Wednesday, 2 May 2012

Cleaning everything - 2 May


11 degrees 10mins north

The past 24 hours have been very relaxed. The night is split into 4 three hour watches so each of the four groups does one, while we are motoring towards Panama. Last night I was on the best watch from 6 -9pm so was able to go to bed after supper and sleep until 5.30am. What luxury! The morning watch is then from 6am to midday and we spent the time servicing the remaining winches, carrying on from yesterday. A lot of love has gone into this. It's just like giving them a facial: ex foliation, deep cleanse, scrub, moisturiser and toner. In winch terms this is wire wool scrub, wash in diesel then soapy water, rinse, followed by greasing, oiling and reassembling.

A nice heavy downpour in a squall allowed some to wash their hair in the rain a lunch time. My option was to do mine in the sea last night. We are stopping for an engine check  at 5pm each day and so we are able to go in for a swim. Two of us took the shampoo with us to do a hair wash, which was a little tricky, Ben had told us to keep hold of the trailing rope, as the boat was moving a half a knot. We managed it. Afterwards, partaking in the 15 second rinse in fresh water we are allowed was enough to have the hair feeling much better.

After supper we had quiz night with Ben as quiz master and the two watches competing. It was a draw but then Nautica won the tie breaker. I then went to bridge school and my vague recollection of the game from playing at school is coming back.

Now I am off watch from midday to 3am. I've just done my laundry as we're not sure we'll be able to get laundry done in Panama. My smalls and tee shirts are now flying from the guard rail, on some sail ties. There can't possibly be any embarrassment about these things on a boat with 18 people.
I'm hoping it will rain again to give them a bit more of a rinse then they can all dry overnight.

Apparently there are web cams in the Panama Canal, so if you can find the appropriate website you may be able to catch a glimpse of us as we are going through.

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