11/09/2008 - Tenacious

From the lone Yank on board (which I am seldom allowed to forget), the persistence with which people of all different abilities work as hard as they can, and the unfailing kindness and praise with which their efforts are greeted is really striking.

Right now, at about 3:30 ("half after three" to those who know the lingo) on Saturday in full sunshine, we have just braced the yards to starboard to pick up a little more of the sparse wind. We're in sight of the Isle of Wight, having tea and cake for "Smoke-o" which means "snack time".

I've learned to clean bathrooms every day (the misleadingly-named "Happy Hour"), to sleep in a narrow bunk with wooden railings around it, and to have a dim idea of filling in the log of statistics about the voyage every hour. The BEST thing was helming (driving/directing) the ship through two bridges in the canal coming out of Brugges!

The best thing I learned was that when you're blind, you don't get all the body language cues to see how conversation you're involved in is going, which I never thought of before. I learned it from Tash, who went blindfolded for 24 hours as part of the Youth Leadership at Sea program, and Gary who is actually blind verified it for me.

Salt air, great food, wonderful funny people-unique and fabulous!

Update By: Nancy Hughes