might have affected me a little bit. It starts getting hot as soon as the sun is up (about 6am) and by 10am I am melting. So I started doing some programming work while it was still dark. After two hours, I realised I had just repeated myself something dreadful, so I went back to sleep. When I awoke it was hot and I was dehydrated, with sticky lips and a swimming head. I drunk plenty of water (it's warm and metallic - recycled seawater). Then I laid around reading The Buddha of Suburbia. This book is really good and it started having a profound affect on me. I wish I had read it when my own parents were divorcing. It made me think about things I had never thought before, and I realised how much I have changed since I was a teenager. I never really thought like a normal teenager, not like Karem does in the book. I never had that desire to "hang-out", or be with mates. I was so driven to study Physics. I focused on my studies rather than the people around me. I didn't really consider how other people were feeling. I showed emotions that people expected me to show, but I don't think I really felt them.

After reading the book and thinking about it a lot, I was feeling cocky. Two beers and some sunshine and I was really feeling confident. I don't know why. But suddenly things seemed quite clear, the direction my life is taking, and the person I am going to be. It wore off after a bit, but I know I am changing: I am rapidly becoming someone else.

The day before had also been hot and sticky, and tempers were frayed. I was cooking and I had managed to bake fantastic, soft, fluffy, white french bread in the bread-maker. I also cooked dinner as well. I think I have a real talent for cooking, even when we are tossing around in the sea or the temperatures are unendurable. The others have all but given up - Phil served us snickers bars for lunch. But my temperament was heated up and when I came to do the washing up I was annoyed to find the coffee pot in the sink (this is an ongoing saga, Phil having banned coffee on day one, but Fred drinking it anyway. I have stopped drinking coffee and I don't feel that I could ever face coffee again. It's odd how I can just give up something I have been addicted to so easily when I am relaxed and happy.) So I asked Phil what I should do with it. He told me to throw it at Fred. So I did, but I thought it fair to warn him (it's big and heavy and metal, and Fred was lying incumbent), so I shouted "catch". He fumbled it and it hit him hard in the lap. I winced, for his sake, and ducked below. I was feeling guilty that I had been so easily manipulated into being so cruel. However this paled into insignificance moments later, as Fred and Phil went into a full scale row. Phil threatened Fred with expulsion from the boat, but Fred tried to still push his point home. Phil then kicked Fred off the boat (they were his words), saying he would leave him in Samoa. Fred was indifferent. Later I apologised, and luckily I hadn't (physically) hurt Fred. That evening Phil gave half an apology to Fred, saying he doesn't have to leave. Phil is impossible to please, he changes his rules every time something is amiss, and never informs you until you have broken them. He shouts and screams and threatens. But he has little bite, and he is generally in good temper. He takes as good as he gets. For instance Bart won Phil's beer ration yesterday in a competition to speed the boat up, which he duly handed over.

We are all putting on weight. I am getting quite twitchy due to lack of exercise. I think the first thing I am going to do when I reach Samoa is go for a long swim. I might even get up at 4 am and run, if it's not too hot. Ahh Samoa, we have talked about little else. Torturing ourselves with conversation of land, girls, ice-cream and rum. Phil hoisted the courtesy flag and the yellow quarantine flag today, a sign that we are less then 24 hours from land.

I've talked to Phil and he has agreed to give me five days shore leave. I can't believe how amicable he is being, saying he will do what he can to support me. He seems to really like me, something I feel a bit uncomfortable with, as it makes me feel guilty for assassinating his character, and leaves me unpopular with the rest of the crew. I think he is also worried that as David is leaving (he doesn't know yet, but it is pretty obvious) and Fred is likely to be expelled, he is going to struggle to keep enough crew on board. He has threatened that there are people lining up to do this trip, but on the website that wasn't the case. Who could get to Samoa at such short notice, just to sail into a cyclone?

I want to stay the course, keep on board until Singapore, to the end of January. My only reason for not doing so is Oxford. Assuming I can get my work finished in the week's leave in Samoa, plus a week's leave in Fiji, then I only have to worry about getting to Oxford.

I read the Hornplayer, and I loved it. Best book I've read in a long while. It was very serious stuff, car-crashes and AIDS, and the whole coincidence thing was being stretched to the limit. But the style was so compulsive and the characters so interesting that I couldn't put it down - reading the whole book in two days. "Do yer fuck?". I want to read more of the author's stuff now. It reminded me a lot of Iain Bankes's Crow Road. White Teeth was a bit disappointing. I enjoyed the characters and the comedy, but it was packed-out with political waffle that got really tedious toward the end. The ending was also such an anti-climax. I hate it when the book doesn't tidy up the loose ends. It was very slow, and it took me over a week to read.

I have to ration myself from now on, as I only have a few paper books and the audio books left before I run out. The only books on the boat are all real-life sailing trauma, as that's what the rest of the crew have brought. I don't fancy them much.

Our schedule is roughly like this:

Tomorrow (Fri 29th) we should arrive in Samoa. We depart on the 3rd or 4th of Dec for Tonga. We should reach Tonga on the 7th. Then there is at least a week in Tonga making repairs. That means we will leave on about the 14th. It's a long crossing to Fiji, about 7 days, which means we arrive on the 21st. Phil wants to spend 7 days in Fiji, touring the Islands, so we wouldn't leave for New Caledonia until after Christmas, meaning that we would arrive in New Caledonia early Jan, about the 2nd or 3rd. New Caledonia is less that 600 miles from Australia, opposite Fraser Island and the Great Barrier Reef. A few days here, then we go up the Torres Straight to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Phil says it is really rough in PNG, he makes it sounds like South Africa. It's a shame, because it would be a fascinating place to spend time in. So we leave PNG on the 5th. It will take two weeks to get to Singapore. We will be coast-hopping along Indonesia and Thailand, keeping to the West, out of the China Sea and avoiding typhoons. Of course delays may occur, and it might be a few more days before we get to PNG or Indonesia. All I can do is encourage Phil to cut the site-seeing short, but that it hard, when I want to see the sites myself. I obviously need to fly back on the 16th if Oxford is the 17th. I have heard that diving in Indonesia is about as cheap as it gets.

Can you find out about Malaria for all these places? I am taking chloroquine, but a random dose I made up. I should also take Paludrine (Proguanil). David's taking Lariam but I don't fancy going mad.

Right, will log-off now. Next message from me I'll be ensconced on Samoa at an Internet cafe.

I will see what you have written now. Then I will soon be walking on terra-firma!

Thinking of you still, keep the messages coming, one day without messages feels like a long time here.

Ben