Punta del Este is in reach. Only a few hundred nautical miles are remaining until the end of leg 1. It has been a wild mix of conditions. Heavy upwind sailing in the Bay of Biscay was pretty uncomfortable. Then we had virtually no winds near the Canaries. And lately some great downwind sailing in the southern Trades. All this was paired with lots of defects. Some of which we could repair on board. A few will keep us busy in our next stopover as we arrive. Others will need the help of the professionals.

I had some time to reflect over the last couple of days. Some triggered by questions about the best and worst moments so far or the biggest surprises. And then there are the thoughts that come up during the night watches with little to do and you trying to stay awake. But besides all the positive impressions and memories, there are also those which are not that great. I have been writing about tough conditions. They are challenging. It isn’t just simple sailing. But that just makes it worth doing. However, that is not what I will focus on this time.

There are the regular factors. As our mate put it: “I love ocean sailing, but I could do without the heads and the salt.” You have salt literally everywhere. Some is from the seawater coming over regularly. The other part is sweat from trying to work in hot conditions. Even if it is cold outside, ten bodies below deck are enough to heat the boat quite a bit. And when it gets warm outside it only gets worse. Every visit to the heads (restrooms on a boat) needs to be planned. Even in relatively calm conditions it can take some ten minutes for a small dump. I can agree to both of these points.

A little more general every aspect of personal hygiene is more challenging, especially with every change of conditions. Adding to that is the question of when to change one’s clothes. First and foremost they have to be adequate for the prevailing weather conditions. But you also sometimes get a little wetter than expected. Then you dig out the next set of clothes and desperately try to dry the wet set. An almost impossible task to achieve. So therefore everyone tries to delay the change of clothes as far as possible to have it available for these situations.

And then there are the daily rotating chores. One day everyone is engineer for the day, another day one might be on navigation and log keeping, the next day you might be on galley and then you might find yourself cleaning. All this rotates according to a fixed schedule so that everyone has to bite the bullet at one time. What job that is, might be different for everyone. I think there is advantages and disadvantages to each of those roles. Checking and pumping out the bilges is not really fun, especially in rougher conditions. For keeping the log one has to come down every hour. If it is wet outside, one has to remove the wet layers to keep the log dry. Whoever is on galley is basically awake for the entire day to prepare three meals and do the washing up. On the other hand one should get a full night of sleep. And cleaning is a necessity but there are certainly a lot of thins I prefer doing over cleaning the heads at quarter past two in the morning.

And then there are the unforeseen circumstances. Defects are always a backlash at first. Because one typically only notices them, when one needs it. But this is why fixing the defects directly and being able to carry on as planned is such a joy. But this takes time. That is what happened two nights ago. I had just finished my watch at 3am and had gotten into my bunk. Then the shout came: “All hands on deck.” This almost certainly means that something has gone seriously wrong. And so it was only a few minutes after leaving the deck that I was back on deck. Without time to get dressed properly, I only managed to put on my foulies salopettes and the life jacket. Our heavy wind spinnaker was in the water. I only learned later that the halyard had broken. There were a few scary moments before we managed to get the spinnaker back on boar. It took us over two hours. So in the end only about an hour of the four hour off watch remained, until we had to be back for a six hour day watch. The situation was a bit dramatic at times and quite exhausting. But the only things that matter is that nobody was injured and we got the spinnaker back. However, it was damaged in the process. Another job for our stopover in Punta del Este.

Like that every day comes with its own high and low lights. That makes it almost the same as life ashore. But then another clear night comes around, where you can watch the night sky with no obstruction. The only other lights which can be seen are our nav lights in the mast top. Or the unperturbed sunrises or sunsets which tint the entire sky orange or pink. This is when I realise how special this journey is. And despite all the downsides, it is worth every second.