Doing about 2 kt. The sun is trying to come out; half the sky on the port side is dark, while the starboard half is bright. Watches settled into routine. Work party is getting that yard down. A Royal Navy crew of the day, a couple hundred of them, would do it in a few minutes. It takes our little crew the better part of the day.
Spent an hour in bosun's stores stowing paint. Work party involves such chores as part of the ship's daily maintenance. Down in a little paint-fumey hole while the ship is rolling all over, I am NOT sick, & go through 2 partners who do get a little green. Yay me.
The title, from a long complicated dream one of the crew told about, seems fitting. We're still very close to Newfoundland, & it still doesn't seem as though there's an ocean to cross yet. The horizon, with no reference points, shortens to a little circle of sea. One patch of ocean looks very much like another patch of ocean. And when it's foggy or hazy, it's a very small patch. All around, a horizon of sea, & it does not seem that big. Nor is there a sense of place. We are a little boat on a little patch of water. The rest of the world might disappear.
The chart shows a line of dots in triangles. This particular chart is to show course & speed by calculation; it's a "position plotting sheet" with a grid of squares, lat/long scale & a compass. But it's not relative to anything. It's just your position in the squares on the chart, no landmasses. Just a line of dots, tracking across an arbitrary set of squares. 200 miles south of reality.
The t'gallant mast & royal yard are being taken down. The mast to be greased; the yard to be painted. Weather continues to be a mix of rain & fog -- apparently the Guinness Book of Records lists the Grand Banks as the world's foggiest place. It has rained in my cabin too, and I have been wakened by a beetle on my face (this means I win, according to fellow passenger Erin who found a bug in her cabin too).
Work parties involve peeling shroud lines down to the wire and re-serving them: a layer of blue grease (to be put on barehanded, or you're a wuss), a layer of cloth strips, another layer of blue grease, a layer of twine, & a layer or 2 of tar. Then, there are seized-up bolts to get off (should we both stand on the wrench?), blocks to be sanded, bosun's stores to be itemized, souvenir merchandise to be sorted, & dishes & deck-swabbing to be done.
>> Serving party. Not as fun as it sounds.