The 4th of March was a quite spectacular day with bright sunshine, some useful wind and my birthday. By a quirk of fate, I was also on the colours rota this morning, which means I get to write the update for my birthday. Here we go…
It began like any other day with me waking up and staring at the ocean through the porthole for a while before getting up to have my morning meeting with the Captain. All was well on the good ship Alex-2 and the winds are fair enough to blow us into Ponta Delgada in good time. We made plans for the deep ship clean and separated the non-Schengen passports for immigration. Then… breakfast. Then… colours. Our rota means we run colours once every 55 days, so quite the treat. After colours… uh oh. The tradition is a drenching. It’s usually buckets – 5 or 6. At least ten were lined up and a tray of plastic cups had been arranged for that personal touch. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Kailey was loitering in the shadows beneath the stairs to the foredeck with the firehose.
I made ready for the soaking but a divine intervention struck in the form of a freak wave that slid all the buckets off the foredeck and back down on the floaties. Hilarious. Except one of the buckets went overboard. Plastic on the ocean; the worst. It took a few moments for the floaties to recompose themselves and refill the buckets, then the first cups came. Maddie showed great glee in landing the first splash on my face. Then, I went under the gangway for the ritual of the buckets.
“Happy Birthday to me… Happy….”
Splash! Down the water came. Another bucket… whoosh. Some was cold others were warm, which was confusing. When the last bucket was emptied, Kailey stepped up, took aim and fired seawater in my face.
“Noooo it’s salty!” I was heard to cry but she was merciless.
When it was all over, I stepped off the podium and hugged anybody I could find – it’s good to share. Kailey wasn’t paying attention. The firehose slipped from her hand. Or did I pinch it? How it came to be in my hand is neither here nor there, but once I had it, it seemed a shame to not aim it high and turn it on. It’s good to share. Community values. The Credo clearly states that we believe in “the ability to share the feelings of others”. I felt wet. Now everybody had a light shower of my feelings to carry into their day.
Happy birthday!!!
Then chores happened (hopefully – I was taking a hot shower).
One more sleep to the Azores!!!!
Time: 08:00
Date: March 5th 2023
Lat: 35 58 N
Long: 27 09 W
Temperature: 15 deg
Sea State: F3
Wind: F5
Sail Status: 4 sails
Average Speed last 24h: 5.5knots
Distance travelled last 24hr: 139Nm
Distance to destination: 147Nm
Total Distance travelled: 10543Nm
Log keeper: Sophia
