And the horizon sailed along day after day. How poetic is that image sketched by Van Straaten and how true. He sailed around the world on his own in a 9-meter boat and came across this stretch of water. He is right the days are slowly threading together with an unchanged horizon. We sail on a large round deep blue pancake. The ship sways quietly on a wind of 3 bft and we sail at 5.2 knots per hour. There are still 3755 miles ahead of us until Reunion. It is 4:30 in the afternoon and the chief engineer is asleep. In addition to Chief Engineer, he is the right skipper, a rough shell with a caring white pit. Last night at three o'clock at the changing of the guard I bump into Ton grumpy and swearing in the salon muttering something about “chinese stuff” and “worthless”. Because three o'clock at night is of course exactly the time to empty the waste water tank and then the pump turned out to protest.
After the box of fuses had decided to spread over the ground with a jump and the pump with a new fuse didn't work either, the job was moved to the morning. And so our day started with a radiant Ton and the question whether we “should do the pump first or the creaking steering gear first?” But of course first a nice bowl of muesli with fruit specialty (in addition to the soup creations). During the night or day, small and large jobs always arise. The pump contained half a toupee and works again and when the steering column is firmly fixed again the mainsail appears to have a defect and when that is resolved it gets hot, very hot. The sea is still 27 degrees.
The temperature 35 degrees. We hang a sleeping bag against the sun, we set the sails for the day and then you can stare into space for hours. Closer to land there were many birds, sea snakes, sea turtles and dolphins. Yesterday we saw a very large species with a thick blunt head slowly swimming with us. The number of birds is decreasing now and I haven't spotted any dolphins yet. Today the greatest entertainment is the huge school classes of flying fish. They often jump out of the water next to the boat as a whole class and then fly 50 meters over the waves, sometimes bouncing and then disappearing under water again. Two worlds come together there and you can just dream about it for an hour. Fortunately, very few have come to light. A few nights ago I was just in time to toss one back. Sucker just flew too high but was lucky this time.
We are waiting for a calm and then we finally hope for the south-easterly trade wind that should push us forward with a nice speed. Don't look at the counter too much. Another 3753 miles now and the horizon will sail along. I think I'm going back to Anna Karenina. 300 more pages. Maybe we'll arrive right away.
Mark
