Diary 20 April 2006

8am and another morning watch. I come up on deck still warm from sleep and my daily yoga. The snoring forties have begun to wake as well, there is 30knots blowing from the North East.  I skip and jump for joy, happy to be sailing along again, doing an easy 4-5 knots.And then the rain comes.  Teeming in, almost horizontal.  

On this ship, the more wind and rain there is the bigger the smiles of everyone on board! We grin at one another from deep within our wet weather gear, streaming hair and red dripping noses.Today I am BURR post again. The 4, daily watch stations of 1st and 2nd Helm, Fire(bilge)Round and, first up today, Lookout. Sitting at the bow I put my back to the rain and watch the ocean heaving around me.  The Albatross have all gone, where? Perhaps they could smell the weather coming and flew to different Latitudes. Only a few White-chinned Petrels remain, do the rain drops sting their faces as they do mine?

Aloft, Barbord (Port Watch) are working.  Some on the Stor Rå (Main yard) affixing more sejsings(gaskets)to the new main sail that hasn't been bent on properly yet. Others are on the Fock Rå (forecourse yard) changing the reef bands we put there a couple of days ago. We made them out of Märling, but it is too difficult to undo the reef knots in the tarred ropes.Looking like drowned rats everybody comes back to deck, jobs complete, for now.Later, I'm on the helm, and even though it takes three of us to move the wheel, the Götheborg is moving so steadily, steering is just a matter of small adjustments - 1 stybord, 2 barbord.  I use the time at the helm to practice my Swedish - en till stybord, tre pinna barbord. The rain eases up at 12 just as Stybord watch come out to relieve us and another mornings work is done..................