By Ariunsanaa Ganbaatar
1 – Clove hitch on the Marlin spike
It was 9 days since we left anchorage, it was also 9 days we continued with the 6-hour shifts. I was on the 12-6 watch. It was tough on all of us, we were so tired, at times it felt like we were brain dead zombies. Before my watch was below, I saw a beautiful orange sun rising on the horizon with waves underneath, and I realized I couldn’t remember how the sun, earth and moon works anymore, who turns around who and how… But just to enjoy the brief golden rays of the sun, it was a delightful relief from the tiring shift. That night at dusk we found few flying squid on deck drying up and before I threw them overboard, I hooked one of them on our fishing line and went to sleep.
After a 6-hour shift at 6am I’d clean my face and do the little routine before going to bed and by the time I’m getting in my bunk it’d already be 6:30am and I can’t shut off like a machine, by the time I try and do all the things to try to sleep it’ll be about 7-7:30 and hopefully sleep shortly after. Our shift eats lunch at 11:30 and starts the afternoon 12-6pm shift, so we actually end up sleeping 3-4 hrs. sleep that is if you can switch on the sleep mode. That morning, I had just started sleeping and dreaming, I heard Biggie calling me that “the captain has asked you to come and film the Marlin”.
It was a Marlin call…
Our captain has mentioned several times already that he would love to catch a marlin one day, he never caught a marlin, his dream is to catch a marlin, he even said he would get a real marlin sized wooden carving over his living room when he ever gets a place to live, so he was obsessed and on a mission to catch a marlin, i feel like i can say it was his dream. So yeah, it was a big deal. And I never thought I would get the marlin call. I rushed upstairs on deck in my pajamas, I see everyone excited like children, we mustered for a plan on how to get the marlin out of the water, our engineer Simon was on a mission to find a metal pipe to sharpen into a hook, he directly went into the engine room and started sharpening the metal pipe on the angle grinder, we took our dinghy Sophie’s wooden stick, got metal wire and seizing mallet, and seized the hook Simon made on Sophie’e stick, and once that was done everyone got ready on the square sail braces to make a maneuver called “heave to” face the sails against the wind for a sudden stop.
Captain started to reel in the fish closer to our ship and Jacob and Simon was ready on the stick with a hook while Johanne our 2nd mate secured the stick with a rope. After a few try they finally hooked the fish and it was now on deck. It was heavy so 3 people grabbed it and took a picture, then they realized it was the bad side so they turned around in line while holding the marlin, our captain asked everyone to take a picture. After many pictures we hung the marlin from the tail on the main staysail club and secured the head from swaying around with a clove hitch on the marlin spike. Maybe it was the little flying squid on the fake purple squid fishing lure, maybe it was something else, but we got a marlin that morning…
Oh, I should say that it was actually a sail fish, but same thing.
2 – Bioluminescent planktons soaking in the pot
First few days of our sailing we would have the moonrise on our port side followed by a star almost as bright as the moon. the moonrise was delayed by almost an hour every night as the moon vanes.
We’ve got another addition to our 12-6 shift, Tobias our shipwright, who started the voyage as a day man and joined us after 3 days of cleaning and washing duties. It was already feeling great to have an additional hand, an experienced hand at that, to our 2 newbie and 1st mate group, it took some weight of our watch leader’s shoulder. Tobias started to make us oatmeal at night watches and it was my first time doing dishes at night. As I was getting sea water with bucket to soak the pot, i realized little blue dots twinkling in the pot. It was bioluminescent planktons! i swirled them around the pot and played with them. it was another little joy for the long night watch. Sadly, they stopped lighting when I started to add soap to the pot…
Twinkles in the water and twinkles in the sky.
Navigating with the stars was quite precise, the helm was swinging under and over only 3-5 degrees. Few hours into our night watch, the brightest star that would appear on our port side and I learned that it was actually the planet Venus! I also learned that one of the constellations that would help us steer was Scorpio, it was the Maui hook Biggie was talking about. As the morning light shines, it shined through a little hole on the sail. The morning light revealed that our main sail has ripped…
3 – The Bernoulli principle
After few days into our voyage, it was getting difficult to navigate with the stars as it was getting cloudier. One night it was feeling specially difficult to steer the helm, and our watch leader James asked how is the helm, i answered and he walked around with Zoltan, trimmed some of the sails, and said, let’s try something, steer 135. We turned 10 degrees into the wind and waves and we were flying against the wind hitting over 6 knots. James sounded really excited he yelled “i knew she can do it! She is alive!” He continued “if anyone is wondering this is freakin’ amazing” it was the best sailing for him since we left anchorage. I wondered how is it possible to sail almost against the wind? and the wind in your face makes it feel even faster. And it was Bernoulli principle, we were Bernoulli principling!
At the end of our watch, it started to rain a little bit and it was our first night of 4-hour shifts, after flying like that the shift almost felt too short, coming from a person who couldn’t wait for the 6 hr. shifts to be over.
The next shift took over and we went to sleep. 8 hours later we came back on deck to a showering rain. After few minutes there was almost no wind, sails were flapping, ship was moving with the waves, at times it felt like we were going backwards, just floating in the big vast blue. I took over the helm and asked Zoltan what he was steering, he said 110 but we were heading 145. He said I’m getting there slowly. The helm was already hard to port, I tried setting it back to center and try again slowly, after a while no matter the helm, hard to port or starboard, the wind was pointing us towards 145. We took in the mainsail and stayed in the showering rain for almost 24 hrs., the we picked up after the rain and we continued on our journey.
The boobie bird colony who made our head rig and top gallant their new home, they all disappeared when the rain started and returned after the rain. I wonder where they go when it rains. Another little black bird started to fly close to the waves, almost like a little bat, unlike the flying fishes it was flying back and forth, in every direction, following our ship. Jacob, our only crew member with some bird knowledge, said they were storm patrollers. It seems the storm patrollers look like little swallows, I wonder if they can land on water and take off again. Seems their feet and wings are a bit short for that. I also wonder what they eat, they’re almost the size of the flying fish, and they still have so much energy to just keep flying.
One day a new bird appeared, Jacob said it was swallow tail gull, from the Galapagos!
Which means we are getting closer to our first stop of the voyage.
