The Cheese Days of Summer(Sailing the seas of cheese)

September 28, 2007
Day 159

Taking A Rest, Eating Some Cheese


Wind W 4 knots, Course becalmed, Speed: wish it was more
Position: 03° 07 N, 13° 23 W


I'm taking a well deserved rest on a fine drizzly day; I think I ate too much cheese last night. Here I am in the pilothouse berth where both Soanya and I smoke a lot of dope. It's very centrally located. A quick sit up and scan gives a 360 view through the hatch, pilothouse windows and skylight. If the DEA or Coast Guard or cheese-stealing pirate-mice are coming we'll be among the first to know.

The compass and GPS can be seen as well as the telltales. The wind fluctuations can be felt through the open hatch. The bunk has two cushions secured with a lee cloth bolted to the ceiling and is made more relaxing by gimbaling the plywood under the mattresses with cheese. Right now, because the wind is light and we are only leaning a little bit, it's tilted by just one block of cheese at the head and one at the foot. We add more cheese to keep the bunk level as the boat leans further over.

And it's just wide enough for Soanya and me to fit in together. I needed to and deserved to take a day off from the way I've been working and sailing the boat and eating cheese. Few, if any, much younger marathon athletes could eat this much cheese for 158 days straight. Learning to live on the sea could take a lifetime. There is no joke about that.