No More 9 to 5: February 2013

Friday, February 22, 2013

RACE DAY!!!!!!

22-2-13

A few of us...

Getting the boat prepped for the race

The race we are currently doing

Leaving marina heading for starting line

We got shirts! So its official!

Jaco our Captain for the race

We are ready to DO this thing!!!

You can feel the excitement in the air! lol

Another boat prepping shot. JJ up the mast to check on things

Race about to begin

Race starting!

Everyone has a job...mine is photographer lol...:)

First time flying the spinnaker so cool!

Great start!

Everyone behind us :)

Our racing flag

Wind finally picking up a little yay!

Lunch a la JJ and myself

Jaco with his sextant

17-2-13

I think it is Sunday yes Sunday so we have been out since last Monday and it has been so awesome! On tyrones watch one night he saw a bunch of dolphins coming to swim on our bow. The water has like phosphorescence or something so it turns green and glows as they swim through it. It was really cold that night and I was already in bed so I didn’t get up but I could hear them in the bow!!! It was so cool! It is not what I thought it would be like it was more of just a high pitch noise. Today I did see a bunch of dolphins swimming with us. It is about 5:30 and I just finished my watch. It was really cool to see a couple of them actually jump and flip out of the water next to the boat! We see a bunch of seals every day and a few penguins here and there. OOH! I did see a couple more whales too! Mostly just tail fins coming out of the water but Scott and Christo actually saw one breach and jump out of the water the other day! It was really early like just before sunrise and right before my shift so I didn’t see them. They are cool to see but you have to be careful because they get curious and sometimes get too close to the boat. Rudi said he has had about 4 whales hit his boat before so he gets a little nervous. I think we made it about 50 nautical miles offshore before we tacked and headed back to land. It was so nice not being able to see land anymore! I had a moment while we were out there too and realized this was exactly where I wanted to be almost a year ago. When we decided to come and do this it was just how I imagined it would be. We had the speakers out and my ipod playing, it was a gorgeous sunny day and not too hot, no land in sight and swells just big enough to be exciting. It made me think about my old job actually and where I was just a year ago. I am so glad to be out of that office and I so appreciate this more and more every day.

I think the funniest moment we have had so far is when JJ fell out of the bed and landed on the floor because we were heeled over so much!! LOLLLLL….it was kind of my fault actually so I feel a little bad. It was pretty hectic in my bunk up in the bow so I went to his bunk in the stern to read and ended up passing out. He didn’t want to wake me and just jumped into the saloon bench on the couch basically. He had just fallen asleep and then BOOM lol he rolled right off of it!!! His face when he jumped up was classic omg too funny. We had to get up and get on watch anyway.

The worst part of this whole thing is dish duty lol. I think it should be on Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. Tyrone and the Irishman cook for us every day so we take turns doing dishes every day. JJ and I had to do dishes the day they made shepherd’s pie. Dinner was great but the dishes… Blah they were disgusting and we had to do it at like 10:30 at night after our watch which was really cold that night. I had to strap into the bar in the galley so I didn’t slide into the navigation station. I think we should just get a net and drag dirty dishes behind the boat and then clean them up. That would be much better. I must say though we have had some really good meals every day like chicken and cous cous, the shepheards pie, spaghetti, mac and cheese…we even made pop corn last night.

We are about 3-4 hours away from Mykonos right now and we are staying the night there and heading out again tomorrow for another week. I almost got sea sick the first day on but took some medicine and haven’t felt it since then. It was Monday when we first head out so thankfully that went away.

I finished The Twelve and it was really good!!! It takes me a while to finish a book but its because I will read for a little bit and then I always pass out lol.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

14-2-13

Happy Valentines Day!! My honey just went to the grocery store to restock our supplies with the boys and brought me back a rose! Very unexpected on a 2 week distance trip. J So it is day 4 and we are docked in Gordons Bay at the moment. We left on Monday afternoon after we cleaned Star Spirit and went grocery shopping. We take 3 hour shifts and we have 2 person teams. My partner is JJ and Ty has Brian (the Irishman as we call him)….First night was fun! We had a fire in the galley, a leaky hatch in our cabin over our bed, and I think I got one hour of sleep due to the fact that we were on a crappy tack where I felt like I was sleeping in a bouncy house lol….It sounds worse than it really was. We have been having a blast. Our hatch was leaky because it was sealed improperly last time it was fixed but I was able to sleep around it and got about an hour of sleep while lying there for 6 hours after my first watch. Surprisingly I was really refreshed and ready for my next watch. I think it is the adrenaline of sailing at night with only lights and plotting charts to know where you are. It was a little scary for the first 5 minutes but then it was fun! Splashing through the waves feels more intense than it really is im sure. Felt like an episode of Deadliest Catch over here! Ahahaha…. Tuesday I watched the sun come up on my watch on the way into Table Bay in Cape Town. The wind was not in our favor so it took a while to get there but we made it. We did not have any wind after we docked so we stayed Tuesday and left Wednesday around noon. Ty and I were able to go into town and pick up some foul weather gear before we left!!!! Came In very handy last night. JJ and I had watch at 0130 and it was hectic! So glad we got our gear in time because it works and it was worth every penny to stay dry and warm. I did not sleep at all last night since I was off watch kind of early. I have been reading the rest of The Twelve by Justin Cronin and I cant put it down! When ty got off his watch 3 hours later we watched 2 episodes of Breaking Bad and then I was going to try to get an hour nap in but the hatch started to leak again with the big swells we ran into. I said screw it and just got up, put on my new gear and tested it out. JJ and I took over from 130 to 430 and then Ty and Brian brought us into Gordons Bay. I swear they have the most beautiful marinas here! There is always a gorgeous mountain in the background. We cleaned the boat and got some more groceries this morning and when the wind picks up and the tide rises a little we will take off and go back up north past Mykonos up further north and then turn around and come back to Mykonos. We should have about 500 miles after that. We are about to go on 8 hour watches now…eek…

Star Spirit

From Dockside in Mykonos

My choos

Chester the Donkey! lol

Star Spirits bow

Last meal at Mykonos before departure

Ty at Mykonos

Lets DO this!

Beach Bar

Bridge w robot made out of Coke cartons Cape Town

Wandering around waterfront

Beautiful sunset

Waterfront

Ty at the helm

Me in my foulies at the helm

Another pretty sunset

Saturday, February 9, 2013

9-2-13

After five grueling days we finally took our coastal theory exam today. We had 5 hours to take it but Ty and I finished in just over 3 hours I think. WE PASSED!!!!!! with flying colors. I got a 93 and Ty got a 95!!!! I think we are in shock right now but about to go celebrate!!! We struggled more through the homework in class but the questions on the test were a little easier thank goodness! I was seriously doubting myself but all turned out perfect. :) Yay!! We get tomorrow off and then we are off on a distance trip for about 5 or 6 days. We have to plan our meals and buy food and stuff Monday morning then we are off!!!

Thursday, February 7, 2013

7-2-13

We passed our VHF class! yay! We are officially certified to use the VHF radio on the boats now. We are staying in the flat now and it is so claustrophobic in there. I think Sara needs to come here and paint some murals on the walls or something. That would at least make it bearable to stare at the wall since the tv does not work. I am glad it does not work actually. I do not miss watching tv at all. I do however need to start studying for the exam on Saturday. It is supposed to be a 5-6 hour exam! Christo is trying to throw me off by talking to me lol.....so much for train of thought!! LOL anyway, I just found out that we are not doing our power boat 2 on Sunday so we will have the day off which is great! I do want to get that one over with though. Everyone has done it except for us.

The laundry mat is still working on my whites. All the pink came out of everything except for my new white shorts. They are going to try to do whatever treatment they did last time but for longer. It will not ruin my material or anything so I hope it works. I should have brought my tan linen crop jacket. It gets pretty cool here at night and I do not have a cute jacket to wear to go out in. There is a small and expensive shop here at this mall so I try to avoid it...TRY..

So since we have decided to do the ocean course as well we are going to be in the classroom for yet another week before we get back on the boat. We will be on the water after that though and for a pretty long time from what I hear. I can't wait for that. The ocean course is where we learn celestial navigation and stuff like that. We learned about weather patterns yesterday which was fun!!! It's awesome that we are learning more than just sailing. You have to learn how to read the weather in order to be a good skipper. You do not want to catch yourself in a huge storm and not know what to do or where to go. So this way we can plan our trips better when we are captaining our own boat.

Ok well Tyrone is kicking me off the laptop now so I guess we will let you know when we pass our exam on Saturday!

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

5-2-13

It has been a few days since I last wrote but not much is going on right now. We moved off of Amulet for the first time since we got here. We are staying in the flat now and I must say the space is nice but I miss the boat. Its just more fun that way! The flat is cool too though. I can hear the live music from Pirate's Bar from here with my window cracked and its really relaxing. We are in Coastal Theory this week which means more chart work and tides and plotting. We are also getting our VHF license this week. We have officially decided to stay for the Ocean course which is another 3 weeks so a total of 14 weeks at the school. I am enjoying our time here so much but also excited to start delivering boats and visiting new exotic places.

We did see more dolphins on our last day of day skipper. I was able to stand on the bow and get a really good video so here ya go! It was so amazing!!

So I got this new towel and it is just like the other one I have ya know microfiber quick dry and all. Well it is pink and I needed to use it yesterday since my blue one was dirty. I did not wash it first and so it turned my whole body pink!!! LOL everything I touched turned pink yesterday!!! My white shorts I was wearing…pink on the inside! The table I was working at where my arms touched….pink!! on the table!! My shorts turned so pink I could not stop laughing all day. It just got worse and worse as the day went on..and then on into the night as well…We had a few drinks with some new people in the class last night. Not the most responsible idea but honestly my brain and everyone elses was absolutely fried! We are taking in so much info right now and our brains are just mush…so its not like we could have continued to do homework or study anymore. Everyone went to dockside…every person in the class…lol..we were all hurting…it was a good night though. I rocked at coinage! Which is like playing quarters back home…you bounce your coin off the bar and try to make it into the glass and if you make it the other person has to drink whatever is left in the glass…I don’t know if it was luck or if I have mad skills but not gonna lie I did pretty good.

Tyrone has a phone again! Yay! Still not sure what happened to the other one but he blames me since I was the last one to use it….honestly I don’t know if it was me or not. All I know is I used it to take a video and I put it back in the nav desk with mine and mine is fine but his never turned on again. So we lost the videos of Nicole and Scott swinging on a halyard off the side of the boat to try to get off the sand bank. So sad. They were awesome videos!

So I heard the Ravens won superbowl yayyyyyy!! Don’t ask me why but that is who I was rooting for. I think it was because they beat the Patriots…I dunno…

Had my first doctor visit yesterday too. I needed to get some antibiotics so I just went to the clinic in Langebaan and was the first one in so they were able to fit me in early and got a script and some meds for a grand total of about $80. Not too bad…I thought it would be much worse but it wasn’t too bad at all. JJ is a lifesaver! He got up early and drove me since I don’t have a car or anything. Lifesaver!!!

Anyway here are some long overdue photos...