Daily Report #74

Hi everybody,

Today 'the bunk'. Not derived from bunker or bunkering but English for 'the cage' our sleeping place on the ship.
So the cage. We have three sleeping places on board. Two bunks and a double bed. The starboard and port berths in the stern and the double bed in the 'master bedroom' at the front of the ship. In the master bedroom there is also a nice bench that now serves as storage for our 6 x 20 liter drinking water tanks. The accompanying bathroom serves as can and dry food storage and for my wet salty sailing clothes.
However, the double bed is a 'no go area' while sailing. One of the crew members had made the unfortunate choice to choose that as his bed, not knowing that a bed at the front of a ship is a cross between a flying carpet and a concrete floor. One moment you're floating weightlessly in the air, and a second later more g-forces are unleashed on you than you thought you could handle and you're slammed onto your mattress. The only question then is where and whether that is still the bed or the floor next to it. I experienced this myself on a trip back from England with our little 8.50 meter Albin Vega. Micha was relaxing on the couch and after my watch I dived into the forecastle where I tried to sleep for a few hours with my legs and arms spread wide, bouncing over the bed. I was happy that there was a wonderful berth for me on the Kalosini on the starboard side. So the cage. It is not a large bed, 2 meters but not that wide and tapers a bit narrower with the shape of the ship. Halfway through, a kind of tunnel is created so that my legs are in the toilet cubicle, which I don't notice because of the beautiful paneling. Your cage is an important place. You can curl up in your sleeping bag and think 'now he can go again', it is dry there and you have to keep it that way, it feels like your safe place when you come off a difficult watch. You have a reading lamp and, importantly, the 'swinging sail'. The swinging sail protects you from being thrown out of bed while you sleep by a movement of the ship. You tie the tarp up when you have crawled into bed. Still, it is useful to take some precautions for stormy nights. On the hallway side, raise the mattress by putting some pillows under it. This gives you a gutter where you lie, on one side the paneled skin of the ship and on the other side your raised mattress. This guarantees that you can fall asleep peacefully and do not have to resist the movement of the ship. However, it does make it difficult for the somewhat stiffer 60 and almost 60 year olds to get in. Ton makes a kind of dive from the steps over the raised cushions and I carefully lower myself over the raised edge, hanging from a grip board above my cage. Very important NO SALT SHOULD GET INTO THE CAGE. It may become salty everywhere, but NOT in your bed. Then your bed becomes clammy/humid and sticky and you have to 'heat it dry' every evening, something I didn't know but which quickly became clear to me during the first part of the trip. Ton's cage is under the stairs to the cockpit...
When we sailed from Sidney to the Gold Coast after the first few hundred miles of high waves, the ship was quite salty and so were our clothes. We had cleaned the ship thoroughly in the harbor and with a lovely sun and clean clothes on we left for the sea. There was a 'threshold' in the sea before the exit from the port, which was warned about. Such a threshold pushes the water from the deeper part of the sea up into a meter-high wave that you have to be careful of.
With the helmsman from the forecastle behind the rudder and the throttle on, we headed towards the threshold where a huge wave was just developing. Two options, slow down and climb the wave slowly or stop and wait until the wave is over and then cross the threshold. The helmsman opted for the third one, namely to open the attack with heavy throttle. The point of the ship dug into the wave, after which 1 the World Press photo of the year was taken (Ton's GoPro was on) and 2 a huge tidal wave washed over the deck, leaving us dripping with water in the cockpit. Those were the clean clothes. When the water had disappeared gurgling through the scuppers, Ton went to check his cage, after which a vocabulary sounded through the ship that we have not yet encountered in his blogs. What a vocabulary! A ditch of seawater had sprayed his cage and it was explained in blunt terms that he had to start the night in a damp, cold bed for the time being and that that was very annoying. The photo turned out really beautiful.
The bunk keeps it dry, warm and not salty!

Regards,
Mark and Ton