Some hours in the life of 3000 miles at sea...

So, it's finally come to the point where we must down tools and actually wave goodbye to land for the next month. We look set to head off on Friday, traditionally unlucky for sailors, which is a good start. This 3,000 mile sea leg has always been a big part of our trip and as we look around the boat at fully stowed cupboards, uncharacteristically clean clothes and clear decks it is apparent that there is no turning back. There are some nerves but most of all we just can't wait to get our teeth sunk into it. Despite making consistent progress for the last 3 months we still have the bizarre sensation of being able to fly home by dinner time if we wanted (this has been even more noticeable in the Canaries where we worked out it would be much cheaper to fly home and deliver presents in person than post the 2 parcels destined for the Gee and the Tuppen Christmas trees). When we arrive in Trinidad, hopefully sometime in late January, we will have crossed an ocean powered only by nature, be far enough South to get the swimmers on in mid winter and have entered our 3rd continent. It's an exciting time.

With the fact that we are going to be out of contact for the next 3-5 weeks in mind, we thought it would be good to give you some idea of what we are going to be doing with our time. In a nutshell, both a lot and not a lot...

I would like to say the day starts at 8 in the morning, but the day never really starts or ends. Time ceases to fall into the standard day and night and you begin living the rolling cycle of watches. I suppose we need to take an example. It's 3am. Someone calls Hol from out of her half sleep and she bolts upright ready to head up into the night. She is crawling out of the bunk next to me and into her wet weather gear, hat and head torch. As she transmogrifies into a passable likeness of Ellen MacArthur, I luxuriate in the extra space and warmth of bed. With the water crashing around the hull and the boat pitching continually beneath you, sleep remains elusive. All too soon after just a few snatches of dreamfilled sleep, I then see the tip of Hol's nose illuminated beneath the halogen glow of her head torch. It's 5am and she is summoning me onto deck. I stumble out and we fumble like moles passing in too narrow tunnel as i squeeze past her into the cold. Hol crawls back into the warmed bed. The brief exchange of information tells me there have been a few squalls coming through but nothing serious and we are yet to land the tuna we've been discussing and salivating over since fresh meat ran out a week ago.

It's then up through the galley and onto deck. The wind whips through the rigging and instantly wakes you as your eyes struggle to shake off sleep and focus in the gloom. You clip on and make your way to the exposed helm and park yourself. Checking speed shows a good 6 knots and sails full. You then assess the sea and the sky (incidentally all there is to assess) to see what the next 2 hours has in store for you. A couple of patches of cloud off in the distance with the odd flash of lightning, but nothing that´s going to reach us soon. An uncovered moon giving off a surprisingly comforting amount of light, the odd planet shimmering above the horizon and waves crashing gently every now and again. Sometimes the 2 or 3 hours of watch pass quickly as shooting stars streak overhead, your mind is awash with some thought from earlier or, if the weather allows, you dip in and out of a book. Other times you keep looking to your wrist as the minutes creep round reluctantly and you can think of nothing but bed. The best watches are sunrises and sunsets. You begin to appreciate the subtle differences in mood and light between the two. The moment the sun dips at sunset night begins, but night doesn't end with such definition. From the wonderful moment you realise the thick black is being oh so slowly lightened and diluted the day has begun. You may still have an hour before the sun shows itself on the horizon, but from that moment all the optimism, warmth and excitement floods into you. The fact that you may head straight down to bed as the day stretches itself across the sky seems alien to begin with, but it soon becomes clear that you need to sleep when you can if you are to avoid exhaustion and retain the enjoyment of the crossing. You rouse the next person from sleep as they take the first of the daylight shifts.

It is most likely 6 to 8 hours until your next shift. After as much sleep as you feel like you make your way onto deck. Your time off watch in the day can be filled with a huge array of things, but often nothing. Depending on your mood you can choose to escape to the rolling fecundity of Hardy's Wessex or maybe plunge into the roaring gales of the southern ocean with grand accounts of bygone nautical exploits. However, with the rolling watches and the tiredness it brings reaching double figures in pages read is a challenge rarely met. Hol is looking forward to test her theory that she can simply sit on deck, stare into the waves and sky and think for an indefinite amount of time; the results of which I'm a little nervous about.

Fishing is always a possible diversion. It also remains continual and fruitless. Despite infinite discussions with all and sundry we have met along the way (as well as the purchase of some nu-rave squid lures), we have turned up nothing. The elusive ingredient of luck appears to be absent from the fine blend of speed, depth, lure and line. This doesn't stop us fingering the lines knowingly every now and then and looking into the middle distance. The only thing caught tends to be the eye of the last person who felt the line who is secretly hoping they won't have just missed pulling up a monster.

Being an old boat there are always things to be tinkered with. The fact that you are sailing constantly for 24 hours a day means you are aging the boat much faster than most boats ever experience. In one day the amount of wear and tear on lines and sails is about the same as you would get in a a month or so of use by a regular weekend sailor. This means a close eye has to be run over everything and running repairs are inevitable. The old nautical adage of “a place for everything, everything in it's place” rings true on board as the constant movement of the boat means if it isn't stowed, stacked or tied then it is sure to entwine itself around you just when something goes wrong.

Food inevitably remains a focus for the passing of the hours. We take it in turns to be mum for a day (no feminism here I'm afraid) making meals for as long as you can stomach it below and washing up in a salt water filled bucket on deck. Depending on where your watch falls that day you may be woken by the smell of hot porridge coated in golden syrup, fresh bread or pasta and soup wafting into your cabin calling you up to feed. Feeding is important to everyone on the boat and food tends to consume about 60% of our conversation. Consequently we try and eat one meal all together up on deck at least once a day. In between meals the deck is regularly crossed with snacks of dried fruit, nuts, biscuits, crackers, occasional chocolate, crisps and even cake if someone is feeling generous. Hunger is the enemy that can bring on sea sicknesses and so must be suppressed at all times. Washing it all down with ginger teas, fresh coffee and hot chocolates all conspires to mean the usual upside of getting thinner on passage is one benefit lost on Lista.

Maybe we will be a little bit wiser by the time we touch land in 2009. Maybe we will erase all good things learnt by a huge rum fuelled bender on arrival. Whatever happens we will have completed the biggest challenge of the trip so far and be a good chunk of the way round the world!

Wishing everyone a joy filled festive season and look forward to catching up on the other side of the pond. If you would like a less Gee and Tups sided account of our sailing adventures so far then check out Dave and Kat's online log at http://www.listalight.co.uk/.

P.S. This is joint blogging for those who think Nick is scared of the dark and Hol is growing a beard

My first solo night watch

About a week ago I headed out from the safety and warmth of my cabin into the depths of the night to watch over our boat on my own. All I had to do was sit at the helm looking out for boats and making sure that the sails kept full of wind. Its pretty simple stuff. Nonetheless a pang of fear hung over me and suddenly heading out there felt very similar to edging towards the darkest depths of the back garden in the middle of the night when I was 7. However much you tell yourself its the same as that garden you played in during the daytime, there's no fighting against your imagination creating a different world. Suddenly the back shed is a den of goblins, those trees are alive and waiting to gobble you up, the grass is full of snakes, the bushes hiding giant human eating spiders and in those dark corners hidden away from the moonlight are witches waiting to use your blood for their potions.

Similarly, for those first few minutes(1) of lonely darkness at the helm, Lista became a perilous vessel, vulnerable to potential attack from all sides. Those creaks and groans of Lista´s beamy frame that we have come to love took on a whole new world. Before I knew it I had worked myself up into a frensy of childish fear. Whales were surely trying to mate with the boat from below, the tiny fish following us all day had now attracted the attention of sharks that were trying to eat their way through the propeller, a seaweed laden half man, half monster was going to climb up and pull us all down into his ocean kingdom at any moment, hidden rocks were waiting to ship wreck us everywhere and that tidal wave was definitely on its way. But despite your mind, once you've committed to doing it there's no going back. However strong the temptation to crawl back to safety is, turning around would be giving in to your inner wimp and who knows what would follow once that had happened.

I personally have a pretty large amount of wimp going on. Until about 4 years old I failed to leave the safety of clinging to my mothers legs wherever we went. At 8 years old I was still crying about being left at school. I am still secretly pretty scared whenever I am left alone in the dark. This little trip around the world is my way of fighting against my inner wimp. I have been trying to suppress it for years. I figure heading out into the wilderness of the ocean, foreign cities, tribal settlements, up mountains, across deserts, down rivers and the likes would help me rid of it for good. In fact I fear that by subjecting my wimpiness to all this bravery is merely bringing it to the surface over and over again. Never before have I been so aware of being a scaredy cat. At least once I have achieved all these 'daring' feats I can justifiably crawl into a little haven of safety for the rest of my life. Well... maybe. We'll see.

Since completing a 5 day, 400 mile, vomit ridden, wildlife full hop into the Atlantic we have been soaking up some sun on Isla Graciosa in The Canaries. The island has a population of 600 people, 500 straw hats, 300 land rovers, 20 nudists and 3 volcanoes. It is also apparently a hot spot for pilot whales, but sadly we have found nothing other than small fry. The quest for mega fauna continues.

(1) The joys of the wilderness of the ocean, where the phosphorescence below you is as bright as the stars above, soon kicks in and fear is replaced with peaceful contemplation.

Nick and Hol's guide to sailing: Part 1

Sailing... turns out that can be quite tricky. When we signed up I must admit to a hint of overconfidence. I had won Stoke Gabriel sailing school topper racing trophy (when I was 9), and had spent 10 days on a mysteriously discounted tall ship sailing course in the Canaries. I did learn a lot on this course, but this was because the other 50 or so crew were inner city young offenders from Manchester. 'Watch keeping' skills took on a different meaning when things started going missing from people's bunks and people got kicked off the boat for beating the crap out of each other. Other than that and a day skipper course, I have to confess that it had been more a case of double G&Ts with a twist of sailing. Lista has been a very different experience. Tougher in some ways that I think Hol and I had expected.

We had learned all the practical elements of sailing from our Day Skipper courses this summer, but being in a crew of 5 on a passage is very different in the way you never... ever stop. Our last hop of only 3 nights down to El Jadida in Morocco was our first proper experience and we were just hit by how tiring it can be. You aren't tired from obvious physical exertion, but you are constantly out of your natural land based environment.

You don't sleep properly. You are on watch for 2-4 hours once or twice a night and then again during the day. This means you could be on from 9-12 at night and then up for the 6am sunrise shift. Add to this the way you would be helping out set sails and umpteen other things during the day means you don't get the luxury of the rhythm of night and day we are used to on land. On top of this your sleep is never that good when the boat is rolling through the best part of 50 degrees in the swell knocking my elbow into Hol's face every 4 seconds. With the masts and cleats creaking, slapping and groaning just above your head and the Atlantic washing past your nose separated by 4 or so inches of 80 year old wood sleep becomes brief and snatched where possible. You end up being in a daze the whole time and if you happen to be feeling seasick which all of us have been afflicted by, then you have to imagine doing it all with a steaming hangover. Perhaps the lowest point for me was being 'mum' which involves cooking and cleaning for the day. You rapidly learn that being below decks in a rough sea is akin to skydiving with a hanky instead of a parachute. Fine for about 30 seconds before you realise you are in serious trouble. Preparing canned bratwurst and onion gravy only to feel so rough as to not be able to eat it is just mean.

It also turns out it can be pretty scary. When Hol and I are on watch and everyone else is in bed we're entrusted with their lives for the next 4 hours and if you mess up then it's bad. One moment that really brought this home was coming across shipping lanes off Rabat at 3 in the morning and having ENORMOUS tankers steaming either side of you as you flap around without any wind. 3 lights are all you have to go on and distance becomes almost impossible to judge in the blackness. All you can be sure of is that 10,000 tons of 'abibos' trainers wrapped in Chinese steel wins vs. 18 tons of wood in mid Atlantic top trumps. Weather also becomes very real. When Hol and I were on our first watch and a lightning filled squall came across the wind suddenly doubled. We were sat there in the middle of the night in the pissing rain clipped on to deck with lightning flashing around us pondering what to do. You think the boat can handle it, but you would feel a bit embarrassed sat in the life raft with the rest of the crew staring at you after you just watched it all happen loosening only your bowels instead of any ropes. However, it would also be distinctly un-impressive to take all the sails down at the first hint of serious wind. As it was we rode it out with a little tweaking of sails and unclenched our buttocks about 40 minutes later.

That said, the upsides are incredible. Sailing with a strong breeze through a night sky with stars touching the horizon and phosphorescence swirling beneath. The sunsets and sunrises, the fresh air and also the wildlife. Already we've had dolphins visiting as well as birds hitching rides on the rigging. Turtle fly-bys (as well as some turtle head fly bys from the direct flush mechanism of the loos), and even some fin whales just before we came on board. Moments like this make you forget you can't move from the confines of the 14m length of the boat, you have uneaten your dinner and haven't washed or even changed pants for the best part of a week. It's a real mix, but the people make it all the better. The more we get to know Dave, Kat and Dan the more fun it becomes. Today I found out that Dan lived in a tent on a roof in Dalston for a year to avoid paying rent. I also learned how to make amazing fresh bread from Kat. We also found out that Dave has the patience of saint. He came on deck as we approached El Jadida when Hol were on watch. We were busy away from the wheel making fine and delicate changes to squeeze as much speed from Lista as we could, Dave said well done before politely pointing out that unfortunately we were pointing 180 degrees in the wrong direction.

However, we have now arrived in Morocco and for the first time it feels like we are far from home. Key indicators are 1. you can have a huge feast for 5 people with as much fresh calamari, sardines and conger eel as you could want for under a tenner. 2. There are stalls selling fluorescent orange pants with things like 'homo' or 'man sport' on them 3. You buy your chicken when it can still look you in the eye. It feels great to be here and in continent number 2.

For more info on the boat you can check out www.listalight.co.uk which is Dave and Kat's site with more pictures, info on the boat and log and stuff. It's a bonanza.