Pacific Ocean 7 April 2010 06.3604N 123.8661W
This entry is mostly for my landlover friends. Those of you who have been cruising, bear with me; for you much of this will seem elementary. Landlovers can bear with me too; big sailing adventures have long moments with little excitement. The maxim “a little bit every day get’s you to your goal” holds true out here as well.
How do we pass the time? Well for starters everything takes longer. You set your expectations low for each day, and go with the flow; some would say I’ve had years of practice at that. My own schedule right now is driven by my midnight to 4 a.m. watch. Gart says it’s the “dog watch” and that it usually goes to the second mate. But Logan is dead to the world at that hour; his teenage brain reconstructing itself at a pace faster than during his first year of life – according to researchers. This time slot actually works pretty well for me. I’ve always had a built in low spot in my day between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., and if I can get myself in bed within that bracket, I can usually fall asleep right away for 3-4 hours. Also, I often wake up between midnight and 2 a.m., it seems to be a light spot in my sleep cycle, so being awake in that zone seems to work as well. The watch can be a really special time or a really painful time depending on how tired I am, but it is my own time, not something I’ve really had for 14 years. So if the hours start to feel like they’ve slowed down too much and my watch will never end, I remind myself that this is time to be cherished, and I think of Cameron and Marc and Gart with their toddlers and little guys; and how they’d probably trade spots with me in a second, just to have one block of 4 hours that was theirs alone to control. I remember those early days only too well, so it’s an easy target. Everything is relative, if I don’t like my current situation I try to change what I’m relating it to, it works sometimes. Fatigue makes me myopic though and if I’m tired, I can’t see much beyond that exhaustion.
By the time my watch is over, I’m really ready to sleep, and I crash hard but short. For some reason in that second sleep time slot, I wake up after 40 minutes feeling like I’ve been sleeping for 12 hours, then falling asleep again for another 40 minutes. After 7 a.m. I can’t fall back asleep, so the day starts: Make tea, eat breakfast, listen to the PPJ net, log the positions of the other boats, start the bread rising (Barry, it’s so warm here, I can start it in the morning and cook it that same night!), and catch up with Frank. You’d be surprised how much there is to catch up on when you’re on somewhat opposite sleep schedules. Then Frank takes a morning nap 3-4 hours. The kids help during the day with watches, so if there are tasks and projects keeping me and/or Frank below, they keep an eye on things. I usually make lunch and Frank dinner. Breakfast is a free-for-all. Dishes have to be done right away. Otherwise, you risk a big mess. If a rogue wave comes along, it will send things in the galley flying. The boat is moving enough that all these tasks require extra time and an a 3 point support (two feet and one hand, or two feet with your back braced on a counter, or one foot one hand and your butt). And many of the things you’re working with require the constant presence of at least one hand (so for example if you pour a glass of milk, you can’t set it on the counter to put the milk carton back). All the activities around each meal take about 2 hours. I’ve noticed in myself and the boys that low blood sugar, makes us feel a little queasy, even though our sea legs are pretty solid by now (hmmm, solid sealegs?). It seems odd that not having food, makes you not want food, but I swear it’s so for us; and that’s a vicious cycle to be avoided. So meals and snacks are critical. After lunch I try to take a nap, sometimes I succeed, if I don’t I at least aim for deep relaxation. Basically after that nap it’s time for bread baking, the evening PPJ net while Frank naps then dinner. In between eating and sleeping, there’s lots of reading and writing for me, lots of reading and inventing for the kids, lots of reading and path planning for Frank. It is our tradewind schedule though, an ITCZ day will likely look quite different.
What about School? We’ve declared a spring break. A lot of kid boats take advantage of crossings to crank out the schoolwork so they have more time ashore, but I realized early on that if I haven’t slept, I am an unbearably disruptive presence in the classroom. And while they can do some things independently, they still need a lot of attention. In homeschooling, it’s already difficult to keep coaxing and encouraging from turning into nagging and badgering. Without rested teachers, the results would be an embarrassment to this academy. We made good progress in Baja often working 7 days a week (…a little bit every day…), so we’re about a month ahead anyway.
What about exercise? This kind of cruising-sailing does not exactly provide a rigorous cardio workout (well, not till we get to those squalls), but some muscles are in use all the time, even when sitting. I’ll admit we’re all turning into cockpit potatoes, but I make the kids do some calisthenics from the cockpit. One activity they invented yesterday was cockpit twister (each would call out a port or starboard item in the cockpit and a left or right body part on the other). It’s not yet an Olympic sport, but I think it has potential.
This may be way more detail than you cared to read, but maybe it gives some picture of our daily life. An adventure has many of the same mundane tasks that you experience on land; they just take more effort and more time. There is something freeing though in letting wind and weather be our project manager. They set the tasks and schedule. Our primary responsibilities are to stay rested, stay fed, and stay on the boat. We have to pursue those 3 with religious fervor; everything else is subordinate.
We had some rain again last night, but today is another gorgeous day with the Trades. Our noon rate was 163 NM in 24 hours mostly sunny steady winds. It’s officially hot, and we’re officially half way there if we’re measuring in miles. But the ITCZ is coming up in one to two degrees, the barometer just dropped a bit quickly, the distance between our markers in the “maproom” may start to get very close together. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, it will mean our hands are full. I wonder what the origin of the word doldrums is; it resonates so (dull drums? humdrum?) – correspondents?
xoxomo