@ 12:00 GMT

Position: 31° 05.103 N x 72° 56.711 W

Speed: 6.9 kts

Course: 70° True

Blog written by crew member Lauren

During our voyage, we will cross multiple time zones. We have to consider what watch time it is, for variety of reasons. We are connecting with a Virtual Shipmate’s, so need to coordinate calls. They may be living anywhere in the world. We try to be respectful of our support team on shore and not wake them at odd hours when we are awake on watch in the middle of the night. Most of those folks are on Eastern Time. We also received information like weather, which uses Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC, that is based on the current time in Greenwich, England. UTC, GMT, and Zulu time (which is what we are observing on the boat) are interchangeable right now but GMT then switches depending on daylight savings time, which varies according to where you live – as you can tell, this can easily get confusing when you are sleep deprived.

As mentioned, our watch system is posted in Zulu time. For us, that is currently four hours ahead of the timezone where we started the voyage in Florida, which means we are eating dinner at 10 PM, or 2200, but it’s actually 6 PM, or 1800, for our stomachs. We are striving to eat as a crew before sunset so that eventually may change based on clock time as well. On top of all this, we are not sleeping in a standard 9 or 10 PM to 6 or 7 AM schedule–we are on watch for four hours, then have off time for six hours, before being back on watch for four hours. This changes the times we are awake and asleep throughout day and night time. We aren’t really concerned about days of the week – it’s just one of five days of a watch schedule before we go back to the beginning.

As we all acclimated, we often stood confused in front of the three clocks we have on board, one set to East Coast time, one set to local time (which are currently the same) and one set to Zulu or UTC. In reality, all we need to know is when we have to be awake again and ready for watch. The alarm is not set for watch time, it’s more like a timer, for number of hours we have to rest.

If this is all confusing to you – we’re right there with you. It’s much easier to think about time using the cues that nature is giving us. Is the sun in the sky? Then it’s daylight. Are the stars out, or perhaps the moon is rising, red, over the horizon? Then it’s night time. Am I hungry? Then it’s time to eat. Oatmeal can be at 6 AM or 2 PM, cuppa noodle might be at 3 AM, and certainly Oreos are appropriate at anytime of the day.

This new way of thinking is taking some adjustment, but there’s something about it that is starting to make more sense. We are reacting to the conditions we are experiencing in the moment, rather than being worried about an often too hectic schedule dictated by what may turn out to be unimportant stresses.

I could get used to this.