11/09/2008 - Lord Nelson

The day started early for some of us who had to do 2 hourly anchor watches from 4am to 8am. The ones who are currently gloating will be having this pleasure VERY soon.

After breakfast we went straight onto the bracing drills. This involved lots of sweating and tailing of the braces on our part, while our opposite numbers had the easier task part of letting go of their braces; no ones trousers fell down!!

A second evacuation drill was followed by instruction on how to set sail and then we did it for real. We became experts at the two six heave and because of the heavy swell some of us did extra heaving over the side. This meant lunch was poorly attended and most people gratefully took to their bunks for quiet time.

We were rudely awoken by the magic words of Happy Hour which proved to be anything but for those of us stuck down below cleaning the ship. Happy Hour has nothing to do with giving the crew 2 for one at the bar. Instead the crew have to clean the ship from fore to aft, including the heads (toilets).

However alls well that ends well and our dog watch proved to be quite pleasurable – being up in the fresh air, helming the ship under sail and watching the sun set to the west.

Seeing the sun on the sails this evening, almost made the ‘mal de mer’ worthwhile! We are now in the bar, having a nightcap or two and looking forward to a long undisturbed night’s sleep in our cosy bunks.

Update By: FP Watch Kumi, Pauline, Mary, Shaun, Paul, Andrew and Keith