Dead Easy Going
15 March 2013
It can't get much easier than this. For the last three days a fine, fiteen knot breeze out of the east giving us a fast, trouble-free reach right up the middle of the south Atlantic. The miles are now clicking by faster than at any point in the trip so far. A couple of days will bring Salvador abeam, and a week after that the equator will be looming - fingers crossed. Sometimes there is an interruption to the day. Last night, just as it was getting dark - when all things seem to happen at sea - I reefed for a nastly looking rain squall which turned out to be nothing very much at all, and I got myself in another right old sweat after all that needless effort. Mind you, it was the only effort I'd made all day. Most days, I do NOTHING. Well, nothing of substance, anyway. There's food to prepare, although the heat dulls the appetite for that, and an element of cleanliness has to be preserved although there is no one else to offend. But none of these take long. So not only do I not do very much, I do most of it in a horizontal position on the downwind bunk. Here I am working my way through 'Crime and Punishment' but wonder if the next book, a Danish classic called 'We, the Drowned' might stay on the shelf. Little jobs are stacking up, though. The lights in the heads (toilet) have stopped working, so has the compass light, some varnishing is needeed, and all the tools have gone rusty in the warmth and humidity. It's probably time to give the winches some grease. But tomorrow, perhaps.