Wednesday 10th June
Catmojo
Matt
Wed 10 Jun 2020 12:09
We turned south again ("tacked" as they say) this morning at 7am and so we're sailing at 6kts at 175degrees course over ground, very slowly moving up to 160degrees now
TV Pam (who found Sam through some FB sailing group) emailed and I sent her some background and I cc'd to the blog. She asks how the sailing skills are coming along? Hm. Well, so far everyone has definitely mastered the important art of sleeping (or pretending to sleep) while the boat sounds as though it's being broken up into small pieces by sledgehammering fish, and which side of the boat is downwind if you're feeling ill. Sending/receiving messages on the olde-technology Iridium satellite phone is also sorted, and likewise making food and drinks while the conditions inside are similar to those of a very severe ongoing earthquake, tick.
We already covered the port/red/left and starboard/green/right although we don't much use the port and starboard thing on Mojo. Simon sends me texts telling me to "turn right so the wind is coming over the left hand side of the pointy ends", which is much clearer than if he suggested "port tack", really. A boat is on port tack if the wind is coming over the port side, even though all the sails and ropes are actually all on the starboard side. Confusing, really. We all know what side of (say) a racing (sailing) dinghy is port and starboard - the left and the right. But what about when the thing turns upside down, as they often do, hm? Now what? We all still know which is the left and right side of the boat, but it's not quite so clear which is now port and starboard. Have they swapped or stayed the same?
Pam especially wants us to consider the Emotional Stuff, the Jeopardy Thing. All thrilling stories have some jeopardy - will they make it, or not? Obviously, like almost all stories (except some Quentin Tarantino films) they always make it, and the same goes for Mojo. It would be rather rubbish skippering if I wasn't sure if we might make it, wouldn't it? Loser Talk, I think - and exactly the kind of ooer-not-quite-sure skippering that had world so-called leaders telling everyone to hide in a cave. Thing is - what about next time things get iffy on a world scale, or indeed on Mojo, hm? No cave-hiding for us - Mojo continues in its ongoing mission to boldly go where no fish have been before.
Of course, we have lots of things in our favour, including that I've done this trip before, many times. So although one might well be worried (say) first time driving a car, or first day at work ... after a while we know that it almost always turns out just fine. The jeopardy for us is When not If we get to Lanzarote, and nobody has any particular timescale although sometime in June is a reasonable target for crissakes.
Another thing is that (relative to many boats) Mojo is Quite Huge, which helps in lots of ways: we aren't on top of each other all the time, and bigger boats are safer - 2-3 metre waves are still down there in the sea, not splashing us in the face.
We did discuss the way that many urge us to consider all the dangers, and there are important precautions which we have addressed perhaps in more detail than most. But over-focus on these is a mistake - it extinguishes any enjoyment/fun and makes it an ordeal rather than an adventure. Worse than that, it puts everyone on a needlessly high level of alert - a bit too ready to Abandon Ship or whatever. It might frequently sound like someone is beating the boat with a wrecking ball, but on Mojo - that's normal.
On a long trip like this I often find that it is a journey into oneself as much as a physical journey. Ooh that's deep, eh? But it's a good test of how adaptable one is without usual surroundings, usual friends, and not even any WiFi. |Imagine that! Ampi reads a lot and is Excutive Director of Food, Anna has some medical study stuff to do and multi-tasks. Sam has his video blogging to edit endlessly, and I suppose I do a fair bit of writing general natter for the blog, Oh and the sailing as well.
Last night in lively 2-3 metre sea and F5 we had a good sail change - everyone on deck, foresail in, reef down, foresail out with all the lights on and then on to the Main Event - Nurdle Bloody Drurdle card games, again.
All-time Set Scores (first to five games) in alphabetic order Anna-Ampi-Matt-Sam stand at 3-4-5-3, but Anna in second all-time and didn't win any in May has won 4 this month and 3 of the last 5 sets! June-only scores stand at 4-2-2-1 with Anna leading, Sam trailing, but nobody is backing down as far as I can see. Can Sam launch a comeback within the next week? Total all-time game wins run 48-44-50-42 but June-only 35-28-30-20 with Matt's advantage of knowing the game at the start becoming irrelevant, Anna leading the way. Sam is hoping that his Home Fans might stop sending him quiz questions and get behind his efforts on the Nurdle Drurdle court where it really matters - he says he's as good at this as he is at tennis. But he told me he was quite good at tennis? Whatever.
Hey this might all sound a bit crazy mad, but actually - we're Normal. We're doing stuff (sailing to Lanzarote) AND we're getting some Jepoardy in with sporting challenges - in this case Nurdle Drurdle. We haven't cancelled everything even including all games/sports because the sailing (or something else) might be a bit ooer dangerous, as everywhere else seems to have done. See? Come on Sam!