Ros Edwards Crew member leg 2 Mother of Ben Edwards who is also crew for whole expedition (age 14)) Anchored of Ostrov Pilota Makhotkina 2 Aug
This will be our third day at anchor in a beautiful isolated island, tucked deep in its heart through a winding channel, putting us out of the way of the worst of the sea and wind. We have had two glorious days of sun and comparative warmth. Time for Nikolay and Denis to do essential remedial work on the boat. And for the rest of us to recover from twenty four hour sailing, which is peculiarly gruelling. Its not just the shift patterns of watches and chores we keep, but before we anchored here we had a particularly uncomfortable time in a big gale, where the safest place was to be in our bunks unless we were helming (because the autopilot wasn’t coping)
So, safest place in our bunks….?! Well, I am lucky to have a roomy bunk, but this also means that if it’s rough I can get rolled around my cabin and end up in the footwell by the bunk. Or in one of the storage cubby holes! I have developed methods of packing luggage and my survival suit around my bunk, and lying tucked up across the bunk, with my knees against one side and shoulders against the other, which seems to keep me more or less in one place!
Everyone has slightly different challenges with their watch patterns and sleeping arrangements. Constance has a 0200 to 0600 watch which personally I think must be the absolute worst. She also has a similar bunk to mine and on one rough night was actually thrown out of her bunk. Three times. Barbara sleeps in what she describes, fairly accurately, as a shoebox. Luckily she is petite. And Ben has a top bunk tucked right under the cabin roof, with a low side – he has a spare mattress which he tucks down the side of his bunk, making his sleeping space tiny but preventing him from being thrown out of the bunk.
So that was just part of the fun of the last 48 hours before we anchored in this lovely bay of ours 2 days ago.
We are now waiting for today’s ice charts with baited breath. We have enjoyed this little holiday but we are also keen to move on. I think we all have very mixed feelings – we are all chomping at the bit to get on with the expedition and try to achieve the goal of making it round in one season, but we are all very aware that we have several weeks of twenty four hour sailing coming up, with the addition of sailing through ice which I imagine will often involve more people being on watch – to push the ice away and to spot ice from the bow, and using the drone to spot ice ahead of us.
I’m also missing everyone at home. This delay seems to make it worse. Standing still and therefore getting no closer to seeing them.
2 Comments. Leave new
Drone? When they did this in 1871 they did not use no stinking drones. Come on guys and gals.
But they may have done had they had them 😉 A sextant was new tech once upon a time