Motoring Blahs

Day 4: Offshore to Panama

Today, we might as well be driving a car. Very slowly. We’ve got a single engine chomping diesel and pushing Jerry through minimal wind and waves. Sails are spookily quiet, as they are all tucked away. With the weather drama knob turned way down, Mel’s muse has become disinterested and has disembarked the boat. Boredom now reigns over the salt-sticky crew, with its first mate Malaise discouraging one from catching up on chores like swabbing the deck. Mel’s only solace is in the knowledge that Boredom’s time here is limited, since in 24 hours, Greg intends to give the spinnaker a chance to redeem itself. And we all know what that means! Calamity, for all its faults, is at least interesting.

Trying to avoid the short-form-video-binge and subsequent existential crisis that Starlink now affords the offshore sailor, Mel looks to Morale Officer Penelope for boredom-management tips. After all, who is better at indulging in lassitude than a cat? For whatever reason, after 6 months of offshores in which she did little more than hide in the tightest, darkest place she can fit herself and scare the crew by not eating or drinking, Penelope now has her sea legs. She has therefore been toddling around the boat, teaching Mel her coping techniques. Here is her advice for offshore boredom management:

1. Eat. Eat a lot, even if you don’t think you are exercising, because you actually are. Crawling to your litter box, er, head, takes more energy than you think. Just, whatever you do, don’t eat anything good for you. Like your sensitive stomach food. Beg for cheese sticks instead.

2. Realize nature is still entertaining. The sun is perpetually moving through the sky, after all! This causes light to bounce off of all of the chrome fixtures in a constantly varying arrangement. Chase the light! This way you can work off your cheese sticks.

3. Don’t forget to bathe! Bathing is what keeps you feline, er, human! You’d be surprised how much your creativity can be provoked by a good licking of the backs of your knees!

So there you have it. Good point, Penelope! Mel really needs a shower, and the shower floor currently has only a foot of amplitude and a period of 6 seconds. She’ll still have to prop herself up somehow, but she’ll make a good effort to hit her inspiration spot, which is currently smothered by 8 layers of sunscreen.

Dinner last night: Pasta with turkey sausage, since Mel forgot to defrost anything.

Entertainment: Crushing the souls, er, fostering the development of, young medical scientists. Tonight Mel will be wearing her Associate Professor of Neurology hat and judging abstracts for the MSBRF, a conference in Omaha in which med students and residents present their research. She is optimistic that this year she will not have to write, “An interesting topic, but the study design would benefit from the inclusion of a control group” so many times.