Giant cabbage leaves and Azorean banana skins were overtaking the ship while the sunset falls later and later. After some calm during the night, the full moon shone at the beginning and gave way to a cape of clouds.
This morning, the mainsail needs to be repaired. The wind is increasing northwest, so it’s all right to have it down on the deck now. It depends on where we will be tonight, but we might have a 25 to 30 knots kick.
Most of the journey since Boca Chica, we’ve been sailing starboard tack. Now on portside, I think of the jib halyards which gain some freedom from being squeezed between the yards and the shrouds. Most of the time, I imagine and compare with the body’s parts and skeleton, all the elements of the ship and the forces within them. When I explain how to trim sails and every things in general, I ask myself or say to some persons, what would you feel if a constant pressure were on your upper arm or what would you feel if, sometimes all of a sudden, the upper body is bent and checked backward?
Sailing with a full belly is happier and more powereful, like you, isn’t it? Not everyone has heard me teaching this way because I am not sure they would take me seriously speaking with mystic vibration in the air. But it is what I’ve meant when I say open your senses and observe because I don’t always want to describe with words.
Also, after four months in a row, I am getting impatient. Humans aren’t machines, and the deepest of our self needs to be considered like an ocean, like a ship made out of wood. The saltwater keeps the planks tight together as the people are with laughter. And then we know that the mixed freshwater of Amsterdam is going to split the group all over the world. All knowledge learned will be digested later. Though, at the present moment, it does feel good to be closer to the English Channel for 500 miles than the Azores far behind. The Gannets visited us few times.
Do you enjoy reading our crew’s adventures? Imagine being there when you enjoy our products at home!
(Photo taken by Jordan Hanssen)
Written on April 24th 2024