Wind, no wind, swimming, singing, debauchery

Singing
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And this is how we got stuck off the coast of the Netherlands...

We were sailing along slowly but surely but then one beautiful afternoon the wind simply died. For a while there, we were doing OK, being pushed by the ocean currents and slowly puttering along. But then we realized that things had changed and we were losing ground. Since we were participating in a race and couldn't use our engine, the next best thing was to drop anchor and stay put til the winds picked up again.

Well, what to do when stuck in the middle of the ocean?

Bye bye!
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Well, what to do when stuck in the middle of the ocean? At first we broke out the beer and the gin and Sprite and had a little fiesta with some guitar and singing. But after a few hours of that, we got sick of the same songs over and over again.

The captain's never allowed to leave ship when it's under way, but since we were anchored down, the rules had changed. So he let down the raft and went for a little trip around the North Sea. We were getting kind of bored sitting around watching the captain drift away on his blow-up raft, so we decided to go swimming. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The water was FREEZING!!! I don't think anyone lasted longer than a couple of minutes. And the current was so strong that it kept pushing us backwards, forcing us to swim strongly just to keep even with the boat. We eventually got out and dried our selves off. Luckily someone had baby wipes so we got most of the salt off our bodies with those since we didn't have a large-enough supply of freshwater to get clean.

We also radioed another boat that was in the vicinity and asked them if they wanted to siesta with us by drifting about a mile backwards. By the time they decided to come on over, the wind had slightly picked up and we all got underway.

All in all, it was a very chill day and a nice change from the stresses and structure of the race.