Race 2 - Day 15
Crew Diary - Race 2, Day 15
30 September

Does it spark joy?

By Alex Cass

Today marks the end of our first month at sea and the last day in the Northern Hemisphere this decade.

So far I have learned two things on this journey of a lifetime:

a) How to avoid a soggy bottom (not talking Bake Off here)

b) Marie Kondo’s art of folding clothes.

The latter seems a more appropriate subject for a blog, and it strikes me that Ms Kondo would approve of life onboard UNICEF. For those that are unfamiliar and as I understand it – her technique consists of placing your possessions in a pile, examining each item, and asking “does this spark joy”. Joyful items are carefully rolled and placed back in their proper place, and the joyless are “returned to the universe”.

Well, the first and last thing we do in each port is strip the boat entirely, individually clean and care for everything on board and meticulously repack. And most of our possessions certainly do spark joy by land standards. The smile brought to this grown man’s face when handed a third can of coke once a week was, quite frankly, pathetic.

However, there is one point that definitely does not spark joy. The flying fish. These rats with wings and scales will suck the joy out of any watch. Typically, you are marvelling at the Milky Way stretching horizon to horizon on a moonless cloudless night, when out of the inky blackness you are struck by a wet twitching missile.

Then it begins, the scramble to find the damn thing before it dies. Not out of any sense of concern for fish welfare you understand, but because once the flapping stops they have a habit of finding their way into coiled ropes, open windows or flaked sails. There they lie in wait until the following day until it occurs to you that, perhaps that sail or rope might make a passable cushion for an on-deck Siesta? The flying fish will always find you at your most content, your most vulnerable time.

Constant vigilance, that’s the watchword until these abominations are returned to the universe.

We cross the equator tomorrow – perhaps I’ll have a word with King Neptune.