The perpetual movement is starting to take its toll. Everyone’s in good spirits but the sheer effort it takes to do the most basic things is simply exhausting and being constantly thrown around the boat has us all black and blue.
Yesterday we passed the half way point to Hawaii (yay!) and celebrated with rum punch cocktails during Captains Hour. A set of rollers came in at an inopportune moment and the galley had a celebratory drink too. Fortunately there was enough to go around!
Shortly afterwards, having gone to the trouble of hand whisking cream for our celebratory dessert, Rapture lurched off the top of a wave sending chief whisker Susan down like a sack of potatoes and deposited the whipped cream all over her and the cabin. I’m not sure if she was more upset about not having cream on her desert, the state of the cabin or the fact that she now had cream all over her fresh clean clothes and hair…I suspect the latter.
The seas didn’t settle overnight and we got very little rest. Breakfast this morning was a comedy sketch; bowls and mugs and people scattering all over the place. There was lots of laughing but it had an edge of delirium to it.
Still, we are faring much better than many of the other boats. From what I can tell of the radio check-ins, numerous yachts have been dismasted; one yacht with just 2 crew has auto pilot failure so they are hand steering 24/7; another yacht spotted a floating concrete pier and only managed to divert around it at the last minute; a yacht has had to turn back due to a back and rib injury on board and finally another yacht had a fishing line foul their prop so they had to deploy a crew member into the water to free it, definitely not something you want to do in the middle of the Pacific, let alone in these conditions. I imagine they checked he was very securely attached to the boat before he dipped a toe in, let alone a full plunge.
On a more positive note it sounds like a lot of the yachts have had success fishing. We threw a line out yesterday but no bites. Hopefully we will have more luck today. I think fresh fish tacos and a cold beer might be just what the doctor ordered!