It’s 4AM and I’m alone on watch. Now that we’ve dropped some of the crew off in Madeira, we go on watch alone, like grownups! This is a first for me, since I’m still apprenticing as a sailor. While I’m on watch, I’ve been thinking about everything that happened today, and I’m laughing to myself, thinking about the rain we had this morning on the island of Madeira.
Around 5AM, it was raining like crazy, and water started leaking into the boat. I was fast asleep and Martin came to wake us up. I jumped out of bed and ran to the lounge. When I got there, I was alarmed to see a flood of water in the vicinity of the bay windows. The guys were going at it with buckets, towels, mops, basically anything that might soak up water…no need to take showers today!
Arrival in Madeira under the clouds
Martin helped us make a tarp out of trash bags and orange Scotch tape (the top-of-the-line Scotch tape J ). With that, we were able to channel the water out of the boat and into the marina. The squall didn’t last long, but it was really intense and we were all soaking wet. After quickly checking Race for Water for any other leaks, we saw that everything was fine. What a morning. Afterward we all went back to bed except Olivier, who had the misfortune to be on watch!