The next part of my series on what lies where on board the Brocade, today we get to the aft cabin. If the rowing seat is my place of work, then this is my home. I’ve even got into the habit of calling out, “Honey, I’m home!” when I come in from the final rowing shift of the day and take my baseball hat off. Sad, I know, but it makes me smile.
My drawing isn’t quite to scale. The bunk is actually a bit wider – a whole 18 inches or so. So the spaces alongside it are correspondingly narrower and the various wall pouches press hard against the two leecloths (actually the webbing that you use to stop stuff falling out of the tailgate of a pickup truck) that run down either side of my bunk.
Anyway, apologies aside, here we go.
1. The control panel, and .
2. The area of the boat where I keep all my most-used stuff. I’m going to come back to these two in another blog, as there’s too much to include in this one.
3. First aid kit, packed into a big blue fabric suitcase
4. Mesh wall bags containing Squishie the Dolphin, Chirpy the Robin, and Quackers the Duck, as well as a crash hat, spare rowing gloves, baseball hats, and other items of clothing.
5. Pelican case containing PC and various leads
6. Pelican case containing Mac, mobile phones, passport, and money – my technological ditch bag. If I’m abandoning ship the Mac comes with me!
7. Small Pelican case containing blood pressure gauge. I use this daily to send blood pressure and heart rate to my medical advisor, Dr Aenor Sawyer, so she can assess my health.
8. Locker containing water ballast
9. Locker containing toolkit, electrical kit, various useful bits and bobs like string, Velcro, tape, spare batteries, etc.
10. Locker containing two marine batteries – the ones that power most of my electrical system.
11 and 12. Lockers containing Larabars (originally several hundred, now down to the last 100 or so), mixed nuts, and tamari almonds.
13. The “bathroom cabinet” – locker containing toiletries: wet wipes, tea tree oil, sun lotion, toothpaste, shower gel, shampoo etc.
The next and final in this series will cover the control panel, most-used items, and the various pockets and pouches mounted on the walls around the hatch to the cockpit. I really hope this isn’t too boring – to me it seems the equivalent of describing the contents of somebody’s kitchen cupboards – but I guess my home is a little unusual so maybe I can be excused for inflicting this description of the minutiae of my surroundings.
Other stuff:
Position at 2330 15th August Pacific Time, 0630 16th August UTC: 22 55.842’N, 149 00.145’W.
It’s been a long day. I really, really wanted to get to 149 degrees West today to give me a realistic chance of reaching Hawaii before the end of the month. But after my dalliance with the JUNK I had my work cut out today. It was a brutal last shift – rowing in the dark in squalls and strong winds – but I made it and I’m quietly proud. And very wet.
Hi to Sue and all at Green People. Thanks for the Amex votes – and for spreading the word.
And a special hi to Trish, Moe, and all in the Gorge. Hope to see you later this year.
And thanks to all the other people who have voted and/or written in. I’m having to step up the rowing for the final 500 nautical miles so I’m not going to have time to acknowledge all messages, but I do read them and appreciate them and derive great strength and encouragement from them. So do keep them coming!
Click here to view Day 83 of the Atlantic Crossing 21 February 2006: Food for thought. Posted by Rita Savage.
Do visit the JUNK website.