I always find the beginning of my blogging the most difficult. So I’m just going to begin at the beginning of my watch last night. C Watch, which consists of myself, Joy, Johnny, Seco and Taylor came on watch deck after dinner to commence watch. We were zooming at a good 8.5 kts when I relieved B watch at the helm. As it started to get darker Capt. Thought it best to strike the topsail while there was still light, at that speed it would have be much harder to do in the dark. Realizing that that did not decrease our speed another decision was made to strike the Jib topsail, bringing us down to a still very good 7.5 kts but a bit rocky as well. Johnny strapped on his harness and furled both the Topsail and the JT seeing as he was the quickest and it was getting quiet dark by then.

As the watch went on we all did our rotations splitting up time at the helm, boat checks and bow watch. While on bow I got a few splashes but not enough to bother with my foul weather gear, but I was a bit alarmed when a flying fish came aboard and hit me in the legs. I could have left it there for Fogo who loves them but it was going crazy on deck. I found myself on boat check at the last hour of our watch. As I was bringing the bucket down to check the bilge in the foc’sle I slipped off the third step from the bottom making a loud thud when I landed, luckily on both feet. When I started pumping a stream of smelly gross bilge water came streaming at me, there was a puncture in the rubber part of the pump I informed Ben and he advised to pump very slowly and he will see to it in the morning.

Our watch ended at 11 and everyone was ready for bed. I was so happy to crawl into my bunk but I would later be woken numerous times. First was when Nina was doing wake ups she was explaining to some of the oncoming watch about the problem with the Foc’sle pump. Next would be by what seemed to be all of B Watch in the Foc’sle loudly trying to figure out what to do with now very broken pump. To add the unwelcome awakenings my bunk began to leak dampening the port side of my bunk. I tried to stay clear of it but with the rough waves I was rolling all around. I got back to sleep to woken yet again to the voice of B Watch this time resetting the Jib Topsail. Right afterwards was when my wake ups for breakfast was giving also quite loudly. I didn’t feel like getting up this morning for I knew I wasn’t in the brightest spirits and a bit more sleep would have been amazing. But when I heard that breakfast bell ring I got dressed and went to eat, having two bowls of Rice Krispies with some honey on it. Now I am back on watch and it is going much smother. The wind had shifted and now we are motoring going at a speed of 3.5 kts, a much slower pace but a slightly more comfortable one. Next I will be hitting up the bow for the last hour of our watch, lunch clean up and class to follow. Then I am going to take a hopefully successful nap before supper.

I just realized how long this Blog is, so I would just like to add hello to family and friends. We are counting down the hours to CharlestonJ