The Voyage: Thursday November 19

Position: 37° 1'25.35"N 15° 0'6.38"W

The clocks went back another hour. We are now at GMT-1.
It was getting warmer: 19°.

We saw two ships on the horizon on port side. They were big. One was a tanker.

At 9am some of us went up to the bridge. It's a great view from up there, and the men who are on watch get bored, so they enjoy our company.
They told us we were changing course as there was a big storm around the Azores. We were supposed to go straight through the Azores, but now the plan was to go south parallel with the coast of Portugal, then turn west and go straight across. We were already two days late, so the ship couldn't afford any more delays due to bad weather.

We played some more music outside, had lunch and went downstairs to the deck below deck A and played table tennis. Not easy on a moving boat. The ball stays on course but the table tilts up and down.

We continued the second story telling sessions and gradually felt the sea get much rougher. It became increasingly difficult to walk around the boat. Sitting at a table to read and write with a cup of coffee required holding the cup constantly else it would slide around the table.
The waves coming off the storm in the Azores was hitting us from the sides. When a ship rocks from side to side it is called rolling. When it rocks from the front to the back it's called pitching.

We took the evening off as it was too difficult to write and reading made some people feel slightly nauseous. The crew told us the rolling would last for the next 36 hours.