Day 18

Time to return to sea! And for Phase 2 of the expedition to get under way. The morning largely consisted of sail training on deck running through a number of drills, namely raising and lowering sails and multiple goes at Man Over Board (MOB) drills (worth mentioning that this is the internationally recognized naming convention for this procedure before the PC police get all excited). MOB is a complex process on a bigger yacht involving multiple moving parts and each watch to play their part. Most exciting however is the job of swimmer!! Dressed in an airtight rubber bag, 3 of us chosen few (1 per watch) were slowly lowered over the side of the deck to simulate recovery of a ‘Man’ at sea, our posteriors dangling inches from the ogin at the mercy of our ‘friends’ on the winch; be careful who you annoy, Tom found out the hard way and got a dunking!

We slipped seamlessly at 1500 and motored our way out of Reykjavik harbour heading for Umivik bay, taking in the stunning mountainous surroundings of Iceland as we made our way. More training was to follow, as we spent the next few hours at sea again practicing sail up/sail down, tacking and jibing procedures and once again running through MOB on the move (it’s an important process). Josh got himself far too immersed in the scenario in his role as thrower of the boat’s buoyancy aids and, when the Skipper said toss the danbuoy in (meaning ‘for exercise’), Josh launched the buoy as far as he could throw it only for David to mutter ‘oh f***’ much to the amusement to those of us on deck. In fairness, he did do as instructed, and it proved that the buoy was working. Thankfully (for Josh) we recovered both the MOB (fender) and the danbuoy.

Our motor into the Atlantic Ocean continued. When at sea we were operating a 3-watch system, each watch consisting of 4 pax; 2 watches alternated the on watch/off watch on the upper deck, working on a 4 hour about system over 48 hours essentially driving and navigating the boat, managing the sails etc. The 3rd watch act in an admin capacity for 24 hours and are charged with supporting the crew with all the cooking, cleaning and other admin tasks during that period. The Skipper and 2 Mates always operate their own watch system with at least 1 of them on deck at all times, giving them full coverage of all 3 watches. The system works really well; the on watch/off watch period does get tiring but after 48 hours you switch into the admin watch at which point you can recover your sleep between cooking meals and making hot wets (tea and/or coffee).

That is, however, if the sea state is forgiving! As we pushed on morale was high with the sea state remaining relatively calm, and after a few hours we were treated to an incredible display of a pod of dolphins chasing us through the waves dancing around and underneath the boat, a beautiful sight to behold. And then, the colour in the faces of those inexperienced sailors slowly began to change to a pale hue as seasickness started to take its cruel hold! Naturally to the likes of myself and Charley coming off the back of 2 weeks sailing in Phase I, this was hilarious, and we sat back and enjoyed the suffering of our crew mates that we had had 2 weeks previously, languishing in the glory of our well-established sea legs.

One by one people started to go down, and the cry of ‘BUCKET’ rang frequently below deck. The crew started to become dispersed, some simply retiring defeated to their bunks, others just lying/sleeping all over the upper deck. For those on admin watch it was particularly grueling, stuck below deck in a hot galley with no line of sight to the horizon, sickness was unavoidable, and 4 people quickly became the 2 of myself and Henry to push on although frequent trips to the upper deck for a breath of air were much needed!

We made our way into the night, and I think it was now becoming apparent to the crew and those new to sailing what they had gotten themselves into. But it was great to see everyone sticking together as a team and offering support where needed. Those of us less prone to seasickness did not for once begrudge those suffering as we know how bad it is and one of those things you just have to get through, so we just cracked on as best we could. Phase II was well and truly underway!