Discover how we decided upon a watch schedule, what we ate, the tasks we assigned everyone and who we managed to speak with that was around us. Day two of our transatlantic crossing was all about settling in for the long haul.
Transatlantic crossing day 2
A large part of the day was spent with Kenny and Andrew working on our AIS system (the contraption that tells boats we are around and lets us see who’s around us). We had our first dolphin visit. As always, my whole body smiled when I saw them. I yelled out my regards and watched them until they decided to head a different way.
A few of us watched the movie ‘A Knights Tale,’ on my laptop in the saloon.
Everyone had a nap so to get enough sleep to make it through night watches.
Regarding the night watches we had a rolling schedule so that everyone did every shift (9pm to 12pm, 12am to 3am, 3am to 6am, 6am to 9am) and each watch had an overlap of people. So, if I started off at the 9pm to 12pm watch with Kenny, Kenny would go to bed at 11pm and wake up Simon to do one hour with me and then I would go down and wake the next person up to do 2 hours with Simon. For most nights we all did two-night watches.
It might sound confusing but keeping someone on during a watch change reduces the amount of sail/navigational fiddling that happens when a whole set of new crew comes on. It also breaks the night watches up – you know that you’ll have an hour with one person and two hours with another.
Obviously, this kind of system only works if you have several people.
At all times we had one experienced member of crew with one inexperienced crewmember. During the day we were relaxed on watches – usually, the majority of us were in the cockpit playing games or relaxing anyway.
But let me get back to day two of our Atlantic crossing. For lunch, we had baked beans on toast (a very British delicatessen). And for dinner, we pulled out chicken Parmesan from the freezer to be served over spaghetti.
We all lazed around quite a bit and since there were so many of us we only ever had one task each day.
The transatlantic crossing task schedule included: vacuuming, cleaning the heads (bathroom), general cleanup and trash duty, engine/generator checks (when necessary), lunch and lunch cleanup, dinner and dinner cleanup, and rigging checks.
With AIS working intermittently we knew that there were a few boats around us – over the VHF radio, we called El Mundo, another 56′ Oyster, for a chat. It was nice to touch base with other people. In fact, throughout the entire crossing, whenever we came within VHF range of any boat, we called them to say ‘hi.’
Sienna kept all her food down and seemed to come back to life.
Aside from watching movies, she did one Thanksgiving decoration (American holiday), played with the others and snacked. (Crewmember Andrew flew in from America so he as able to pick up some fun Thanksgiving crafts to occupy Sienna).
The swell was still very large but we were able to run with it hitting us from behind the boat so the side-to-side motion didn’t cause everything to crash as much.
I noted in my diary:
I don’t feel strong enough to move much so I am laying in bed. No, I’m not sick, it’s just so hard to move due to the severe side to side motion of the boat. I did my first watch with Kenny from 7 to 10 (Having Simon for the first hour). We had a nice chat. There was a bit of rain, a couple of boats on the horizon and that was it. Haven’t had a clear night for stars yet – been cloudy with the moon appearing occasionally. The sea doesn’t smell like anything – no strong smell. There’s a hint of the Caribbean in the air but that might just be wishful thinking. Still in full waterproofs and using my hot water bottle to stay cozy. I don’t feel any urgency to get to the other side. I feel rather complacent.
What’s Next in our Transatlantic Crossing series?
- In the next article, find out what we used for communications with ARC to get weather and fleet updates. Discover why the weather was not our main point for discussion. Read it here: Crossing The Atlantic By Boat.
- The previous article all about our first day sailing across the Atlantic.
- Click here for a general overview of our Atlantic Crossing
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