SUN! It has finally cleared, leaving a very windy, very blue sea, which looks like Fundy in the winter. You'd never guess it was July.
I need to practice walking. We're heeled over & I am staggering. The effort to stay on your feet is exhausting. It's too rolly to sleep well. I wake disoriented, not having slept enough & trying to figure out which way I'm facing, where my head is & where any light is coming from.
The tiller ropes squealing this morning sound a bit like a barking seal. The rigging emits a high-pitched prickly creaking sound. There is still the sound of big wind aloft.
A small-scale plotter image shows Newfoundland, us, and Ireland all on the same screen. Christine, one of our cooks, remarks that it's nice to see us & our destination on the same screen, but somehow it still doesn't look real. It's a picture. Somehow it still does not feel as though we're in the middle of the ocean. And we can say 'middle', now, nearly. The ship is your little world & there isn't much of the outside world beyond it that you care about. Except for those worried about getting to festivals.
The electronics have been shut off so the crew will get practice with traditional navigation.
A few more dolphins come & go; the shearwaters will escort us nearly all the way, & in open water we began to see a fulmar or two. Now there's something new, a long-tailed bird which might be a jaeger.
Found the wind. Really flying along now, 20-25kt wind and waves in feet to match. My toes are getting red & sore from pressure in the effort to stay on my feet. Whole day spent getting the t'gallant mast back up. Someone's camera went overboard on a roll. He took it well. Showers are closed, with a masking-tape note on the doors. Water level is low & the water makers work very slowly in cold water, which is what we're in.
A-watch is mustered at the capstan for a "halfway there ceremony'. I think it might be something crossing-the-line-ish for the first-timers, but it's less dramatic than that. An I-pod & a speaker, Bon Jovi singing "...halfway there ... livin' on a prayer...", & everyone gets a piece of the Halfway There Chocolate Bar.
