51o11S 122o13E

The days melt slowly into one another, left behind on our relentless wake with fragments of random conversation, a measure of sweat and tears and yesterday's washing-up water. Notionally it is now Day 12 as we find ourselves over half way to Waypoint Bravo and a third of the way to Cape
Town.

But ocean time is a strange, ever-changing beast - it refuses to be measured into equal seconds, minutes, hours. Two weeks is manageable; five weeks seems like an eternity. Handle time well and you will avoid the worst of the cabin fever but this is easier for some than others. 'A Buddha-like
acceptance' is what David recommends and when this works it works well. Our serenity is, however, at times a little patchy. Various things warp the passing hours - some of us have indulged in the luxury of watching a film on John's Archos media player which lends the afternoon a real 'worm-hole in space and time effect', dislocating you entirely from the mental frameworks of the boat. A busy, physical watch will go in a flash, as will one filled with great conversation or raucous laughter; but those silent, exhausted watches drenched in cold night-time mist see the clock hands dragging
painfully around the numbers and into the small hours.

The cold and damp can certainly stretch out time and they also make a hard job harder. We had BP crew member, 'Alaska' Joe, down as something of a hard case when it came to the cold and toughing it out. Having grown up in
a village with just nine inhabitants, four of whom were his brothers*, he has lived the life of the quintessential hunter-gatherer in one of the harshest environments. 'How are you finding it, Joe', we ask him regularly. 'Pretty damn cold! That's for sure. It's the wet that makes the cold worse than anything back in Alaska because you can't dry stuff out. Everything here is wet and it's going to stay wet. I love the work on deck - it's down below that I struggle with, just managing to eat, to go to the heads, to get dressed, they are all so difficult. But upstairs I'm ok, although when you are on that foredeck those waves are more menacing than I ever really imagined.' Joe is doing a great job and it is fantastic to have someone with so many interesting stories to tell, but he has already changed in a couple of small ways! 'No man, I don't touch that stuff' was his regular answer to the hot-drinks orders in week one. Now, not only has he learnt to make an acceptable cup of tea (just), but he is gulping down hot chocolate by the bucket-load along with the rest of us. 'And I reckon I'm more contemplative, more reflective too. Usually I just steam right on in there with whatever I'm doing. But here I really have to listen, to think, pay attention and play things through in my mind first. You guys are at the stage where you just react but this is a new thing for me and the stakes on this boat are really high with every manoeuvre, everything you do. I'm learning all the time.'

(*See Joe's book, 'Where In The Hell is Sourdough, Alaska?', Josef Chmielowksi, available on Amazon)
Naomi Cudmore