7-8th December, '07
Just as always, doom and gloom then suddenly everything happens at once.
Changing sails, just after sending last blog, to reach, so mainsail up and
genoa out, wet with heavy long squalls, I am in the process of getting some
lamb tagine out of the freezer, yacht settling down, just flying in the
squall then one of the fishing lines run, so wind in the genoa, come up to
windward to slow the yacht down whilst Jonathan plays in an 8lb Dorado. Lamb
tagine back in the freezer, steak for Ex Exe tonight (he is not a fish
eater) and Dorado for the rest of us.
10pm on the 7th, the predicted NE good strong winds have not arrived so we
are slopping around in a heavy sea and light winds, soooooo frustrating.
GIGI the oyster 56 which came in on a more southerly route is nine miles
ahead of us, so just hope she has used more engine hours. Oh, we really do
wish we had our asymetric as we need it badly for this, (if we had the
courage to fly it at night - Skipper). All the other Oyster 56's are about
100 miles behind us so not all bad.
Some of the yachts which are further north than us (on our original route)
have had some very heavy overnight squalls reaching 50 knots; quite a few
have broken booms and ripped sails. The squalls that hit us last night were
gusting at 30 knots but AQUALUNA manages heavy weather very well, as we
discovered in the Bay of Biscay when we had a force 10 across our decks
12.00 hours on the 8th and not much sleep achieved overnight. First of all
the boom kept gybing, pulling through the preventer, but do not want to use
the engine. The lightwinds then squalls are sending us all over the place
with the sails. Then at about 3.30 am a huge storm comes up our stern
which on the radar looks about 9 miles wide and very deep, huge flashes of
sheet lightning. There is a yacht about two miles behind us but can't see
it in the storm, another yacht 'Northern Child' a Swan 51 calls us up on the
VHF for a chat, a close friend of his is about to have a new Discovery 55
delivered. Our VHF is still not working properly, we can hear on it but
nobody can hear us, so we bring the handheld VHF out of the grab bag and use
that; a brief chat as we are in the process of sorting out the genoa, taking
the pole off as we can see the storm coming. We cross them astern, quite
close. When the storm does come we fly along, running at first then
reaching. This made up a few lost miles. Now we are back to the light
winds and heavy slop.
Another dorado, the largest so far at 12lb, caught this morning about half
an hour after streaming the line, and 5 mins after poling out the genoa
again.How do they know always to strike at the most inconvenient times? In
America they are known as Dolphin fish and another name is Mahi mahi a very
beautiful gold and green colour. I have found a recipe in my fish book for
a Caribbean curry made with Mahi mahi so will make that tonight. Even Ex
Exe has said he will try it. At least when it rains it is very warm so not
as unpleasant as the UK.
Love from the Aqualunies.
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