Honey, you’re ever so slowly drifting away (from the yacht)

They managed to catch an old leather boot, but atleast they look cool

The Devil decided to pay Te Kaihōpara a visit last night as the crew discovered a distinctly metallic smell emanating from the the engine room into the saloon. A quick inspection led me to discover a small fuel leak originating from the Starboard generator’s fuel priming valve. A quick fix doesn’t exist in a yachtsman’s vocabulary and hence the whole process of emptying the bilges and drying the extra fuel making itself comfortable under the generator took the better part of an hour. As Te Kaihōpara patiently waited for me to do my dark bidding in her engine room’s furthest parts, I thought about the days spent in my previous vocation, (seems like another lifetime now) coaxing machinery to work at around 55 deg celsius temperatures. This wasn’t quite that strenuous on the old sweat glands.

Mo, enjoying the moment, completely oblivious of the others begging for her attention to take the slack up on the Genoa furling line

Extra fuel swiftly taken care, we went about our nightly business. Watch ‘B’ kept things fresh as usual, discussing the futility of existence, possibility of an imminent alien invasion and personal paranormal encounters in the wild. The next day was one of much joy and candour as the crew redesigned the fruit storage setup in the wheelhouse. Peter went about reading up on astonishing facts, loving the fact that ‘Anatidaephobia’ is commonly understood as the fear that somewhere out there in the world, at any time, a duck may be watching you. Rob and Jason discussed the intricacies of the vast jump in skill and knowledge required from the RYA Yachtmaster Coastal to Yachtmaster Ocean level. In layman’s terms, if an RYA examiner considers you a safe enough skipper to be able to trust you to take his/ her grandchildren on a voyage/ passage, he/ she’ll pass the candidate.

Peter, using the satellite phone to warn his loved ones about voyeuristic ducks 

A lull in the wind speed meant that we could get the sails away and allow our intrepid crew to jump in to the warm ocean for a quick dip. But, this wasn’t to be a case of the early bird getting the worm as the swimming enthusiasts quickly realised that they were swimming over a depth of 4,000m and the back ladder on the boat seemed a bit dodgy now that the sails were down. (our stabilising factors are our main and mizzen sails) As the secondary ladder sprung forth from its usual resting place in the lazarette, the swimmers seemed to have gathered their bearing and sounds of playful splashing replaced the panicked mini-grunts from before. Once they were back onboard and the sails were up and at it, the Skipper made sure that the troops understood the importance of awaiting the go-ahead signal before flinging themselves headfirst into the deep-deep blue sea.

A life line in the water makes everything a lot more fun 

I prefer black nail polish but these aren’t my feet

As the sunset bedazzled the evening clouds in a quiet symphony of kaleidoscopic medley of shades of orange, almost like Kat’s nail polish, Te Kaihōpara quietly kept on eating up the nautical miles between her and North Minerva Reef. Yet another daunting night watch awaits us, but I feel like this crew is right up to the challenge.

Te Kaihōpara brings out everyone’s inner artist

Calm down, they’re ‘0.0’ beers

Impregnable relief amongst the crew as Barry didn't block the aft head today

- Arjun Thimmaya, Chief Mate, Te Kaihōpara