Rio to Cape Town – Leg 2, Race 3 – 28th Oct
Posted by Della Parsons on Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Wednesday 28th – Leg 2 Race 3 Day 2
Today people are still being ill – including David an experienced sailor, who tries to battle on bravely with his mother-watch, in between staggering to the heads to throw-up. Last night was somewhat eventful with the seas still making life difficult and a bilge alarm going off in the middle of the night. Unfortunately the bilge that had rather a large amount of water in it was directly under my bunk, so a rather testing 45 minutes followed with my head jammed under my bunk scooping out bucket loads of water while Lou attempted to stagger back around the yacht to empty them! The whole process was exhausting and I then spent a rather sleepless off-watch listening to the water start to refill, a foot or so underneath me, with my body pressed hard against the less than comfortable - and now damp- side of the boat as we were on port-tack and leaning in that direction. That's the draw back with the bottom bunks you can only adjust the angle of the bunk up, not down so you can't flatten out your bed when the boat is heeled over one way!
As the morning went on it became clear that David was unable to do anything other than go to his bunk to try and stop vomiting, so I volunteered to help Katy in the galley on mother-watch. I wasn't feeling 100% myself but was pretty sure I wasn't going to be sick and the troops needed to eat. When it comes to it you all muck in and do what is required.
The galley gives you a fairly physical workout on a good day – especially when you are vertically challenged – which I am – and Katy is even smaller. So in a heavily bouncing sea, our Cat-Woman like manoeuvres, just to get to things in some of the lockers, needed the combined strength of Superman, the agility of Cat-Woman and a more bizarre sense of humour than The Joker. The latter was never more true when 15 minutes before serving up the supper you have slaved over for the last two hours, turns out to be inedible. We'd had to experiment with 'Beef jerk' – which was all the meat the victualling team had been able to get and which we soon discovered has salt properties to equal the ocean around us! Half an hour later, after jettisoning the sauce, several vigorous rinses of the beef and a new sauce whisked up, a now just about edible, not-quite-so-salty, beef chilli was served up!
Today people are still being ill – including David an experienced sailor, who tries to battle on bravely with his mother-watch, in between staggering to the heads to throw-up. Last night was somewhat eventful with the seas still making life difficult and a bilge alarm going off in the middle of the night. Unfortunately the bilge that had rather a large amount of water in it was directly under my bunk, so a rather testing 45 minutes followed with my head jammed under my bunk scooping out bucket loads of water while Lou attempted to stagger back around the yacht to empty them! The whole process was exhausting and I then spent a rather sleepless off-watch listening to the water start to refill, a foot or so underneath me, with my body pressed hard against the less than comfortable - and now damp- side of the boat as we were on port-tack and leaning in that direction. That's the draw back with the bottom bunks you can only adjust the angle of the bunk up, not down so you can't flatten out your bed when the boat is heeled over one way!
As the morning went on it became clear that David was unable to do anything other than go to his bunk to try and stop vomiting, so I volunteered to help Katy in the galley on mother-watch. I wasn't feeling 100% myself but was pretty sure I wasn't going to be sick and the troops needed to eat. When it comes to it you all muck in and do what is required.
The galley gives you a fairly physical workout on a good day – especially when you are vertically challenged – which I am – and Katy is even smaller. So in a heavily bouncing sea, our Cat-Woman like manoeuvres, just to get to things in some of the lockers, needed the combined strength of Superman, the agility of Cat-Woman and a more bizarre sense of humour than The Joker. The latter was never more true when 15 minutes before serving up the supper you have slaved over for the last two hours, turns out to be inedible. We'd had to experiment with 'Beef jerk' – which was all the meat the victualling team had been able to get and which we soon discovered has salt properties to equal the ocean around us! Half an hour later, after jettisoning the sauce, several vigorous rinses of the beef and a new sauce whisked up, a now just about edible, not-quite-so-salty, beef chilli was served up!
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