Previous fun filled chapters exist here and here.
Strong winds and the ship is flying! Overnight we hit 6.7 knots, which for us is akin to Concorde breaking the sound barrier. Smaller sail boats may reach such speeds often and with relative ease, but our hefty average is around 4 knots. The captain says the fastest he’s ever gotten the ship is 9 knots — motorsailing at full sail with benevolent tailwinds. Meanwhile, over at the America’s Cup, racing yachts are exceeding 50 knots, faster than the winds that power them. We are very much the lame, limping tortoise in this race. However, over the last 24 hours, we have covered 99 nautical miles, and if we maintain our average, we will be halfway to Fiji in a couple of days. We are absolutely steaming.
At these breakneck speeds, each night offers fresh insight into what constitutes ‘the worst night’s sleep ever’. Each wave is a car crash against the hull as the ship hurls itself and its cargo from side to side. Outside my bunk, beyond the curtains, unfixed missiles careen across the saloon. Meanwhile, within the cubby confines of my nest, I am rudely awoken by a stack of books launching themselves from the ‘to read’ shelf and into my chest. I spend these nights drifting erratically between sleep and dazed wakefulness, before being woken all too soon for watch, bruised and tenderised.
The waking hours on board however have taken on a more amiable rhythm of routine. The crew is split into three watches, each watch taking four hours on duty, eight hours off, repeat. Whilst on duty, each watch member takes their turn at the helm, aiming to keep the compass somewhere within 20 degrees of the captain’s heading. Depending on the sea state and winds, this can be a simple duty, slumped forward over the wheel staring vacantly at the motionless compass directly beneath one’s nose; or, it can be a ferocious battle with the reigns of the almighty steeds of Poseidon! Meanwhile, fellow watch members simply sit back and enjoy the ride, keeping an eye out for anything mildly exciting like other ships, sea life, shooting stars, or floating turds evacuated from the head. The eight hours off are filled with sleeping, reading, playing music, walking up and down the forty or so metres of deck pondering existence and the contents of one’s belly button, and generally taking it super fucking easy, sinking into the moment, letting time take its time. It’s really quite fantastic, and at times frustrating.
By day 12, the pressures of thirteen primates living in a confined space surrounded by endless ocean begin to bare themselves. Minor matters can cause big waves in this steel chamber. As subtle communications are sensed and amplified, the echoes are felt by each party in some way. One ill mood can spark a deluge that brings the entire crew with it, such as when the heated seas of the Cornflakes Scandal converge with the Galley Duty Power Struggle cold front, resulting in a storm surge of bullshit negativity which drowns the entire crew.
We hold a crew meeting in which issues are raised, voices are aired and conflicts abated. All the while, the captain sits back and watches on, having witnessed such trivial spectacles a hundred times before, between his numerous crew over varied years. “May I posit one thing?”, he chirps, discussions having dwindled; “Take it or leave it”. He draws our attention upwards, to the Moon, that great shining orb watching silently above us. “For the past six days we have been subject to between 92-100% illumination”, the effects of which, he suggests, may have factored in to the volatility and disagreeableness amongst us. The term ‘Hippie Bullshit’ springs to mind from time to time, place to place. Aromatherapy stores, drum circles, crystal healing clusters, coloured auras and the like. And I personally am often quick to dismiss such unsubstantiated theories as anecdotal, metaphysical whimsy, oftentimes self-defeating and deterministic, a desperate bid to find meaning where there is none; but I pause and consider.
Living aboard, the Moon’s presence is acutely noted. A great deal of time is spent on deck in the moonlight, wondering about the cosmos and our material place within it. Whilst in harbour the Moon’s effects are felt drastically twice a day in the changing tides, affecting much of life’s activity. Certainly, its presence cannot be said to be totally ineffectual. The full moon sees the highest tides, the spawning of coral reefs, and the highest levels of sugar in cane. And if the moon can literally lift the oceans, what kind of effects could it have on the waters that comprise two thirds of the human body? We are not our minds after all. We are not singular souls trapped somewhere within the meat and bone sacks we refer to as the body; we are our material. We are our physicality, a product of inner and outer forces. Perhaps we are not all that autonomous and self-directing as we would like to believe, but rather tiny little things caught in the powerful tides of existence. Either way, the Earth continues to spin and the emotional storms pass, and we readjust to pleasant, genial life on board.
Together we lean over the well-worn charts on the navigation desk and plot our position using GPS coordinates. After considerable calculation, we deduce that we are somewhere in the middle of the ocean — around the halfway point to Fiji. The winds have abated and the sea is calm; we have come to a drifting halt. I climb the small ladder and pop my head through the hatch, pushing up off the steps and out onto the deck, when a distant spray catches the eye. Whale! In less than a minute the whole crew is up on deck, perching on the yards, clinging to the rigging, waiting, watching with shared bated breath for another vertical spurt from the water’s edge. Several break the horizon — a whole family. Still, the whales are in the distance, and still we wait. Then suddenly, a great gust not 15 metres from the port aft of the ship! A long, thick wedge of glistening jet grey arches through the gentle waves. Rolling slowly, it blows another powerful mist from its back, casting fine crystals into the air. The Pacific sunlight catches the spray and shatters into pure colour — a beautiful whalebow. It is a truly magical moment and we all lose our *** in the sheer majesty of it all.
Gradually, the periods of anticipation lengthen and the climactic punctuations of ocean life dissolve in the stirring breeze. And as the whales return to the depths, the winds pick up and the sails regain their sense of purpose. In the middle of the ocean the weather can change in an instant, and within an hour the ship is barrelling through the unruly waters once more. The waters breach the side of the ship and flood the deck, as each seesawing pitch and stomach rocking roll becomes more exaggerated. Streams of salt water cascade across the wood, escaping through clattering gunports.
I take to the side of the bow to urinate into the waters below. Having checked the appropriate wind direction, I grip one hand firmly to the rigging and adopt a wide stance. Knees wedged slightly under the pinrail, I stabilise as best I can and tear open multiple layers of foul weather gear. I am full stream ahead when a wave collides with the port side behind me. Dispersing upwards like a thunderclap, it clears the entire width of the deck and buckets down upon my back. Water running down my neck, penis still in hand, another wave hits the starboard side beneath me. Crashing upwards again, the salty deluge greets me full frontal. Drenched from head to toe, chest to crotch, I squelch back to the helm.
In a similar spectacle of misfortune, a Frenchman attempts to close a galley hatch from inside. The winds are increasing and with them come bigger waves, unwelcome guests hammering on the steel of the ship’s dry interior. Anticipating the next swell, he reaches up to haul the hatch back on top of the open ceiling, when in a delightful display of perfect timing, a wave jets straight through the hatch to meet him head on in an unceremonious South Pacific shower. Dead silence sweeps the galley as he stands bewildered, suddenly drowned inside, before an uproar of laughter breaks out amongst every one of us. It is all that one can really do. When it is utterly shitting it down and there’s no where to go to escape it, the only thing to do is laugh with it. It doesn’t care so why should we? We may as well be in on the joke.
With the increasing winds, we are beginning to make progress once more. However, the winds are coming from the East, pushing us further and further West as we travel North. As we hit the East-to-West trade winds of the Southern Hemisphere, this westerly direction of travel is only exaggerated. The captain informs us that we need to veer harder to the East, lest we arrive in Vanuatu and find the trade winds working against us. A gybe is in order. A gybe is a straight forward procedure, in which we change our course by swinging the sails across the following wind, and it’s about as much actual sailing as we do on board. Whilst we the crew are getting a hang of things, there never fails to be a wealth of unforeseen hazards inhibiting seemingly straightforward tasks. This is due to both a lack of experience and a total disregard for communication and cooperation. Puckering at every seam, we synergise like a herd of drunk cats. It’s a grand old spectacle in ‘what the *** is happening on now?’
We arrange ourselves at what we think may possibly be our appropriate stations. The captain shouts “gybe ho!”, and suddenly all kinds of stuff is happening. Unsurprisingly, moments later, something goes wrong. Both sheets of the outer jib are slacked at the same time, sending the sail neither port nor starboard, and as it whips violently in the wind, it tears. The bastard needs furling, which is great because it’s the furthest out along the jib boom, which projects spear-like from the front of the ship. Three of us ascend the boom, balancing on ropes and clinging to everything within reach. Our feet get wet with salty spray as the seas crash beneath us. There is a safety net under us, but considering the ramshackle condition of the rest of the ship, it’s best just to hold on tight. I graduate from a full body taco stance — draped limply around the boom — to a more confident horse riding stance, legs straddled either side, as we begin to furl the sail. The rise and fall of the waves are felt dramatically out here, perched on the ship’s tip. Up we soar, rising high above the horizon line in a weightless rush, before plummeting back down with our hearts in our mouths. But fear dissolves in favour of sheer thrill, as we ride the swinging waves like a rodeo show. The sail whips ferociously above us as the winds call it back to the sky, but we succeed in hauling it down, struggling to strap it to the boom like a captured wild beast. And now, with all the sails finally either ripped to shitters or successfully sweated up to the starboard side, we are back on course.
Although the winds are stiff and we continue to make headway, the waves have calmed. I take this opportunity to do my laundry for the first time since setting sail. Washing anything in salt water is generally a disappointment. Plates bowls and mugs tend to retain the salty flavour and contribute their own seasoning to food and tea. Skin remains sticky and tightly puckered for an eternity after a sea water shower. And clothes end their salty cycle stiff and sticky and seemingly less clean than before. First one must scrub each item of clothing on the cabin tops with detergent, seawater, and a brush, before soaking in a bucket for as long as one remembers them. It is then a case of finding areas to hang each garment on deck, subjected to a stiff salty breeze to dry them out. However, with twelve other crew members, prime drying spots are hard to come by on deck; the lazy jacks are all occupied, as are the more accessible rungs of the rigging. I decide to weave my washing through the twists of a long rope, before hoisting it up high on the mizzen shroud like a ragged sail. The force of the winds blast the clothing, in turn tightening the ropes that ensnare them in the sky. I figure a day should do it. Fortunately the winds are picking up once again. Although now they seem to be really picking up. And now it’s a strong breeze and it’s raining all over my salty laundry. Back below deck to don the foul weather gear, because it has suddenly become really rather foul. It’s too late for my laundry, I’ll retrieve it once the rain passes and it’s dried.
The winds are up to around 30 knots and the rain is thundering down with sporadic flashes of lightening that electrify the clouds above. And whilst we all find this to be terribly exciting and adventurous, the captain informs me that the strongest winds he has endured were 90 knots during a two day squall. I ask him if he ever got scared and he replies no, just fascinated. For us inexperienced land lubbers however, we consider this to be quite the terrific storm. The sea scape is mountainous on all sides as the ship crawls up and down the towering waves. The combination of heavy rain and crashing waves leaves nothing untouched. Everything is drenched as water streams across the deck. The sound of clattering gunports reverberates below deck as they clang open and closed with the force of the water. I take the helm for the second hour of our watch, and since we are going full and by, I simply slump against the wheel and hold on tight, getting drenched by the rain as I try to keep the rudder straight. My legs *** inwards to counter the ship’s list, slipping my left foot to 45˚ and leaning my weight down through my calf and into my ankle. Gradually, I realise my left elbow is a little damp inside my sleeve; a small patch which spreads, and by the time I have taken my coat off to start the generator and finish the watch, my whole left arm and shoulder is totally drenched. Another win for the foul weather gear. Whilst sitting at the helm, two crew members get “pooped” on, as the impact of the stern dunking down into the waves sends water high up over head, clearing the poop deck, before raining down on the unsuspecting bodies. Intermittently, screams of either genuine fear or shear excitement can be heard around the ship, passing and unconstrained. Mostly it’s excitement. We are powerless against these forces, and there’s nothing to do but ride it out and make it fun. The captain suspects that we have caught the tail end of a high pressure front moving south. Hopefully it will abate by the evening, and if it doesn’t, the most recent weather report predicts that it should blow out by tomorrow. It will pass. And in the meantime we are making the most of the hilarity of it all. There is a leak in the saloon – water is running down the mast, dripping inside – and two crew member’s endure wet bunks. My laundry is still sailing up high, drenched in the rain. Clinging to the ropes in the unrelenting winds, subjected to a longer rinse cycle than anticipated.
Along with numerous bowls and mugs, we lose around five days of progress due to the great storm. Pushed back by the winds, hurled by the waves, our line of progression represents the pissed footpath of a drunkard returning home. Yet progress is never linear; another trite life lesson learned at sea. But before long the drama of the tempest has subsided. The sun sets over the horizon as the storm lingers in the East. Dense clouds flash with electric frenzy, illuminating themselves from within. The silent stars return in full force. After a day of calm, I drop my laundry and find it to be obstinately damp. I hang it to protruding oars and ceiling hooks in the saloon, and declare the whole ordeal a veritable ball ache which I shall not be engaging in ever again.
Back on course to Fiji once more, we trundle along at 2 knots in a 045˚ direction. The weather report is predicting strong westerlies, which we hope will allow us to make up time. But there is no time on the ship, just passing moments. Winds and waves and watches. Sunsets and laughter and excitement. More to come.