ARC blog 2019 - Day 2

Day 2, Monday 25 Nov 2019 We have divided the night into two-hour watches, me and my backward compatible Anna got the honor of getting the first sunrise watch between 06:00 to 08:00. It was a relatively quiet morning but our watch leader Sofie pointed out a couple of times that she saw something in the water quite close to us and the second time I also saw the black silhouette. We are far from the nearest off the coast of Africa and are very puzzled what this could be, when we come up alongside we hear a light and at the same time an engine. It is a rubbet that emerges from the shadow just 30-40 meters from us and sets course for us, many thoughts have time to go through the head, pirates?! But no, the boat turns after a few seconds and goes opposite our course. The sun slowly begins to rise on the cloudy horizon and we sit and discuss what we just went through. After the watch, the breakfast that Kicki has prepared is ready on the table. I am a person who is very fond of food but here on the boat everything is extra good and to step off your watch to enjoy Kicki's oatmeal, cooked, bread and juice is absolutely wonderful. After breakfast, it was a couple of hours of sleep again to feel completely rested. Shortly after my sleep, my roommate chef Fredrik has made broccoli soup for lunch, I sit down to eat when I notice that it gets a little jerky in the boat and speed on deck. The new guard has then raised the genoa jack and ended up a little off course, it has then created great stress on the sail which has got a tear. It's all hands on deck and I run from my soup to help pull down the genaker. We quickly get it down and repair it with the sailcloth we have with us. After the repair and when everyone has eaten the interrupted lunch, we have a new skipper's meeting where we go through the day. There, skipper Fredrik emphasizes, among other things, that we will wait to hoist genacas again until everyone has gotten to know the boat better and how it behaves, which everyone agrees on. At the end of the meeting, I raise a riddle and promise a secret nice prize to the winner, at the time of writing, about a day later, no one has yet come up with the answer but there is very good commitment, for example Anna who has made whole equations to solve. My second watch of the day was between 16:00 and 20:00 with Rebecka and Johanna. Rebecka has for a couple of seasons worked as a host on our boats in Croatia and the Caribbean so I know her well and rarely go a long time without laughing. Johanna is a completely new acquaintance but who is extremely funny with her spontaneous outbursts, such as when we were in the store shopping for food before departure and she spontaneously threw a pack of dishcloths between the shelves because she was curious if it worked as a frisbee. Since I would get up early tomorrow, I chose to go to bed immediately after the guard to watch a movie, but first a shower. We have a large and luxurious boat with separate bathrooms for each cabin and also water-maker that allows us to convert sea water to fresh water on the boat. This for the first shower underway and I stand in the shower of about 50x50x200cm and rinse water over me while falling from wall to wall in time with the waves. After the shower, I lie down in bed to watch La Casa de Papel, a Spanish series that I have received lots of tips about from various friends. I make it about 10 minutes into the first episode before I fall asleep hard, the sea takes its toll...