Rain Watch

What an interesting night and morning. First off it was really hard to sleep, we were rolling all over the place. I ended up sleeping-ish in my rabbit hole, curled up next to my junk so that nothing would slide around. Still was hard to sleep, all the extra movement and I guess things were louder and it was really hot.

I kept hoping that my watch wouldn’t come, but I was already awake when Jesse came to wake me up. Suited up in all my foul weather gear and proceeded to stand watch for four hours with it raining most of the time.

About and hour into our watch the wind changes around a lot and we have to brace the yards square, Peter got Dan up to help us and make sure we were doing the right thing. It was incredibly difficult and yet a lot of fun, it’s pitch dark, there’s water going everywhere, the ship is moving beneath you trying to throw you off and on top of that I wear glasses so I really couldn’t see. After stumping around finding the right lines to haul or ease we had to coil down so that later no one else would trip. On the fore deck you really get pitched around so you have to really brace yourself up against he rail to get anything done.

I went to go a boat check because I knew one hadn’t been done for about an hour while we were sorting out that mess. While trying to get to the tank room I slid on a puddle on the deck and almost went flying into the line locker, some how I managed to get on my knees and just ran into the baggy wrinkle we had strung up and the jib that was furled there. Made it over to the tank room hatch on my knees, lifted the hatch and had a great struggle to get down there. Went into the galley and shit was everywhere, I almost got clobbered by the quisenart on my way to the forward tank room.

After Grant spent half an hour pumping bilges he said while he was down there wrenches and all kinds or tools were flying at him. And the animals of the day, a flying fish flopped up on deck, Dan was about to keep it to have Cookie cook it, but threw it back over and there was one small bird. Our pigeons disappeared sometime yesterday; if they were nice they would have told us a storm was coming.

One of the reasons why junk keeps flying around is because we’re not on a particular tack so we keep going from one side to the next.

Finally got stood down and we were all wet and sticky. I was peeling off my clothes and I couldn’t get my boots off and it was hilarious to see people walk back and forth and we were all sliding around, I was laughing so hard, Zach was nice enough to yank my boots off for me. While Grant and I were trying to hand our stuff up we had to sit down on the benches and kept sliding into each other.

To the galley for breakfast we went, it was going to be a hot breakfast but the stove was all wet from the rain and apparently that never makes it work well. So cereal it was, but wait there were no spoons because apparently all the silverware decided to attack John and he was getting coffee this morning. I attempted to have milk with my cereal, but even as I was pouring it I knew it wasn’t a great idea. We listed to one side and the milk just stopped pouring itself, so yoghurt on the cereal it was, I sea stowed my cereal so I could actually eat it.

When Brooke came into eat we kept laughing at each other and everything around us because it’s really funny how things work while listing back and forth. Grant had his bowl of cereal and kept moving his hands like a gimbaled table just to eat it, at one point he stopped paying attention and milk slopped out. Zach and Jesse both ate hard boiled eggs, but they couldn’t just set the egg down to put pepper on it cause it would roll away, so they had to have some assistance there was well. So Brooke and I are there laughing practically in tears because it’s so funny and we’re over tired.

Breakfast some what accomplished I wanted to crash and get some sleep, but oh no I was not to have that quite yet. I thought my stuff was pretty well sea stowed, and it was, not much had moved around, just some things got a little damp because of the rain and the 12 foot waves crashing on to the hull. So I spent a good hour putting things back together and reorganizing so hopefully this won’t happen again. Now if only I could get some sleep, curl up in my rabbit hole and not be flung out of my bed.