My turn for the anchor watch was much better that night, from 5:00am to 7:00am, which meant that I got to sleep all night and that was great as I really needed some rest. When I woke up I was still quite sleepy so I spent some time on deck with Luís, not speaking much. But then I really woke up and we prepared a great breakfast, very organised and well handled.
After raising the anchor we hoisted the storm jib and the trysail to learn how they were set up. It all went really well and I was quite happy because I was able to help a lot and noticed several little things that we needed to do correctly. Good learning.
I wanted to mention that the new tethers are awesome, really easy to grip and open and much, much easier to use than the old models. No more struggling to connect or disconnect to jackstays, a real pleasure to use, we were soon moving around the boat like monkeys jumping from vine to vine.
Nano told us that what Angus had was not an ulcer but rather appendicitis and that he was going into surgery that same day. We were all glad that this had been discovered in time and really hoped for a good resolution.
After lunch we started doing watches as the plan was to sail straight through the night and the next day. It was great to finally not have so many people on deck and to be able to work with just the Nano team and not struggle to find a place to seat. This also meant that we started hot bunking, so I went down below for a quick rest.
Before going to my bunk we had a really great moment, Nano put some dancing music on the bluetooth speakers and we spent some minutes dancing and laughing. A great team building moment. Our team was really coming together and we were having tonnes of fun.
When it was our turn to come on deck there was no wind at all, so we dropped the head sails which were just laying there doing nothing. We spent all our watch putting in and shaking reefs, trying to master these evolutions. They are quite complex, so it took a while for all of us to get into the rhythm but in the end we were able to put a reef in 1:40 minutes, which is quite good.
When our watch finished I spent some time talking to Nano about victualling for our boat, as I am going to be one of the persons involved in this task, and it was great to see that we have similar ideas and goals. Then more laughs, banter and dancing
Nano gave us the good news that all had gone great with Angus' surgery and we were even able to call him and have a short chat. He was still a bit groggy after the surgery but was really glad to hear from us.
Finally after dinner we went to bed to try to get some sleep before our midnight watch, really happy with how things were progressing.
