Daily Life aboard: what do we do all day?!

Jan 26, 2020 | 7 comments

Jan 26, 2020 | 7 comments

Daily Life aboard: what do we do all day?!

When you ever have been on a verrrry long flight, you must have felt the unbearable impatience at a certain point, right? I do, at least. Any flight over 10 hours is just annoying to me. So… when we discussed to cross the ocean, which means 25 days and nights of traveling, I was kinda unsure if that would be for me. Is it doable? Well, let me share a bit of our daily things so you decide for yourself 😉 As for me: I do not have a choice atm, so… no, just kidding, I really enjoy it (most of the time!). The hours are just an indication, in reality, this varies a lot. But we try to have some schedule, this just feels good. The chill-time feels more rewarding this way.

• 09.00h: We have breakfast when we finish our night shifts. Making coffee, sometimes with fresh bread, or oats, or yoghurt. Doing a bit of tidying: making the bed, organizing the cockpit
• 10.00h: We take an extra nap when needed, sometimes we didn’t sleep well and we aim to make up for it during the day.
• 11.00h: Doing some boatwork! Such as: Checking all veggies and fruits to see if anything goes bad and needs to be eaten first, Fix something that broke (Jur has been very busy with the AIS antenna), Cleaning the boat, both inside and outside. Everything gets really salty, and we like to keep the cockpit as salt-free as possible since it is annoying to have salt all over yourself. Salt attracts water, so you become a sponge if you don’t watch out ;). Spotting other boats (only 2 so far) and have a little chat about the weather, Downloading the weather and determining the route, Mailing with our shore-peeps, Doing the dishes, Daily checks on the condition of crucial boat parts to spot wear and tear early on (such a long journey affects all materials heavily). Cleaning the solar panels to get the max amount of energy, Making yoghurt and bread, …. Plenty to do! We hope to add ‘catching and prepping fish’ soon, because so far: no luck.
• 13.00h: Fun time! Reading on our ereaders, Annoying each other (yeah that happens too), Writing blogs, Doing some freelance work if the sea is calm enough, Playing a game (haven’t done that before), A short workout, a little dance-off, reading through all the lovely cards from our farewell party, just staring over the water.
• 16.00h: waiting for the dolphins, sometimes a 0.0% beer when we feel like celebrating our progress, and making dinner! Yesterday, we had the most amazing dolphin show ever. It went on for about 3 hours, there were hundreds of dolphins all around us. They did all kinds of crazy jumps, some jumped as high as 4m. Backflips, “bommetjes” (Dutch), just crazy. We took a million photos to catch this moment, but no luck, they are pretty camera-shy (or we are just really bad photographers).
• 17.00h: dinner! Mostly one-pot meals, however, during calmer days, we even had dinner at the table with multiple dishes.
• 18.00h: Doing the dishes, securing everything for the night. Having a hot drink together, discussing the day. We realised that this ‘sit together and talk’ time is important, because days can just fly by without really connecting to one another. Can you imagine that, while you’re together on a boat?
• 19.00h: time for our night shifts! We take shifts of 3 hours. Jur starts, I go to bed first and take over at 22h. Etc. This way, we both get at least 6h of sleep. Both of us have trouble sleeping on the first shift. Your mind is still going crazy and you ‘see ghosts’. We frequently ask the person that keeps the watch: “is everything all right?”. I often have crazy dreams during this first sleep. I have asked Jur about whether he sees that ship without lights that’s in front of us, or whether he has seen that thing that is dangling on the boom. The mind is still so busy! On the second sleep, we both sleep so much better.
• All day long, we write our progress in our logbook. We note time, position, speed, course, the barometer pressure and any particularities. We adjust sails all day as well, we prefer to do so during daytime. If we need to adjust something at night, we put on our deck lights, so we have the best possible view.
With all of our activities, we have to follow the weather and movement of the boat. They dictate what is possible and what is not. Due to the heavy weather, we couldn’t take a proper outdoor shower. That just has to wait then. Same goes for bread baking: when the sea is too heavy, it has to wait. We learn to deal with whatever is coming your way.

Almost at 1/3 of our crossing! What an adventure. Thanks for following along!

Suus

Sent from Iridium Mail & Web.

7 Comments

  1. Rianne

    Hey !leuk om jullie te volgen! Wat een uitdaging is dit..!! Ook al haaien rondom de boot gehad?

    Reply
  2. Marga & Peter-Paul

    Wat heerlijk om via jullie boeiende verhalen als het ware een beetje met jullie ‘ mee te varen’! En zo fijn te lezen dat alles goed gaat, behalve het vangen van een lekker visje dan … Maar áls er dan binnenkort eentje aan de haak geslagen is dan wordt dat extra genieten!
    Veel liefs en geluk en dikke xxx

    Reply
    • Lisanne de Rijke

      Wat leuk en interessant om te lezen! Hoe gaat het met de zeeziekte suuz??

      Reply
      • Eric Smeding

        Tof jullie avonturen te lezen Suus! Dat nulpuntnulletje begrijp ik natuurlijk niet. Wellicht een paar shots en wordt je 1e slaap ook beter ;-). Good luck both and keep on posting your stories

        Reply
  3. Jacques

    Blijft leuk om jullie verhalen te volgen 😀

    Reply
  4. Ieke

    Heerlijk weer een nieuw verhaal! Altijd weer even meegenieten x

    Reply
  5. Emilie

    Heerlijk die drukke dagen; leuk om te lezen! Liefs!

    Reply
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7 Comments

  1. Rianne

    Hey !leuk om jullie te volgen! Wat een uitdaging is dit..!! Ook al haaien rondom de boot gehad?

    Reply
  2. Marga & Peter-Paul

    Wat heerlijk om via jullie boeiende verhalen als het ware een beetje met jullie ‘ mee te varen’! En zo fijn te lezen dat alles goed gaat, behalve het vangen van een lekker visje dan … Maar áls er dan binnenkort eentje aan de haak geslagen is dan wordt dat extra genieten!
    Veel liefs en geluk en dikke xxx

    Reply
    • Lisanne de Rijke

      Wat leuk en interessant om te lezen! Hoe gaat het met de zeeziekte suuz??

      Reply
      • Eric Smeding

        Tof jullie avonturen te lezen Suus! Dat nulpuntnulletje begrijp ik natuurlijk niet. Wellicht een paar shots en wordt je 1e slaap ook beter ;-). Good luck both and keep on posting your stories

        Reply
  3. Jacques

    Blijft leuk om jullie verhalen te volgen 😀

    Reply
  4. Ieke

    Heerlijk weer een nieuw verhaal! Altijd weer even meegenieten x

    Reply
  5. Emilie

    Heerlijk die drukke dagen; leuk om te lezen! Liefs!

    Reply
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