1151 UTC | 31°48.900’N 023°07.891’W
Sailing
Two things I picked up on my way out of home more or less last minute which have been brilliant. A beanie I thought would not be useful as we were due to sail from the Caribbean to the Canaries and I just didn’t think it would be that cold. At times, it was. Plus a beanie is great to shove down the back of your PFD to give a bit of padding against the deck, (also good to sit on). It’s good to shove down your foulie top when it’s not so cold that you need to be fully zipped up, but a bit of wind protection helps. That’s also a handy store for emergency gummie bears. If you are worried about fluff at this stage, take a look at where you are.
The second thing is a pair of rubber soled espadrilles. Way better than any deck shoes I brought with me apart from ocean boots.
Controversially, I think some bananas are good for the first few days of an offshore passage, especially if the weather is boisterous, (or active as the crew calls it). If you take as much of the stem off as you can, it saves spoiling other fruit to some degree and they are full of vitamins and just enough sugar to keep you going. Plus they taste the same way coming up as going down.
Mouthwash is handy as it’s not always possible to clean your teeth when you would like to, and, see point 2 about bananas. My least useful item is the smart watch which is telling me I’m sleep deprived and maybe some soothing sounds, like the sea, would help me drift off to sleep.
Simon, Adrienne II Crew
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Going Coconuts!
From a muddy anchor bow to a heeling, wind-charged run past Taha'a's reefs, Falken's crew earned every knot of the passage to Huahine-Iti. Scooters, a near-miss dog, a mosquito ambush, and a crocodile lurking at the dock rounded out a day that had no business being as good as it was. The coconut nut is, in fact, a really big nut—and somehow that tracks perfectly.