Justine´s Journal

The first orange glow of dawn formed as a thin line on the horizon ahead
of us. It slightly illuminated the rolling swell that hit the yacht from
the side and white caps that rolled under the hull.My view was slowly
expanding from a few metres either side of the boat to a few hundred
metres. David, Axel and I were half way through our 3 hour shift as
crew, while everyone else slept below. I sat inside the see-through
shelter in the cockpit, protected from the cold wind, watching the
instrument panels as the wind regularly dropped to 11 knots then picked
up to 30, before dropping back to 20 knots all within the space of 10
minutes. The 3 of us are ‘the most experienced sailors’ after Zeek, our
captain and Santiago, his son and 2nd mate. Axel and David did a yacht
master day skipper course earlier this year and I have been on a few
sailing boats, including across the Drake Passage twice before. Still,
we are not exactly ‘honed sailors’ and were instructed not to touch
anything by Zeek and to wake him up if our speed dropped under 2 knots.
David was sat behind the perspex shelter, in the full force of the
breeze, leaning over the side, red-faced, hoping the fresh wind would
prevent him from feeding the fish again. We offered that he could go to
sleep and we would cover for him, but he knew he would feel worse down
below. I felt sorry for Dave, imagining how horrible it is to feel
constantly sick, while feeling guilty and grateful that I was feeling
fine. Even a couple of black browed albatrosses flying close to the boat
weren’t enough for keen birdwatcher Dave to smile and reach for his
binoculars. Jay was also feeling a bit queezy last night but most other
people are ok – fingers crossed.

We left Ushuaia 30 hours ago and are making good progress towards the
Antarctic peninsula. The wind is mostly fairly light so we have the
motor on a lot of the time, as well as the sails up. Last I heard, we
have a good forecast for a few days so shouldn’t have any terrible
storms or sea states. We are in 3 teams of 3 for watch duty and have a 3
hours on – 6 hours off rota. Zeek and Santi are in charge of the other 2
watches, they come from Tierra Del Fuego and spent 5 years sailing from
Argentina to France with the rest of their family.Most people sleep, or
try to, when they are not on duty and every now and again, someone cooks
some basic meals. We’ve got through a few packets of biscuits and some
haribo sweets too!  Lunch today was instant noodles – simple, quick to
prepare and satisfying.

At the end of our shift at 6am this morning, I glanced behind and saw
the faint outline of Cape Horn and the islands surrounding it. That was
the last land we will see until we reach Antarctica in another 3 or 4
days. In the meantime we will continue to bounce up and down in the
Drake Passage, enjoying the simplicity of just being, watching the
occasional albatross, storm petrels and other birds cruising on by
effortlessly.

Justine