blog post by sam
Catmojo
Matt
Thu 11 Jun 2020 08:41
Ran into some wifi nearby so Matt let me write a blog post!
Its day 12, or 13 or something i don't remember. Time has no concept here. Days of the week are merged into one. Up is down. We are now just part of the sea, at one with nature. Life as we know it has changed forever, and we expect that back home we will continue to get up at 1am to stare out the window for 3 hours into the darkness.
I have started to go mad from sleep deprivation having not slept in 3 days because my rollercoaster cabin at the front of the hull seems to enjoy treating my much needed sleep as a toy, taunting me with it being forever out of reach, giving me 45 second windows to fall asleep in before the next set of waves attempt to split the boat in 2! I did manage to get a full 40 minutes last night though which was nice.
During the other 23 hours and 20 minutes of the day, my time is well spent. I have plenty of things that need doing, plans that need completing etc, boat life keeps us incredibly busy. Yesterday i watched the sea and saw a bird. That was enough brain power for one day. Tonight we changed a snapped reef line while drinking champagne during sunset - not a bad way to spend a Wednesday evening!
Anyway - my next bright idea is to make good use of my snowboard. And without much snow to play with, we are discussing the feasibility and logistics of how to wakeboard using a snowboard behind a sailboat. We are calling it, "Operation wakeboarding using a snowboard behind a sailboat in the Atlantic". I have done the maths and run into a few problems which we will need to work on before attempting this experiment, but having factored in the KERS that my board has, applied Einstein's theory of relativity and accounted for the curvature of the earth while at sea, we believe it is possible. The one remaining unknown variant though is the required speed. Because our access to Google is limited here (currently sailing through a bad signal patch of the ocean), i need someone to help me with a couple of numbers. I need you to google the normal/average speed of wakeboarding in miles per hour, then convert it to knots, then text us what that speed is. do the same search and conversion for minimum and maximum required speeds please, thanks. This required speed will help us calculate the physics of how we execute this operation. It's science.
As for the rest of the trip, it is going very well - definitely one of the best things i've ever done! Love being at sea, never get bored of watching the water go by or the stunning night sky, beautiful sunsets and sunrises and the occasional green flash. Absolutely loving it and don't want it to end. My new life goal is to become a full time pirate.
Before signing off, a few messages to send back to people who have been texting the boat. Thanks for these keep them coming it's always very entertaining to read out messages from people back home!
Pam - video documentation is going well, currently approaching 200gb of recorded footage so far! you said you wanted everything right?? so you have videos of people sleeping, clouds going by, boat stuff, plenty of time lapses, sailing stuff etc. Its difficult to get some of the harder sailing of camera because that often happens with no notice and either not safe or possible to pause the weather so i can do my hair and get someone to film it. But we are hopefully getting some good stuff. I have got the crew to accept that the 3rd rule of sailing (behind being safe and having fun) is that if you're gonna do anything then make sure its on camera or it didnt happen!
Dad - always love to hear from you, but we did laugh when they said i have a text from your email address and i predicted it would say something like "hope youre having a great time, CV and weather in uk is crap love to everyone" and even that you would sign it 'dad' like you do on your facebook comments!
Mum - sorry we couldn't include Deal in our itinerary, we do have plenty of tea on the boat though.
Ali/Lora - glad to hear everything is great with you guys and the kids can't wait to come back and see them! Ali congratulations about the LA job thats great news!
Penny - we got 7 out of 10 answers correct, where does that put me? still above Pellowe I'm assuming in the league?
Andy Murray - Hi mate hope you're well, thanks for checking in it was great to hear from you again. Yes of course I am keen to grab that long overdue beer with you when i'm back, sorry i cancelled the last time. Maybe we could have a hit as well before the beers if you have the time again?
Rich Pallister - hope you're... actually nevermind.
Liz - thanks for your 17 messages that all came through at once with updates about your dog, we were having a stressful day until we got those and once we new Cap was still pooing in your bed we could rest easy.
Le Simon - haha yes i thought you would have something to say about our tracking! the others wrote the name of the boat out in the tracking line over 3 miles a few days ago, on par with the donuts Siona was doing in Thailand! When you get round to doing your ocean crossing or round the world trip count me in i'll show you the ropes (pun intended), and yes Charly can still join us.
PJ - one of the crew asked me how to get the hot water working in the shower and my first reaction was to get them to call Clipfix but none of the engineers were online or nearby? we need to work on boosting signal strength!
MPLTC - Ill be back for a Covid themed Duoracketathon very soon don't worry!
TENNIS!!!