April 5, 2014
schedules

Our first 3-4 days are a cascade of wild weather and sleepless nights.  Seas seem to come from all directions.  All the not quite finished projects that I had not quite put away roll around the cabin.  Waves crash and spray flies over the boat and soaks everything.  There is a small leak, really just a drip, somewhere at the food of the bed and everything is damp.   And this is not really bad weather.  Or at least I don’t think so.  Without a wind speed gage it is hard to know how bad it really is vs. how bad it seems.  Thinking “south seas” I had packed away our waterproof overalls and jackets.  Eventually I dig them out and we wear them almost non-stop until we arrive in the Marquesas.   Winds vary from too much for me to handle to so little that we give up and heave to.  The bell on the mast will ring if we heel over suddenly more than 45 degrees.  It rings a lot these first few days.  Sitting in the cockpit I often find myself looking straight down into the water.  Keep to the course, keep the sails from jibing and try to quarter the waves all at once.  Surprisingly nothing ever gets washed overboard and only once or twice does water actually come into the cockpit.  I spent a fair amount of time last summer using baking soda and vinegar and blasts of water from a hose to get the drains clean so it was actually nice to see how quickly the water ran out when we needed it to. 

The schedule is shot all to heck.  First, Alan was trying to finish up projects during the day so he did not take naps when he should have.  This meant that he was too tired to wake up and relieve me when my watch should have been over.  Unless I was in trouble I let him sleep rather than go to all the trouble of getting him up.  When the weather is really bad he needs to be on duty so I need to have his well rested.  Eventually I learn to handle most of it but not now. Plus he just needs more sleep than I do.  I can manage on 2-3 hours twice a day for a long time.  He needs at least 6 hours uninterrupted every night.  I am not really surprised by this, since I have lived with him for 40+ years.  I actually expected it.   The surprise is that he did not expect it.  I am not quite sure why he thought he could suddenly get by on 3-4 hours of sleep. since most of his life he has slept 8-9 hours every night and usually had an afternoon nap too. 

 By default, we end up with me doing 8 hours on watch with 4 hours off.  At least this way I can be sure he is rested when there is a crisis and I need him to take over. I go to bed right after dinner, about 8 pm and take over around midnight.  I stay on the helm until Alan gets up about 8:00.  He makes coffee and oatmeal and we get the sails set for the day and then I turn in and sleep for a few hours.  I make lunch and try to straighten up a little when I wake up.  There are wet clothes everywhere.  Then I take over the helm again so he can get a nap.  Dinner and the 2 radio nets take up the rest of the day and it is finally my turn to fall into bed again.  With some variations due to weather, this is our routine for the next 5 weeks.  I figure by the time we get there I will have been on watch 600 hours.  There must be a trophy for that.