Location: Underway to Grenada
Day two of our passage to Grenada. Last night was chilly enough to wear pants and sweatshirts. Today contained patchy amounts of wind, but as it got later, the wind picked up, and the waves increased. Most people slept during the day between their watch shifts despite the heat in the cabin and the motion of the waves. We ate a great lunch of baguettes, salami, and cheese, bought on Les Saintes. We all preemptively took Dramamine or Bonine, seasickness pills, but by lunch, the effect had worn off, and we were surviving solo; no one got sick. Aside from sleeping, the crew was spotted studying Marine Biology and Oceanography in anticipation for a few upcoming quizzes and tests. Later a fish and chips dinner was set out on the chart house. We watched it carefully during squeeze to make sure the dinner array didn’t slide overboard as the boat pitched back and forth and heeled over.
Night watch commenced, and as it got dark, we clipped ourselves onto the jack lines. The darkness made visible the bioluminescence in the water, stirred up by the wake of the boat. The waves pitched the boat back and forth, the largest causing a soft thundering sound that could be heard from any location on the boat. The three hours of watch on deck varied from still calm sailing, sometimes motoring, to the occasional burst of rain and wind that sent us scrambling to sheet out the sails. During the times when the sky was clear, time was marked by the stars shooting across the sky. Real-time was marked by the hourly boat checks, including checking the engine room. As we crawled through the hatch, the heat hit us like a wave, and the roaring sound of the engine drowned out the waves. Some people love checking the engine room; others not as much, but it’s necessary to make sure everything is running smoothly. After the full check was completed, the bilges inspected, the galley and salon 40/40’d, and the heads on ‘dry bowl’ so as to not have the boat flooded, it was time to return on deck. Then the final haul up the companionway and into the fresh air to rejoin the team in the near silence of the ocean at night. The best way to describe it is timeless.