Day 29 – Another Sunday at Sea

Hi Everyone,Welcome to day 29 of our voyage and another Sunday at sea. Today according to our planned schedule we were meant to arrive in Ushuaia or Punta Arenas if we had of gone through the Straits of Magellan, but the reality is that we are still at sea and still have about 1000nm to sail to round Cape Horn, but that’s sailing for you. Not that any of us really mind and this is all part of the adventure. Being Sunday most of us have had an opportunity to have a rest (says Gav still doing the Captains Log at 2300) and have enjoyed a relatively peaceful day as Sunday’s should be. That said, we all still have to keep our watches and they normally turn out to be fairly busy.  Tonight Liam with the assistance of his watch agreed to write Captains Log so enjoy his thoughts on a Sunday in the Southern Ocean.Until tomorrow, take care.Yours AyeCaptain GavDay 29, 18th January 2015Welcome to Ushuaia…. at least that is where we would be, had the wind Gods blessed us with the mighty westerly winds that usually call the furious fifties home. Instead still have a little over 1000 nautical miles until we round the fabled ‘Horn’ and reach the southern most city in the world. Despite this delay, the morale among the crew and staff is at an all time high. If anything it seems to have pulled everyone closer together as we try to squeeze every knot of speed that we can get out of this old girl. As Paige our navigator and resident meteorologist reminds us everyday, we are “living the dream!”  Today we observed the time honoured maritime tradition of a ‘Sunday Sea’, however for those keeping watch it has been anything but relaxing. Over the last 24 hours we have set, furled, gasketed and then reset every sail on board several times over. We are currently sailing with all three squares thanks to a strong breeze blowing straight up our clacker. Fuchsia watch has worked a little harder than most, and are due to complete 12 hours of watches today. Not content to rest on their laurels we are continuing to set sails right up until the last minute of our watch, the latest being the storm trisail.  Below decks today we saw the draw announced for the chess and uckers tournaments which will be completed over the coming days. On the chess front, first blood has already been drawn with myself claiming victory in a hard fought game over Greg. The victory was made sweeter due to the fact that Greg was part of the duo responsible for my early exit for the 500 tournament earlier this week. Games like this are always fun and as a wise man once said “regardless of who wins, the sun will still come up tomorrow and the surf at Maroubra will still be better than at Coogee”.  After a week in our current watches we today learned of the new watch groups for the coming week. The new watch groups are the Redskins, Minties and Kabluies. This past rotation of the watches has been well received by the crew as it enables us to get to know all our crew members better, plus we get to share in more guts watch stories (none of which should ever be repeated).  On the food front we have unfortunately had to begin rationing – yes, as of today we are only allowed to put two scoops of milo in our brew cup! We are also now forced to put powdered milk in our coffee/teas as well. Talks of a mutiny have been discussed and wether or not we carry through with these plans will depend on our resupply in Ushuaia. I have also been told that we have depleted our supply of tim tams and mint slices. I am not sure if I believe this or not because only a few days ago I caught Lauren in the galley with a smudge of chocolate and a guilty look on her face.  I have never been one to get homesick, but every now and then I get a twinge of pain when I realise it has been more than a month since I last had a pork roll from Hong Ha. Apart from that life has never been better and I am busy living the dream!Yours aye,Liam  “