Day 6

Location: the Atlantic
Blogger: Jenny

Well, it's been a very busy day. We thought we'd give you a taste of life on board by breaking the day down into watches and telling you what we did during each period of time. We do three hour watches during the day and two-hour watches during the night which works really for us. As an example, today I've done 4-6am, 2-5pm, 12-2am and I'll have 8-11am tomorrow morning.

8-11 - Marcus' watch
- Check weather and prepare the sailing plan for the next few days
- Mum and Jen body washes (yey) and change of clothes (mop up spillage)
- Mum hair wash
- Mum and Marcus breakfast and wash up
- Wash some knickers and socks
- Dry off aft cabin (ish) where a freak wave popped in to say hello through the dorade in the night

11-2 - dad's watch
- Jenny hair wash
- Dad and Jen breakfast and wash up
- Mango snack for everyone
- Fruit check
- Clean bathroom (heads), wash floor, empty loo-roll bin
- Make bread dough and wash up
- Lunch (avocado on bread) and wash up
- Clean floor
- Stop mizzen swinging
- Oil Wanda
- Check all rigging
- Repair boarding ladder
- Repair genoa sheet block
- Clean rubbish out and store
- Decant big water into smaller, manageable bottle (mop up inevitable spillage)
- Check Plasticene in hause pipe

2-5 - my watch
- Prepare pizza and salad for tea, cook, eat and wash up
- Prepare for the day's blog entry
- Repair broken main batten (Marcus' first official "Tall Person" duty)
- Carve pig leg for tea and for night watch snackage
- Marcus and dad body and hairwashes

5-8pm - mum's watch
- Choir practice (coming along well)
- Celebration of 600 miles done!
- Check satellite phone
- Write blog
- Send and receive emails
- Prepare for night
- Make a massive thermos of hot water
- Get snacks out for night watches

As you can see, not a dull moment…. And then you have to remember that everything takes 10 times longer than on land. For instance, washing up tea was a four man job this evening and when mum and I were making the bread earlier we came very close to spraying 600ml of warm, yeasty, oily, salty, honey-ey water across the floor of the boat.

This said, we're having a great time!! We've settled into it now and though it's very hard work it's really fun. Everyone's feeling better today and Marcus even crept up to a 4.5/10 this evening, the best he's felt since we left. This means that he can do short jobs below decks before needing to return for some air or a short lie down. Chunder count remains on zero! Dad's also recovered from his short but acute bout of seasickness. Mum and I agree that Marcus is by far the more pleasant patient!!

Sending and receiving communications has become somewhat of a main event in the day as we send emails/the blog and see what's come in for us, everyone gathered round the computer/pjhone. Keep the short emails and texts coming! Thanks to Russell and Vera for your excellent weather forcasts(ish) which are both informative and hilarious in equal measures. Thanks too to my uncle Phil for his limerick which you can see below:

If ever you see Petronella
Be sure that you shout out and tell 'er
'You're doing just fine
Despite all the brine,
Go! Douch-es (and quite a tall fella)'

Wombat - we'll get back to you tomorrow about the Question-a-day.

If you have any questions for us, or you'd like us to explain how something works etc. then please add it in the comments section below which Shore Support Wombat checks regularly and reports back to us.

Think that's about all for now. We're bowling along getting ready for night to begin. About a 6th of the way there which would give us a 30 day passage! We're hoping to up our speed tomorrow and crack on towards the quarter way point.

Carpe Diem - we really hope you have now arrived safely!!

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