The Harpooner

3˚50.790’ S 31˚32.089’W

Early on in the trip, Dan dubbed the 12-3 a.m. watch “the harpooner” because it has kind of a “gotcha” psychological aspect to it. You never get to see sunset or sunrise, and if the moon isn’t up (like tonight), then it’s just you, the stars, the barely perceptible horizon and some sails and rigging flapping and banging in the dark if the wind isn’t cooperating (like tonight).

The watch schedule by the red light of the nav station. Yes, something seems off with the dates, but I'm too tired to figure it out right now. We ignore the schedule while we're ashore, so we'll pick it up again when we leave for Grenada at 5 p.m. on February 7th

The plan is to arrive in Fernando de Noronha right at first light, drop anchor, then be ashore right when the Immigration & Customs office opens at 8 a.m. Fernando doesn’t have a ferry service, so we’ll be using Coda‘s tender to get to and from shore, which gives us more control over the scheduling.

We spent today doing as much prep work as possible in order to maximize our relaxation time during the ~60 hours we’ll be in Fernando. We emptied all but two of the remaining jerry cans of diesel into the main fuel tanks, and we don’t plan on filling up again in Fernando. We moved all the headsails off the longitudinal beam and into the forward lockers, then a deep clean of the main salon and some meal planning for the upcoming leg to Grenada. We finished up a little past noon, had some lunch, then spent the rest of the day doing our own thing.

We think this is a Lesser Noddy, one of a group of 4 or 5 that visit the boat each night. They only arrive after dark and leave before dawn, so it's hard to get a good look

The weather is hot and humid. It’s usually close to 90˚ F by 9:30 in the morning, but it doesn’t seem to get too much hotter than that the rest of the day (if our thermometer is to be believed). On the days when we were motoring, we would seal up the main salon and run the air conditioner. Now that there’s some breeze and the engines aren’t running most of the time, we don’t turn on the AC, but it’s still fairly comfortable now that we’re a little more acclimated.

I made a curry dish for dinner, with cauliflower, peas, heart of palm and lamb and beef sausages over rice, with a sesame ginger carrot salad. After dinner, we played Sheepshead, the “unofficial” state card game of Wisconsin. It requires five players, so it’s perfect for our crew. After two rounds, I tried to get some sleep to make it a little easier to get through “the harpooner.”