I sleep right through until Mike comes to wake me up at 2 am – so far I’m sleeping all the time when I should do and it makes things so much easier to deal with.
I get up feeling a bit stiff after my ordeal up the mast, but when I look in the mirror, there are no bruises beginning to come out, nothing to show for my heroic ordeal – what a bummer! I must have the strongest capillaries on earth as I rarely produce a bruise. When I do I can never remember how I got it.
There’s lots of commercial traffic during the night. At one point, we are the filling in a cargo ship sandwich as at the exact time, one passes 1.5 miles ahead of us and another 1.5 miles behind us. I have to call the one passing behind because AIS initially shows it as crossing just 0.5 miles behind us, a bit too close for my comfort. The guy on watch answers my worried voice immediately, is very polite and informs me that they have already changed course to give us a wider berth. Why can’t they all be so considerate?
It’s cold during the night as the water temperature is still only 12 degrees although that’s already 2 degrees higher than in Cape Town. I am fully clothed at night – trousers, tee-shirt, slippers and fleece – and can still feel the cold seeping into my bones.
We keep a steady, if relatively slow speed, but it’s a bit lumpy and when Mike comes up around 7 am I am ready for my bed immediately. It’s cosy under two blankets but I keep my tee-shirt on as well just in case.
While I sleep, it pours with rain so some of the salt is washed off the boat although I know this will only be replaced.
After a false start, waking at 10.30 am I get back to sleep and go through until nearly 1 am. What a treasure Mike is letting me sleep (a little ‘schatzi’ Jutta would say).
Mike has defrosted another two fillet steaks and I make salad again to go with them but this time there’s twice as much as it doesn’t have time to wilt before we eat it. Mike goes down to bed and I clear up then sit in the shade outside for a while as the weather has now cleared up and there is almost a clear blue sky.
The wind remains light all day, and we only average about 4.5 knots, not enough to make the 125 miles a day that we want but it’s too early to risk making heavy use of the engines this far out – we don’t carry as much diesel as a lot of the boats.
I am suddenly aware that there is a strange rumbling coming from under the starboard engine. When the engines are not on, the propellers turn as we move through the water, making a very recognisable noise but today, this noise is different. I stand in the stern cabin but can’t make out what it is. It doesn’t sound too ominous anyway so I leave it. About 15 minutes later, I am throwing some vegetable peelings away over the side and glancing down, I can see what looks like a tree trunk following along behind us, and it’s attached very firmly to our boat. Shit!
Photo: Now that’s what I call a hitchhiker!
Reluctantly I wake poor old Mike up, just 1.5 hours into his afternoon sleep. He gets dressed and I get his life jacket out so that he can go down the back steps and give the thing a yank. We get the genoas in and he puts the port engine on, taking the boat around in a wide circle in an attempt to shake it free. It doesn’t budge. Just before he gets the jacket on, I suggest trying to grab it with the boat hook from the side, which he does. Luckily the stem is flexible enough (not a tree trunk then) to allow him to pull it up and to the side until he can grab it and wriggle it around until it comes away, root ball intact so hopefully nothing is left behind.
Just before he goes back down again we see an albatross flying near the boat, its huge wind span skimming the water when he swoops down. He stays close for some minutes then flies on.
There’s still a chill in the wind but for a short time at the end of the afternoon I lie in the sun, but immediately thin cloud comes across I pull my tee-shirt on again quickly as the temperature quickly drops, and go inside to make Mike some brandy butter to have with his leftover Christmas pudding.
Our little clicker gadget for lighting the gas stove has finally packed up and we don’t have a replacement. We instead resort to matches but they are pathetic – short and bendy. I am terrified of using them so near the gas so Mike has to do it for me all the time. Consequently he doesn’t have a cup of tea ready when he gets up after a good sleep at 6.30 pm, but hot showers do the trick and he makes tea after that.
The sea is really lumpy again when it’s time for me to sleep but it doesn’t stop me getting off almost immediately.
Our position is: 32 deg 04 min S, 15 deg 42 min E
Distance so far: 18829 nautical miles
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