A considerably more prosaic entry for today, I’m afraid. I’m in a bad mood this evening, + in addition I’m on watch right now + the sails are playing up. It’s not that I can do anything about them, but I’m rather nervous that Doug will come storming out, raging + cursing. It’s not that I’m worried about losing his good opinion – I know that he thinks I’m entirely useless, so it can hardly be that. I just don’t want to have to put up with another of his tantrums. We were treated to a real hum-dinger this evening. Doug was cooking up some sort of patties for dinner, but they weren’t really coming out as he would have liked, + then the plates slid out + landed in the tray. That really got things going – plates, utensils, food, all getting thrown around or slammed down. In fact, the only real harm done was one broken spatula + quite a lot of dinner splashed around – the dinner was quite respectable, but the display was pathetic. I was also mad at Val, who I felt could have leapt in much swifter + calmed things down. For psychological reasons it had to be a girl, + I tried to prod her, but she wasn’t budging. A very uncomfortable atmosphere.
Anyway. The good news is that we sighted New Zealand. The wrong bit of it of course, we’re too far east – but it’s something. We couldn’t get any more west out of the wind, so after going in to within 6 or 7 miles to take a look at land, we had to turn around + head back out again, so that we can come in on another run. Doug reckons we’ll be yo-yoing like this for another 3 days, but there’s a wind change forecast for tomorrow, + it’s my belief we’ll be trotting in on that. If it came early enough, we could even be in tomorrow. How about that then?
As a post script, it so happened that just as I was waking Val at 10 o’clock, we were backwinded. Naturally, Doug had to be roused, but having done that I naturally scuttled off to my bunk, leaving Val to put up with the ensuing stream of curses, throwing around of gear, etc. – I can’t stand any more. I like Doug, but I think we’ve been too long at sea.
Reading a bit between the lines, it does appear that I am trying to use Val, rather than have to deal with Doug myself… which is rather cowardly of me. But actually spotting land has been a fillip, and I am sure I will look back rather more fondly on our time with Doug when I get a bit of perspective.
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