[Dar Es Salaam - Phuket] Day 11 -- Bathing Time

Sunday is a good day for a bath. Day eleven still brought no wind, it rather brought even less when you would have thought there couldn't be less anymore. We were still running on engine, but I convinced the captain to turn it off for lunch, so we could check on our diesel, engine oil and have a bath. He didn't seem to like the idea of his crew going over board in the middle of the Indian Ocean too much, but he still approved. We had proven to be a good crew so he didn't refuse to spoil us every now and then. So off we went, with goggles and a line around our bellies and my brother and I absolutely did enjoy this little bath. And it gave us an idea of how fast a man going over board would be disappearing in the distance soon floating on the open ocean quite by himself if he wasn't attached to the boat in any way and even more, if the boat would make any speed. The drag of the water was strong, even with us going really slow. Watching from the boat you didn't realize much of the boat moving at all while in the water the boat was a racer. And getting up out of the water you had to pull strong. But in the water it felt great, about 5000 meters of water below you, a space that feels as big as a universe to a man small and unimportant in the big sea. With nothing to see all the way around the boat, I wondered, where in the whole sea the snake makreel came from that I had pulled up last night.

With the calm making the journey feel even more lonesome and no sightings of boats or ships during the past days we were excited to see a fish trawler come from the nearby Seychelles in the afternoon. As soon as everybody was on deck to have a glance through the binoculars, we had more sightings of life. Closeby, there were dolphins playing and jumping high out of the water. Underwater, there seemed to be just as much activity as dozens of flying fish shot up out of the water all around the boat and our house guests on the mast were setting wings to hunt them. The events brought about 20 minutes of excitement before the day went back to being calm again. I used the remainder of the afternoon to completely dismantle and fix the genoa winch as it had stopped doing a proper service. While taking it apart, nothing more than a body and a bunch of greased wheels, I wondered how such a simple bunch of mechanics could be costing about 5000 U$.

captains log:
0345 start E, wind S 2kn
no wind
1200 S2°00 E53°52
stop E, 2/5 of diesel gone
fishing vessel crossing our bow
FRANKY DISMANTLES the port Genoa winch, didn't work anymore
1600 First 1000 nm
no wind