Heading into day 5 en route to Horta the new crew of Skyelark have fallen into a rhythm. With 575nm miles and the worst of our seasickness behind us we’ve hit a mini milestone of quarter way to Horta. We’ve got our shifts down (3 hrs on, 6 hrs off). We’ve shared the basic information of our lives and each volunteer a little more each passing day – how we came to join this expedition; how we all fell in love with sailing; what our other passions are from motorcycling to cycling, cooking to landscape painting; our family backgrounds to how many siblings we have; and inevitably stories of our previous sailing adventures. We are eager crew trying to compete with Dan’s impressive experiences and excellent memory with full knowledge it’s in vain. We’re happy to regardless, bonding on a common theme to pass the time listening to the experiences of our crewmates who we’ll be with for the next 4 weeks.
And time we have. The last four days have had strong winds and robust seas that required mental focus on remaining upright on a constantly heeled 30 degree angle while getting a tactile feel for Skyelark – especially how she handles at the helm. So today’s calm seas have been a respite that’s allowed us to relax a little and wonder in the experience of crossing the Atlantic. Music played in the background (classic hits of the last 40 years – the decades that span the crew!) while we all congregated on deck enjoying the scenery and new company. Feeling very civilized and happy with ourselves we celebrated 4pm in British style with afternoon tea and slice of choc-chip banana loaf freshly baked (from scratch) in the galley oven. This is a rhythm we’re all committed to keeping!
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