A deep rolling sound reverberates through the boat, followed by some shouting...is there something wrong, is there a problem on board somewhere???
No, we've got surround cinema this afternoon!!
With a great crew of 8 in total and a light wind forecast, we decided on a comfortable and leisurely '4-watch-schedule', meaning we are 4 groups of 2 standing our watches. With 1 more than the usual 3 watches (and sometimes 2), it makes for an easy watch system, with lots of free time, to sleep, cook, read, talk and generally enjoy being on the boat. During day time we do 3 hour watches, and then have 3 watches off (between 7 and 9 hours), at night it is 2 hours on and 6 hours off....luxury!
Some of the the 'off watch time' translated into time to fix the projector (turned out to be an easy one: a few new batteries in the remote do wonders!) and our film afternoon right now (The Last Samurai if you were wondering) with all off watch crew gathered in the comfortable salon. Talk about a cherry on top!
A good thing too, because to be honest, things are looking a bit dreary outside...all greyish, this morning even a bit foggy and not a breath of air around or even a whale or so...we're motorsailing along, bang on course for Bodo with 296nm behind us and 306nm to go.
We left Lerwick two days ago and had a lovely sail north between the islands (as you can read in the Thursday evening blog). We had some porpoises, some wind, and during the night even had a good spell of wind, allowing us to sail without the engine. Yesterday was a beautiful day, but unfortunately without a lot of wind.
We ended up with some great excitement around dinner time, when we had to divert course to avoid a large vessel, towing a 4nm (!) long cable...only to find out half an hour later that they were now changing course to avoid some fishing pots and we had to divert again!
It did set us up for a better wind angle and by the time I got on watch at midnight, we rolled the headsails out and got into some serious motorsailing, steering by hand again. And it got even better! By the end of the watch, we had enough wind to turn the engine off and Luke and Robin had a grandiose sailing watch! Our good fortune held right through the nigh, just about until, yes, you got it, the start of myt watch...I mean, engine off at the end of my watch, on again at the beginning of my next watch...did the wind gods forget that we had a 4 watch system and to have some non-motor-sailing for everybody there was another 3 hours of wind to go? ah well...
All in all, morale is great, everybody is enjoying themselves, the boat and being outside, the food is great with our alternate cooks trying to outdo each other, so we're not complaining.
Just asking.
For a little bit more wind?
Maybe?
Please?
Pretty please?
With a cherry on top?